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AACC greatly values the work that the U.S. House of Representatives has done to support American families in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak and is supportive of the goals of H.R. 6201, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. However, we are concerned that the language as currently drafted does not provide coverage for COVID-19 tests performed prior to those tests receiving Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

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Newly released guidelines on the best practices for utilizing telemedicine to support uninterrupted healthcare education and simulation training during academic closures due to Covid-19 Coronavirus

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The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) released a statement offering the assistance of the FSMB to help provide essential information that can be used to verify licenses and credentials for physicians and other health care professionals wishing to practice across state lines to treat patients in areas heavily impacted by the COVID-19 virus

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I am the Director of the Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases at the University of Georgia. My colleagues and I have been following COVID-19 since the middle of January. Our analysis of the data leads me to believe that serious action now is imperative.

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The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has published a curated list of high-impact measures for assessing quality improvements in cancer care. The recommendations reflect a landscape analysis from leading oncology experts in order to move the needle on cancer care standards in America.

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“Worse than the first, and still a bad idea,” was the reaction of ATS spokesperson Mary B Rice, MD, MPH, to the EPA’s proposed rule, “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science.”

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On March 5, U.S. House and Senate lawmakers introduced the VALID Act, which would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) new, expansive powers to regulate laboratory developed tests—tests that are already regulated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and are subject to stringent personnel, quality control, and proficiency testing requirements. This bill promotes duplicative, costly federal regulations for clinical laboratories that will result in decreased patient access to essential medical tests. AACC urges Congress not to act on this bill until its impact on healthcare can be thoroughly evaluated.

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.ROCKVILLE, MD – As concern continues to grow concerning the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, so does the opportunity for misinformation to spread as the public searches for reliable information on infection and means of protection.

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AACC thanks the FDA for being responsive to the concerns of the clinical laboratory community and amending the coronavirus guidance to allow CMS-certified labs to develop and implement new tests for coronavirus prior to FDA approval.

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In a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), AACC is urging the agency to allow clinical laboratories to develop coronavirus tests without going through FDA review. Lifting this regulatory requirement is key to ensuring that all patients have access to high-quality coronavirus testing and that healthcare workers have the tools they need to control the spread of this disease in the U.S.

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Today, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law Professor Clifford Rosky, along with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and private counsel Womble Bond Dickinson and Brazil & Burke, filed a federal lawsuit challenging a South Carolina statute that prohibits public school health education from including any discussion of same-sex relationships except in the context of sexually transmitted diseases. The lawsuit is filed on behalf of the student organization Gender and Sexuality Alliance, as well as the Campaign for Southern Equality and South Carolina Equality Coalition, including their members who are public school students in the state. Click here to learn more and read the complaint. The lawsuit, Gender and Sexuality Alliance v. Spearman, alleges that S.C. Code § 59-32-30(A)(5), a provision of the South Carolina’s 1988 Comprehensive Health Education Act, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by discrimi

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A new national survey from the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) finds physician anesthesiologists are being forced out of network as insurance companies terminate their contracts, often with little or no notice.

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Discussions of reforming the bail system, which allows defendants to post a monetary bond and leave jail while they await trial, often turn to the question of public safety. Would people out on bail commit additional crimes? The answer, according to two University of Utah professors, appears to be yes.

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During a press briefing Friday at AAAS, Dr. Rory Cooper will discuss how people with disabilities are shut off from STEM careers and why inclusivity matters.

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The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) and the National Board of Medical Examiners® (NBME®), co-sponsors of the United States Medical Licensing Examination® (USMLE®), are announcing upcoming policy changes to the USMLE program.

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The Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals' Executive Director, Patricia McMullin, released the following statement in response to President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget request, which proposes significant cuts to federal spending critical to teaching hospitals, including the National Institutes of Health, Medicaid, and graduate medical education.

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Today, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), representing more than 54,000 members, applauded the House Ways and Means Committee’s legislative framework to address surprise medical bills, while encouraging further refinement of the legislation. “We applaud the Ways and Means Committee for its continued efforts to protect patients from surprise medical bills and we are encouraged by the legislative framework. It is an improvement over other House Committees’ work product,” said ASA President Mary Dale Peterson, M.D., MSCHA, FACHE, FASA. “We look forward to continuing to work with Congress and this Committee to refine and improve the legislation, especially to ensure that any solution ensures a fair playing field for disputes between insurance companies and physicians. In particular, we urge the Committee to refine the proposal by eliminating the median in-network rate-setting mechanism.”

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Today, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), representing more than 54,000 members, expressed serious concerns with the surprise medical bills legislation released by the House Education and Labor Committee as drafted. The Society expresses strong support amendments to address the bill’s pro-insurer orientation.

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American Society of Nephrology briefing on kidneyx: accelerating the future of kidney care

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Restorative justice practices are proactive and responsive in nurturing healthy relationships, repairing harm, transforming conflict, and promoting justice and equity.

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The American Dental Association (ADA) Health Policy Institute (HPI) released its second annual Dental Industry Report today. The report found some signs of recovery in U.S. dental spending, which reached a historic high in 2018 of $136 billion, or 3.7 percent of total health spending in the U.S.

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The long-awaited plan presented by President Donald J. Trump paves the way for broader Israeli annexation of occupied territories, has no real chance of Palestinian support, and risks provoking violence.

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A mix of factors is involved in Chicago’s declining black population and others aren’t well defined, but inequality stands out as a leading element, according to a new report from the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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– Over the past year, at least seven children have died from diseases including influenza while being detained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. Infectious disease experts at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) called for protections like influenza vaccinations to prevent serious outbreaks.

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The Dutch-Belgian Randomized Lung Cancer Screening Trial, known as the NELSON trial (de Koning et al), published Jan. 29 in NEJM, reconfirms that screening high-risk patients greatly reduces lung cancer deaths. Regulators and physicians should act to ensure access to these lifesaving exams.

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“Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and many other types of mental illness, are diseases of the brain and should be treated and studied as such,” say Johns Hopkins researchers.

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The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) and the South Dakota Society of Anesthesiologists (SDSA) strongly oppose SB 50, which will needlessly dismantle the anesthesia care team model in South Dakota by authorizing nurse anesthetists to administer anesthesia without physician supervision. Additionally, the bill will authorize nurse anesthetists to prescribe patients potentially dangerous controlled substances, including opioids, and perform intricate pain medicine procedures all with no physician oversight or involvement.

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The largest single-day mentoring event in the history of the Adirondacks saw over 100 volunteers from area colleges, hospitals, businesses and law enforcement travel to schools to share their own stories and offer career advice to thousands of young people

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The Jan. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) features an important study about sepsis with an accompanying editorial by a University of Nebraska Medical Center expert. The study and editorial sets the record straight on an unproven therapy some physicians use to treat sepsis, a deadly infectious disease. The editorial, written by Andre Kalil, M.D., M.P.H., professor of infectious diseases in the UNMC Department of Internal Medicine, writes in support of the new and rigorous international study based on a randomized clinical trial in Australia, published in the same issue. The editorial appears in the Jan. 17 online issue and also will appear in the Feb. 4 print edition.

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The Endocrine Society praised the European Parliament resolution in response to the European Union’s “Green Deal”— a plan to invest more than €1 trillion in environmental initiatives, including important provisions to protect people from exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs).

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In his testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, CFR President Richard N. Haass analyzed the pros and cons of the targeted killing of Qasem Soleimani and offered recommendations for U.S. policy moving forward.

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The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) has developed a Kidney Care First (KCF) Model Calculator, a tool that will help nephrologists anticipate how their practices might perform if they choose to participate in the new payment program.

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Richard Murray, Deputy Director and Vice President for Research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), will testify before the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology of the U.S. House of Representatives on January 15, 2020.

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Washington, DC (January 8, 2020) — The House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Wednesday, January 8, on the Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Patients Act of 2019, advancing a long-standing legislative priority of the American Society of Nephrology.

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While the American Thoracic Society appreciates that the FDA took action on certain flavored cartridge-based vaping products, it is disappointed that the Administration chose to not follow through on its September 2019 promise to clear the market of all flavored electronic nicotine delivery projects.

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ROCHESTER, Minnesota: El costo de los tipos de insulina más frecuentemente usados es en Estados Unidos 10 veces mayor que en el resto de países del mundo desarrollado, expone un comentario en Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Este costo prohibitivo es la causa para que algunos pacientes estadounidenses con diabetes tipo 1 racionen la cantidad de insulina que se administran y, consecuentemente, afronten implicaciones de vida o muerte.

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The most commonly used forms of insulin cost 10 times more in the U.S. than in any other developed country, according to a commentary in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. This prohibitive cost is causing some U.S. patients with Type 1 diabetes to ration the amount of insulin they use, with life-threatening implications.

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In October, Steinbaum and other leading antitrust scholars met at the U to draft a statement that sets out a vision for a new antitrust policy, with specific recommendations for lawmakers to return antitrust laws to their original purpose of deconcentrating power. It’s called the “Utah Statement.”

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The Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) applauds the budget deal passed by Congress for Fiscal Year 2020.

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The U.S. Senate yesterday passed S. 1608, a major health-promotion bill supported by the American College of Sports Medicine. The Promoting Physical Activity for Americans Act would require the updating of the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans every 10 years.

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The spending bill passed today is a welcome step forward. Allocations in the bill will strengthen public health and research efforts during the year ahead and will provide critical support for important goals. At the same time, the legislation in its final form also brings inadequate responses to current and urgent challenges with the potential for long-term and costly consequences.

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While young people today need college more than ever, college attendance across the country has dropped in each of the last nine years. As enrollment declines threaten the survival of more than a third of our nation’s colleges, and as communities face economic decline because they’re short on college-educated workers, a solution lies within our grasp.

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The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today took bold steps in two proposed rules to increase the availability of organs for the 113,000 Americans waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant – 20 of whom die each day – and to strengthen support for Americans who choose to be living donors. Both proposed rules advance policy changes the American Society of Nephrology has long been advocating for and is strongly supportive of.

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KidneyX received $5,000,000 in the government spending package announced late Monday, December 16. Included as part of two “omnibus” spending packages, the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) bill includes first-time funding for KidneyX for Fiscal Year 2020.

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In response to a new Health Affairs article “Out-Of-Network Billing And Negotiated Payments For Hospital-Based Physicians,” the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) released the following statement reaffirming its commitment to protecting patients from surprise medical bills.

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U.S. Representative Charlie Crist (D-FL), along with Representatives Steven Palazzo (R-MS), Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), and Chris Smith (R-NJ), introduced the Regional Ocean Partnership Act (H.R. 5390). The bill would authorize Regional Ocean Partnerships as partners with the federal government to address ocean and coastal concerns. It will provide with more consistent funding to help perform the critical mission of supporting ocean and coastal health, sustainability, and resiliency.

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H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act passed by the House of Representatives today introduces critically needed and significant steps to reduce costs and improve access to life-saving therapies for conditions including HIV and hepatitis C. Importantly, the legislation also brings essential resources to combat antibiotic resistance, find and develop new infection fighting drugs and bring them to market. The balanced approach of this legislation will serve patients and public health.

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The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) applauded the U.S. Senate for voting today to confirm radiation oncologist Stephen Hahn, MD, FASTRO, as the next Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

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Today, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) on behalf of its 54,000 members thanked the House Ways and Means Committee for its framework to address surprise medical bills.

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HFES Government Relations Committee Chair, Dr. Mica Endsley, testified yesterday on behalf of the Society during a U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure hearing entitled “The Boeing 737 MAX: Examining the Federal Aviation Administration’s Oversight of the Aircraft’s Certification.”