Next week, March 10-16, all who work in health care have an opportunity to recognize National Patient Safety Awareness Week, an annual event that calls us to reinforce our commitment to provide the safest and highest quality care possible and to remind all of us that the well-being of patients is paramount.
What’s happening: Hospitals and health systems operations continue to be impacted by the cyberattack on Change Healthcare.
What else to know: CHA supports AHA’s recommendations urging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take steps to mitigate the impact on providers experiencing issues with claims processing and pharmacy operations.
What’s happening: As the Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA) inches closer to finalizing its first health care spending growth target, CHA and members continue to raise alarm bells on the proposal’s devastating impact, including testifying at this week’s OHCA board meeting.
What else to know: This month, CHA commented on the OHCA board’s January discussion of the 3% target proposal, OHCA’s new effort to measure hospital spending, and the proposed data collection rules.
What’s happening: CHA is sponsoring legislation to address the 2030 seismic standards and supports Assembly Bill (AB) 869 (Wood, D-Healdsburg), which provides seismic relief for rural and district hospitals.
What else to know: A bipartisan group of Senators is jointly authoring CHA’s sponsored legislation.
What’s happening: The Hospital Quality Institute (HQI) has released a new analysis identifying five patient safety areas that continue to recover after being derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
What else to know: HQI’s analysis found that workforce challenges like turnover and burnout contributed greatly to a rise in these incidents. Prior to the pandemic, there had been steady improvement.
What’s happening: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) have formed a new bipartisan task force focused on artificial intelligence.
What else to know: Several of the task force members are actively involved in health care policy.
As early as next month, California’s Office of Health Care Affordability could set a statewide spending target (the current staff proposal is at 3%) for the state’s entire health care sector. Staff have proposed setting this target for the next five years, even though state law only requires that the initial, non-enforceable target for 2025 be set at this time.
What’s happening: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released publicly available independent dispute resolution (IDR) reports for the first two quarters of reporting year 2023.
What else to know: The report includes certain data submitted by disputing parties and certified IDR entities to the No Surprises Act (NSA) federal IDR portal.
What’s happening: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized changes to how states calculate the hospital-specific cap for Medicaid disproportionate share hospitals (DSH).
What else to know: The rule is effective April 23.
What’s happening: CHA has updated its federal quality measures matrix to reflect the 2024 federal fiscal year and calendar year Medicare prospective payment system final rules.
What else to know: The matrix includes quality measures required for public reporting and performance-based programs for hospitals and post-acute care providers.
