Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
Federal Health Policy Update for Friday, May 20
The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:15 p.m. on Friday, May 20. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. White House The White House has announced that U.S. households may now order an additional eight free home COVID-19 tests at COVIDTests.gov. Learn more from this White House fact sheet. White House COVID-19 and public health officials have held a COVID-19 briefing. Find a transcript of the briefing here and the slides presented during the briefing here. Centers [...]
States Not Spending COVID Disparity Money
The $2.25 billion distributed to the states and 58 large city and county health departments by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May of 2021 was intended for use in addressing COVID-related disparities and helping underserved communities that had been hit hard by the pandemic. But a year later relatively little of that money has been spent. State and local officials cite lack of staff, slow local appropriations processes, lack of ties to community-based non-profits, and inadequate public health infrastructure among the reasons for their failure to spend [...]
Federal Health Policy Update for Thursday, May 12
The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 12. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Provider Relief Fund HHS’s Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has released $450 million in American Rescue Plan grants to rural health care providers. Go here to find the updated database of rural grant recipients. Department of Health and Human Services HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure have written to the nation’s governors about some of [...]
Demand for Agency Nurses Drops
The demand for agency nurses has dropped by a third recently, nurse staffing agencies report. The decline is generally attributed to a combination of the stabilization in the number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and the phasing out of federal aid for hospitals and government reimbursement for care for uninsured COVID patients. Learn more about how the demand for agency nurses waxed and then waned and how much they were costing hospitals at their peak in the Kaiser Health News article “Travel Nurses See Swift Change of Fortunes as Covid Money Runs [...]
Relatively Few Docs Treating Medicaid Patients
Just a small portion of the providers theoretically available to serve individuals enrolled in Medicaid managed care plans are actually caring for such patients, a new study has found. According to a report in Health Affairs, 25 percent of the primary care physicians serving patients in selected managed care plans are providing 86 percent of the primary care to those plans’ members while 16 percent of those plans’ listed primary care providers have gone more than a year without filing a single claim. Similarly, 25 percent of the medical specialists [...]