Home health providers are dealing with a number of headwinds — inflation-induced financial challenges, labor shortages, pandemic pressures and more — that will only worsen if the proposed payment adjustments for 2023 become finalized. That’s the major takeaway from a recent labor cost study from the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare (PQHH). The study was conducted by Dobson DaVanzo & […]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is discussing the use of an oral polio vaccine for the first time in decades in light of concerns of an outbreak in the New York City metropolitan area, CNBC reported Friday. Jannell Routh, the CDC’s team leader for domestic polio, told CNBC that the agency is discussing the possibility with New […]
A class of healthcare facility support staff, including nursing assistants, security guards, and janitors, has worked alongside doctors and nurses throughout the COVID-19 pandemic keeping patients and medical buildings safe and clean. It’s an unassuming line of work that some people consider a calling. Tony Ramirez, 39, a critical care technician at Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park, California, finds […]
Evaluating MDR Vendors Is Critical Choosing an MDR vendor requires assessing both your internal skills and the security needs that your organization can’t meet on its own. It’s also important to recognize that not all providers offer the same kind of service. “Depending on the vendor or the partner, some will offer full soup-to-nuts, hands-on-keyboard service when it comes to […]
Jamie Harding, head of healthcare, Reuters Events, hosts a fireside chat with Chiquita Brooks La-Sure, the administrator for CMS. The pandemic caused the federal government to suspend limits on the use of telehealth and allowed providers to get reimbursed for taking care of patients virtually. But what happens when the public health emergency ends and the waivers go away? How […]
Pfizer will charge $110 to $130 for a dose of its COVID-19 vaccine once the U.S. government stops buying the shots, but the drugmaker says it expects many people will continue receiving it for free. Pfizer executives said the commercial pricing for adult doses could start early next year, depending on when the government phases out its program of buying […]
AbbVie is expanding its reach in immunology by acquiring a U.K.-based biotech company that brings a drug candidate for a rare and fatal lung disorder as well as a platform technology that can generate novel antibodies with the potential to hit elusive protein targets. The North Chicago-based pharmaceutical giant said Thursday it paid $255 million to buy DJS Antibodies, whose […]
At the start of the pandemic, Congress enacted the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which included a requirement that Medicaid programs keep people continuously enrolled through the end of the month in which the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) ends, in exchange for enhanced federal funding. Primarily due to the continuous enrollment requirement, Medicaid enrollment has grown substantially compared […]
AUSTIN, Texas — After Britt Kelly’s son participated in a lockdown drill two years ago in his Lamar, Texas, kindergarten class, he had nightmares and wet his bed. Now 8, he can sleep only with a light on. In August, Mary Jackson’s daughter, a kindergartner in Leander, asked her mom to put a “special lock” on her bedroom door to […]
Mental health workers at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California have approved a four-year contract after a 10-week strike, according to a news release. Psychologists, therapists, social workers and chemical dependency counselors at Kaiser who are part of the National Union of Healthcare Workers voted 1,561 to 36 to approve the agreement reached between the company and the union. The mental […]