The Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 booster shots for people 65 and older and other vulnerable Americans six months after they complete their first two doses, making many Americans eligible to receive the shots now.
While the COVID-19 delta variant continues to fuel outbreaks across the U.S., there is still uncertainty as to what this year’s flu season will bring. To bolster prevention efforts, one-stop clinics offering shots for both illnesses have started to emerge, CNN reported Sept. 21. The latest COVID-19 surge has pushed Idaho to activate crisis standards of care for hospitals and health systems statewide.
When the CDC released its latest round of recommendations regarding seasonal flu vaccines, the agency made one notable update: Flu vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines can now be given simultaneously.
The AMA has released the 2022 Current Procedural Terminology code set, which incorporates a series of 24 vaccine-specific codes that are the model for efficiently reporting and tracking immunizations and administrative services against the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).
President Joe Biden has unveiled a new “action plan” plan to confront the COVID-19 surge that’s being driven by the spread of the delta variant. It mandates vaccines for federal workers and contractors and certain health care workers, requires employees at companies with 100 or more workers to be vaccinated or tested weekly, lays the groundwork for a booster shot campaign and recommends that large venues require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test. The plan also makes recommendations on keeping schools open.
The policy is meant to ensure that at-risk patients in smaller settings have the same opportunities as others to receive the vaccination.
The Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) today projected a go-live date for the Next Generation managed care launch for July 1, 2022.
The U.S. will likely offer booster shots for fully vaccinated Americans six months after their last COVID-19 vaccine was administered, instead of the eight-month gap that had been previously announced, a source familiar with the planning process told The Wall Street Journal Aug. 25.
Seventy-two percent of the country’s largest health plans are no longer waiving out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 treatment, according to research released Aug. 19 by the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker.
Despite this help, the economic impact of COVID-19 still weighs heavily on healthcare providers and practice staff. To ensure a healthy future and help ease the burnout providers and staff contend with, practices must take a hard look at their internal operations and make changes that put them on solid financial footing. A key to this is optimizing the revenue cycle.