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October 16, 2009 - Advocacy Corner
Finance-Approved Bill Encourages Use of HIT. Earlier this week, the Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 to approve “America’s Healthy Future Act,” moving health reform one step forward, but leaving many controversial issues unresolved, including the public option, subsidies and penalties to incent individual coverage and taxes on high-cost health plans, to name
just a few. Health IT provisions, by contrast, enjoy bi-partisan support.
Medicare Advantage providers would receive bonus payments based on their performance on quality measures and operation of evidence-based care management plans. Providers will obviously require the use of IT systems to aggregate data on the quality measures. Also included is a provision to implement delivery system reforms.
To assist consumers to compare coverage from various plans, the bill would create web-based portals with standardized enrollment applications and standard forms as well as a call center for customer support. For small business firms, the legislation includes the Small Business Health Options Program exchanges to make it easier to purchase and compare coverage for employees.
Once the Senate Finance and HELP bills are merged, the full Senate will take up the bill, tentatively scheduled for the last week of October with action shifting to the House floor the following week.
HIT Standards Outlines New Public Input Process. Earlier this week, White House Technology Officer and Implementation Workgroup Chair Aneesh Chopra announced that the Workgroup’s charge was, “To bring forward “real-world” implementation experience into the HIT Standards Committee recommendations…[with an] “emphasis on strategies to accelerate the adoption of proposed standards, or mitigate barriers, if any.”
To begin this process, a public hearing on community examples is
scheduled for October 29, followed by a two-week on-line process
for sharing experiences. Chopra indicated there is interest in
learning from other industries that have implemented data sharing
standards to determine how this could apply to health care. For
October 14 Committee materials, click here.
The Standards Committee added two new members to the mix: Managing Director of the
Markle Foundation Health Program Carol Diamond, M.D., M.P.H.; and Chris Ross,
MinuteClinic Chief Information Officer. MinuteClinic is the pioneer and largest
provider of retail-based healthcare in the U.S.
In addition to the October 29 hearing, other upcoming HIT Committee dates are:
CHIME Survey Deadline October 22. As noted in the October 9 Advocacy Corner, CHIME is surveying members on readiness to comply with meaningful use. Survey findings will be important in a number of ways. CHIME will share this information with ONC and CMS informally as well as in responding to the Notice of Proposed Rule-making (NPRM) published by CMS in December and the Certification, Standards, and Implementation Interim Final Rule published by ONC also in December. In recent meetings with Member offices on Capitol Hill, staff have expressed interest in understanding the readiness of providers in their district. Beyond sharing aggregate survey results, CHIME will also encourage CIOs to educate their Members of Congress on compliance for incentive funding.
All CHIME members received a survey link last week. Thank you in advance for your participation.
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