The Arizona State Legislature is back to work this week following an extended period of budget negotiations. The theme of this legislative session overall has centered on education, and a number of healthcare bills that saw action this week have to do with education.
On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee weighed a potential...
The BA.2 variant, also known as the "stealth Omicron," is now the dominant coronavirus version in the U.S. and more than 60 other countries. This week, Philadelphia became the first major city in the U.S. to announce that it would return to mandating masks in public spaces due to the spread of BA.2. Meanwhile, Arizona, the Centers for...
On Monday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) filed the Fiscal Year 2023 Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) Prospective Payment System (PPS) Proposed Rule. The reimbursements include a 3.9% increase to industry reimbursements, but in aggregate the impact of payment policies would result in a decrease of $320 million in...
COVID-19 has fallen out of the national spotlight, as cases and death counts fall week-over-week. But there are still challenges present. The threat of the BA.2 variant that caused a post-Omicron resurgence in Europe demonstrated COVID-19 still requires vigilance, effort and funding to overcome.
In Arizona this week, there were 6,840...
Arizona is finally entering a reprieve from COVID-19. Hospital bed use due to COVID-19 is currently at its lowest level since the beginning of the pandemic and Governor Doug Ducey took the opportunity to end the COVID-19-related state of emergency. Unfortunately, COVID-related deaths still continue and as of March 30, the Arizona...
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released its Fiscal Year 2023 Budget, which focuses on investments in public health, behavioral health, health disparities, child care and advancing research. Coupled with the HHS announcement, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also released the 2021-2030 National...
As Arizona approaches the two-year mark from Governor Doug Ducey's March 30, 2020 executive order mandating the closure of certain businesses and a stay-at-home advisory for all Arizonans, the Arizona Republic reflects on what has happened in those two years of the public health emergency. Following three major surges of COVID-19 in just...
Calls for an end to the formal declaration of public health emergency (PHE) related to the COVID-19 pandemic are gaining traction in the lull following the surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths related to the Omicron variant. Nursing homes are only just now required to demonstrate full vaccination of all staff members, and...
The official number of global deaths from COVID-19 surpassed six million on Monday, 4% of which were recorded in the last month. The United States is very close to reaching a million deaths on its own, and Arizona's death count exceeded the 28,000 marker this week.
According to the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) COVID-19...
The public health emergency (PHE) related to the COVID-19 pandemic is currently slated to expire on April 15, but is expected to be renewed for an additional 90 days. State Medicaid programs are concerned that they will not be granted enough time to complete Medicaid enrollee redeterminations, which have been paused for the duration of...
In Tuesday's State of the Union Address, President Biden announced that "it's time for Americans to get back to work," and outlined new efforts to return the public to normal activities after two years of the pandemic related to COVID-19. The White House subsequently announced a "National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan," on Wednesday...
The Arizona State Legislature now enters its third month of the 2022 session and a number of healthcare-related bills have been heard concerning COVID-19 vaccination requirements, transgender healthcare and abortion.
One such bill is House Bill 2198, proposed by Representative Steve Kaiser (R-Phoenix), which would require companies...CMS Rules
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will give physician groups participating in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) additional time to apply for a waiver that will allow their data to be re-weighted to account for the impacts of COVID-19 and the surge in cases related to the Omicron variant. CMS has assured...National News
Despite the national decline in cases of COVID-19, President Joe Biden moved to reauthorize the U.S. national emergency declared in March 2020. The president said that the deaths of more than 900,000 Americans emphasized the need for the federal government's continued response to the pandemic.
According to Reuters, the emergency is...Arizona News
COVID-19 cases in Arizona, as well as hospitalizations and deaths, are in decline throughout the state following the surge related to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. On Wednesday, February 23, there were 1,236 new cases of COVID-19 reported and 39 new deaths.
This information comes courtesy of the Arizona Department of Health...
Throughout the pandemic, parents of young children have received conflicting messages. Until the surge in cases related to the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, children appeared to have relatively low levels of serious illness caused by COVID-19.
This low risk, as well as the national scrutiny of vaccine effectiveness and side effects,...
The positivity rate and number of new COVID-19 cases in Arizona is finally trending downward following the surge related to the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Intensive care unit admissions and deaths have not yet crested and are expected to lag by about two weeks.
Dr. Richard Carmona, former U.S. Surgeon General and advisor to...
New COVID-19 cases are plummeting nationally, with a 63% downward trend over the last two weeks. That's great news for the nation as a whole and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is hemorrhaging funding to pay for the nation's uninsured COVID-19 patients.
The Provider Relief Fund has already paid out more than...
Arizona officially has the distinction of ranking second nationally for COVID deaths per capita, currently trailing Mississippi. The state has now surpassed 26,000 COVID-19 deaths and is averaging nearly 14,000 new cases per day. On Wednesday, there were 24 new COVID-19 related deaths and 8,329 new cases reported.
This information...
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 remain at an all-time high while cases in major cities across the country begin to fall. This begs the question: how long should Arizona expect to continue the surge related to the Omicron variant, and will strained hospitals be able to continue?
On Wednesday, January 26, the Arizona Department of Health...
