Why it matters: It’s the court’s biggest abortion-related decision since overturning Roe v. Wade and ensures that mifepristone — one of the most widely used drugs for medication abortions — will remain available. Click here to learn more.

Visit the Million Hearts website to download their Hypertension in Pregnancy Change Package. This quality improvement guide is full of tools and resources gathered from and tailored for clinical teams caring for pregnant and postpartum women in outpatient settings. Share it with your colleagues and networks. Select at least one change idea to implement and collaborate with others to expand the reach of this important work.

U.S. Representatives Larry Bucshon, MD (R-IN-08), Buddy Carter (R-GA-01), and Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01) introduced the 340B Affording Care for Communities and Ensuring a Strong Safety-Net Act (340B ACCESS Act). This legislation, H.R. 8574, establishes critical oversight and transparency of the 340B program while providing clear, practical, and achievable solutions to ensure the 340B program can be a force for good in the nation’s health care safety net. The 340B ACCESS Act seeks to capture the policy principles which reflect the consensus of ASAP 340B members and will guide efforts to realign the 340B program in the interest of true safety-net providers and the communities they serve. Here are a few key highlights for those of us not in the weeds on 340B. This legislative solution:

·    Protects Community Health Centers’ ability to serve all patients, regardless of their ability to pay, by increasing access to affordable medications and health services for medically underserved communities.

·    Restores access to unlimited contract pharmacies, including access to mail order and specialty pharmacies, enabling greater access for health center patients.

·    Ensures health centers and their patients have access to affordable medications for prescriptions written by specialty providers.

·    Stops “middlemen” (corporations that seek to profit from savings) from taking the savings away from the health center that is providing overall care to the patient and their community.

·    Increases transparency and accountability for all stakeholders in the program.

Click here to learn more. Call and email your Representative and ask them to cosponsor this legislation! NACHC is hosting a webinar on June 3 at 3:00 pm to provide additional information about the legislation. Register here.

Mpox cases continue to rise in Pennsylvania and the surrounding states. The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) is encouraging providers to continue to screen all patients with suspected mpox for travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or recent contact with someone who has traveled to DRC. Providers should be aware of the more stringent infection control measures required for Clade I mpox and are encouraged to follow the CDC guidelines for infection prevention and control for mpox. Outreach, education, testing and vaccination continue to be important. According to DOH, Hispanic men are significantly impacted and there is need for these interventions among the migrant worker population. See mpox toolkit for more information on mpox and promotional materials.

Last week, the House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee advanced a two-year extension of Medicare telehealth payment policies to the full Energy & Commerce Committee. The bill, H.R. 7623, the Telehealth Modernization Act of 2024, includes a two-year extension of current policies and would also ensure that Medicare reimburses telehealth visits at the same rate as in-person visits. This payment parity language, along with the rest of the policy extensions, passed the subcommittee by a 21-0 bipartisan vote. The full Committee will consider the bill in the coming months.

In case you missed it: last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created the nation’s first health-based alert system and heat guidance for clinicians. As part of this effort, the CDC also provides a HeatRisk Dashboard with resources for high-heat days, details on local air quality, and actions to stay safe in these conditions.  Finally, the CDC has a site with clinical guidance for heat health, focused initially on treating children with asthma, pregnant women, and people with cardiovascular disease.

Comment by May 28. On April 26th, the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) announced a proposed modification to the definition of ‘rural’ used to designate eligible areas for rural health grants. Because access to needed health care is likely to be reduced when roads are most difficult to traverse, FORHP proposes to modify the definition of rural areas by integrating the new Road Ruggedness Scale (RRS) released in 2023 by the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The proposed modifications are based on a data-driven methodology to identify areas with difficult mountainous terrain.  All areas included in the current definition of rural would remain included.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released provisional data from their National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) indicating an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2023 – a decrease of 3 percent from the 111,029 deaths estimated in 2022.  This is the first annual decrease in drug overdose deaths since 2018.  Several states across the nation saw decreases; Nebraska, Kansas, Indiana, and Maine experienced declines of 15 percent or more.  Still, some states saw increases. Alaska, Washington, and Oregon stood out with notable increases of at least 27% compared to the same period in 2022.  Various factors make a difference in provisional counts versus final counts, such as records indicating “pending investigation.” The data are based on death records NCHS receives each month from state vital registration offices with no distinction between urban and rural.

Occupational Therapy and Telehealth Toolkit.  Created by the Greater Plains Telehealth Resource and Assistance Center, the toolkit gives information on basics and best practices for providing occupational therapy via telehealth.

Effective May 6.  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights issued a final rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act advancing protections against discrimination in health care. At a minimum, the rule will restore protections against discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, and disability. It will also reduce language access barriers, expand physical and digital accessibility, and address bias in health technology. With the restoration of the rule, HHS aims to increase meaningful access to health care for communities across the United States.