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Ascension said Friday it has restored access across all markets to the core system for electronic health records and patient portals after a cyberattack. Patients should see a smoother process for scheduling appointments and filling prescriptions, plus improved wait times, Ascension said in a news release. Some information may be temporarily inaccessible as the system updates medical records collected in the last month, according to the health system. (Hudson, 6/14)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is extending independent dispute filing deadlines through at least mid-October after the Change Healthcare cyberattack threw the process into disarray. The resolution process, which CMS finalized in 2022, was enacted as part of the No Surprises Act and is meant to help sort out disputes between insurance companies and providers regarding out-of-network bills. Parties usually have 30 days after a payment was made to submit a dispute, but CMS Friday issued a blanket extension for submissions. (Early, 6/14)

Since Amazon acquired the primary-care service One Medical, elderly patients have been routed to a call center — staffed partly by contractors with limited training — that failed on more than a dozen occasions to seek immediate attention for callers with urgent symptoms, according to internal documents seen by The Washington Post. When one patient reported a “blood clot, pain and swelling,” call center staff scheduled an appointment rather than escalating the matter for medical evaluation, according to a note in an internal incident tracking spreadsheet dated Feb. 19. (O'Donovan, 6/15)

Federal regulators have a long way to go in evaluating hospital mergers, according to a recent study to be published by the American Economic Association. Academic researchers from universities including Harvard and Yale compiled a study on regulators' antitrust enforcement actions against hospital mergers throughout the last two decades and concluded the number of actions is not proportional to the number of mergers. (Hudson, 6/14)

One of the nation's premier cancer centers said it is joining the network of providers that treat people who were sickened by exposure to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center had been locked in a dispute over how it should be paid by the World Trade Center Health Program, according to the advocacy organization 9/11 Health Watch. The federal program serves some 130,000 survivors and responders ... and beneficiaries do not pay for care received at participating providers. (McAuliff, 6/14)

She hadn’t quite turned 19 and had just started college when Hana Hooper found out she was dying. An echocardiogram revealed the telltale signs in grayscale images of an enlarged heart chamber, its walls stretched thin. Her diagnosis — end-stage dilated cardiomyopathy — sounded complicated. But in simple terms, it meant that Hana needed a new heart, and fast. (Kamb, 6/14)

Tall windows overlook the Patapsco River in the newly renovated 7th floor lobby of MedStar Harbor Hospital in Baltimore’s Cherry Hill. That view greets patients volunteering to participate in an early phase clinical trial — the very beginning of a long testing process that any medication or therapy must complete before hitting pharmacy shelves or hospitals. Many of the volunteers at Harbor Hospital are taking a medication that, before their study began, had only ever been tested in animals. (Roberts, 6/14)

2023 was a year of checked recovery for a hospital sector coming off its lowest point of pandemic financial pressures. Providers welcomed back a stream of patients that remained below pre-pandemic levels but generally helped strengthen operating margins over the course of the year. Kaiser Permanente is secure in its place as the country’s largest nonprofit health system. (Muoio, 6/17)