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As Congress gains ground on stimulus, healthcare workers ask people to stay home

President Donald Trump, however, said he wanted the nation to be "opened up" by Easter, despite strong advice from public health experts that the U.S. continue social distancing efforts.

How health systems are responding as COVID-19 squeezes the medical supply chain

Procurement of supplies will become more difficult if cases surge and federal stockpiles don't trickle down to the state level quickly enough.

Community health centers get $100M for COVID-19 response

Advocacy groups for community health centers welcomed the desperately needed funding, but said it's not nearly enough.

Kaiser Permanente shelves $900M headquarters build

The integrated healthcare giant planned to build a 29-floor, 1.6 million-square-foot tower in what would have been Oakland's largest commercial project. The decision to stop the project was not related to COVID-19, officials said.

Nearly 2 dozen states now have Medicaid waivers for coronavirus response

The waivers allow suspension of federal regulations surrounding prior authorization, sites of care and physician enrollment, among others.

UPDATED: March 26, 2020 at 10:11 a.m.

Amid mounting shortage, 5 facts about the nation's stockpile of emergency medical supplies

As healthcare workers across the country scramble for personal protective equipment and other supplies, states are sending in their requests to the Strategic National Stockpile.

COVID-19 threatens to overwhelm hospitals. They're weighing how best to ration care.

"You're going to see variation in what is decided floor to floor, doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital," Arthur Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at NYU School of Medicine, told Healthcare Dive.

On 10th anniversary, embattled Affordable Care Act faces yet another stress test

The law now faces a significant test as the nation likely heads into a recession amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, straining the health system in an unprecedented way.

FDA eases rules on ventilator manufacturers as Medtronic, Tesla talk

While the administration encourages other sectors to pivot to help fight the crisis, providers and some lawmakers want to use the Defense Production Act to compel them. But President Donald Trump has resisted that.

Pandemic prompts CMS to drop some reporting requirements for value-based initiatives

Citing the COVID-19 outbreak, the agency provided either deadline extensions for reporting data connected to the projects or waived them entirely for the fourth quarter of 2019.

Ratings agencies issue foreboding reports on hospital finances as AHA seeks $100B to respond to COVID-19

"While the healthcare sector has responded extremely well to past crises, the scale of the coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented," Fitch Ratings warned.

Hospital leaders plead for financial help, warn of closures, missing payroll

Hospital leaders from around the country described their dire financial straits amid a pandemic and expected surge in patients.

Direct-to-consumer companies wade into coronavirus testing to fill gap

Everlywell said Monday it planned to donate its store of COVID-19 tests to hospitals, following guidance from FDA warning consumers of fraudulent at-home tests.

UPDATED: March 23, 2020 at 10:28 a.m.

Hard-hit Washington state gets CMS green light for Medicaid coronavirus waiver

The Trump administration did not approve a request to expand Medicaid to a greater number of uninsured residents in the state.

Telehealth vendors scramble to hire doctors as patient volume soars amid COVID-19

"We've gotten a lot of applications, more in the past two days since we put out this temporary position than we could have imagined," 98point6 CEO Robbie Cape told Healthcare Dive. "That being said, we need 10 times more."

CMS urges hospitals to put off elective procedures

AHA applauded the move, which leaves the final decisions to individual facilities, along with the passage of a coronavirus relief package that includes a raise to the Medicaid federal matching rate.

Medtronic pledges '24/7' ventilator production to meet coronavirus demand

The company is aiming to more than double its manufacturing capacity as GE, Getinge, Philips and others outside of healthcare commit to boosting worldwide supply of the potentially lifesaving machines.

Telehealth payment parity in Medicare welcome, but some vendors say it should have come sooner

"We've all been preparing for this and we certainly anticipated this was going to happen," Doctor on Demand's chief legal and business affairs officer told Healthcare Dive.

HHS considers rolling back interoperability timeline amid COVID-19

But some health IT experts are calling for more urgency, not less, to fix the outdated EHR infrastructure and allow the free flow of clinical data to combat the mounting public health emergency.

How an 'overwhelmed' Buffalo lab facing coronavirus supply shortage signals nationwide struggles

The Western New York regional public health lab is a microcosm of the insufficient swab and reagent stocks labs face as they attempt to confirm COVID-19 cases and gauge the scope of their region's outbreak.

Trump admin weighs mobile hospital units as worry grows over capacity

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been urging the federal government to enlist the Army Corps of Engineers to work with states to build temporary medical facilities and said it "makes all the sense in the world."

Value-based payment models take hold in medtech, but barriers slow shift

The arrangements are becoming more prevalent, especially for costly devices used in chronic disease management and in hospital settings, according to a recent Deloitte report.

Medicare will now cover telehealth to fight coronavirus

It's a move telemedicine companies like Teladoc and American Well have been requesting since well before the outbreak, but the change is scheduled to be in place only for as long as the national emergency is designated.

Coronavirus drives surge in demand for temp healthcare workers

David Savitsky, CEO of staffing firm ATC Healthcare Services, said one of the biggest concerns among physicians right now is being exposed to the virus and passing it on to other patients — further straining the labor supply.

Pharma salesforces brought to a halt as coronavirus shutters economy

Pharma companies may not have a choice. Hospitals are closing down access, too. MD Anderson Cancer Center, for one, has barred all visitors except caregivers or those with mission-critical business.