Hospitals At Or Near Full COVID-19 ICU Capacity Increase By 90%, A Glance At 2021 Evaluation And Management Changes, How Telehealth Can Boost Care For Heart Attack Patients, HHS To Distribute $22 Billion To Aid COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination
Source: Modern Healthcare
Here's The Latest in Health Care:
• Two key variables in understanding the stress to the health system due to new COVID-19 hospitalizations are the availability of staff and intensive care unit (ICU) beds. A new study found a 90% increase in hospitals reaching ICU capacity from July through December, with rural hospitals facing the biggest capacity issues. Read More
• CMS plans to adopt the AMA's code revisions and accompanying guideline changes for the E/M office or outpatient visit codes. Among the changes, health care practitioners will need to familiarize themselves with a new medical decision-making table as well as a new definition of "time" for office or outpatient visit services. Read More
• Add heart attack patients to those who may find significant value in using telehealth as a post-discharge treatment tool for recovery. A recent study showed no significant differences in safety events or medication adjustment when using telehealth with low-risk patients. Read More
• In an effort to accelerate inoculation efforts, which have fallen behind initial targets, HHS will dole out more than $22 billion to states and local jurisdictions by mid-January to support COVID-19 containment and lagging vaccination rollouts. According to the CDC, as of Wednesday morning, only 5.3 million Americans had received their first shot out of 17 million doses distributed. Read More
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