DCMedical News: Friday, April 27, 2018
DCMedical News
Washington, D.C.
Friday, April 27, 2018
DCMedical News is published every day either the House or the Senate is in session. Want to subscribe? See below. Add our new domain (dcmedicalnews.org) to your white list. Welcome to our new “courtesy trial” recipients.
THE BIG STORY TODAY IN HEALTH CARE
Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems (IPPS) Proposed Rule: Reaction continues to the proposed rule (here), including significant rearrangement (but only modest pruning) of the various measures of “value based payment.” Health Data Management reports here on changes in the information measurement domains, and on creation of new “winners and losers” in the proposed rule. The proposed rule will be officially published in the May 7 Federal Register, with a comment period ending June 25.
HOSPITALS AND HEALTH CARE FACILITIES
Health information systems: The House Energy & Commerce Committee posted a summary essay on health information technology and innovation (here), inviting input from the public by May 31. The primary target appears to be supporting (or not) legacy technologies. Background may be found in the June, 2017 report of the Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force (here). Related issues for medical devices are discussed in a new FDA Medical Device Safety Action Plan from the FDA (here), a press release about the FDA device plan (here), and an AP review here.
HEALTH INSURANCE, MEDICARE, MEDICAID
Datapalooza: CMS Administrator Seema Verma addressed AcademyHealth’s Datapalooza (her remarks here), including her personal experience with her husband’s sudden illness: “When my husband was discharged, I asked for his medical records. The hospital eventually gave me a five-page discharge summary…and a CD-ROM. That’s right. After spending $30 billion on making our health data interoperable, I left with a CD-ROM, which was incidentally incomplete. When I finally found a way to review the CD-ROM, I realized it didn’t even have his MRI and other test results. And all of the data that the hospital collected on their monitoring machines was also missing.”
Big news for researchers, and others interested in Medicare: CMS has promised to release Medicare Advantage encounter data. Heretofore, only fee-for-service data has been available for analysis. Also up: public release of Medicaid and CHIP plan data in 2019.
Among the additional CMS proposals outlined by Ms. Verma:
“We are also asking if providers should be required to share health data with patients as a condition of participation in Medicare. And we are not backing down on our requirement that providers use the most current version of Certified EHR Technology by 2019. This encourages systems to share information via APIs, so that patients can easily take their data to other providers.
You may have also heard about another action that we took for the Medicare population. Through Blue Button 2.0, we are providing the majority of beneficiaries with the ability to connect their claims data to third party applications, services, and research programs.
CMS Blue Button 2.0 is now in production and at last count there were over 200 innovation developers experimenting with the API. I encourage you to sign up for the Developer Sandbox to become part of this important step in modernizing the patient experience.
And these actions are not just taking place in Medicare. For the 70 million people on Medicaid, we have started working with states to make their claims data available to them as well.”
PHARMA
States and Drug Prices: New York is pressing a new approach to drug costs for the Medicaid program (2017 statute here, STAT Plus report here). “Although other states have passed laws to lower drug prices, the New York law is novel because it is the first to set an annual cap on Medicaid prescription drug spending. The goal is to limit total spending to medical inflation plus another 5 percent. Moreover, the law allows the state to evaluate studies and other information to determine if a drug is overpriced when compared to the benefit to patients.” The Health Department panel endorsed a finding by ICER that the drug Orkambi (for cystic fibrosis) would be cost effective at a lower price, and supported negotiations to obtain that lower price.
Opioid Treatment: ICER, meanwhile, is revisiting and expanding on its 2014 report (here) on medication-assisted treatment for substance abuse disorders. That earlier study found that “long-term maintenance treatment approaches using methadone or Suboxone® to reduce the craving for opioids have been found to be more effective than short-term managed withdrawal methods that seek to discontinue all opioid use and detoxify patients.” ICER’s forthcoming review and newer clinical options are discussed here.
EVENTS & MEETING
May 2
8:00 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience, Washington, DC.
May 3
8:30 a.m., HRSA, Advisory Committee on Training in Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry, continuing on May 4th; conference call-in number: (800) 857-9729, Passcode: 1318150.
Description and additional information in the Federal Register, here.
May 6
American Hospital Association Annual Membership Meeting (Washington, DC), through May 9.
May 8
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (House E&C) will hear testimony from the chief executives of AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal and McKesson, concerning pill dumping in W. Virginia and other matters.
May 16
11:00 a.m., National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice (Federal Register here).
June 19
AHIP Institute & Expo, San Diego, through June 22.
June 24
HFMA Annual Conference, Las Vegas, through June 28.
AcademyHealth, through June 26, Convention Center, Seattle, Washington.
FOR REFERENCE
Members of the Senate (here) and Members of Senate Committees (here), Senate Calendar (here).
Members of the House with their House Committees (here), House Calendar (here).
PUBLICATION SCHEDULE FOR DCMEDICAL NEWS
DCMedical News is published every day that either the House of Representatives or the Senate is in session.
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May publication dates: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.
June publication dates: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29.
July publication dates: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31.
August publication dates: 1, 2, 3.
Notes to: Fred Hyde, MD, JD, MBA; fredhyde@aol.com