A Thurston County Superior Court judge has invalidated a change in the Washington State Department of Health's Certificate of Need rules that would have required hospitals to first get approval from the state for all business relationships where there is “any change of control” in “any part” of a hospital.

News media and pundits have largely focused on what House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor’s Virginia Republican primary loss to David Brat means for immigration reform, but Cantor was also heavily involved in drafting the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ ICD-10 testing week conducted in March proved successful, with the agency accepting 89 percent of the test claims and some regions reporting acceptance rates as high as 99 percent.

As of the end of May, 447 eligible professionals and eight eligible hospitals have attested to Meaningful Use Stage 2, Elisabeth Myers, policy and outreach lead at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, told the Health IT Policy Committee during its virtual meeting on June 10.

The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange is calling on the Department of Health & Human Services to adopt its ICD-10 roadmap “to minimize continued disruption to the healthcare industry” caused by the compliance delay.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, President Obama’s pick to replace Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sailed through her Senate confirmation with a vote of 78 to 17 in favor of confirming her nomination.

The Senate voted 78-17 to confirm Sylvia Mathews Burwell as the Department of Health & Human Services’ new secretary.

Whether it is the heights of hyperbole or an accurate description may depend on your perspective, but Rick Pollack, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association (AHA) did not mince words in his 10-page letter to outgoing U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about the many problems with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) getting into the act of reviewing Medicare Part A payment claims for short-stay hospital admissions.