D.C. Report: CMS Grants Quality Reporting Waiver for Hurricane-Sandy Area Providers

House GOP Float Proposals to Patch SGR for One Year In a week where negotiations over the “fiscal cliff” went absolutely nowhere, some action was seen on the “doc fix” front.  On the heels of a report by the Congressional Budget Office finding that the price tag for a one-year patch to the SGR would cost an additional $7 billion (bringing that tab to over $25 billion) House Republicans offered a deal to pay for a one-year patch.  According to sources on the Hill, House leaders are proposing to patch the $25 billion gap by cutting Medicare pay for outpatient evaluation and management (E&M) services and eliminating the health reform law’s Medicaid pay hike for primary care services.  The E&M measure is estimated to save $8 billion over 10 years, and savings from the primary care pay provision is estimated at $15 billion, lobbyists say -- which is just shy of the $25 billion cost of delaying the looming 27 percent pay cut to Medicare physician services. To make up the $2 billion difference, Republicans might propose rebasing Medicare nursing home and home health pay, observers note.  Democrats, a some Republicans, have instead proposed the use of Overseas Contingency Operations funds – money saved by the drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan – to fix the patch, but opponents have called that approach “budgetary gimmickry.”

CIOs Offer Perspectives during Washington Forums Addressing separate audiences this week, Bill Spooner and Michael Martz shared their organizations’ experiences on topics ranging from balancing innovation in patient care with budget constraints to the challenges of achieving Meaningful Use. As a panelist in the Technology Crossroads Conference for the session on C-Suite challenges, Sharp Healthcare Senior VP and CIO Bill Spooner described how C-suite planning must juggle many priorities, including the internal factors of upgrading clinical systems and assuring patient privacy to external environmental factors. Technology Crossroads, sponsored by the National eHealth Collaborative, focused on the intersection of HIT and digital media. CHIME served as a cosponsor.  Before a separate audience on Capitol Hill, Meadville Medical Center CIO Michael Martz noted that Meadville attested for Stage I in May, which occurred amidst 30 simultaneous projects for the hospital and 24 additional projects for clinics and practices. He said certain elements came easily---vital signs, lab tests, med list and problem lists, while others posed major challenges, including multiple loosely-integrated systems, CPOE and quality measures.  Martz responded to questions from an audience that included House and Senate health staff, health IT reporters and HIT industry representatives attending “Moving toward the Electronic Exchange of Health Information: The Status of Meaningful Use Efforts” sponsored by the e-Health Policy Institute. (slides to be posted). Other speakers included Mat Kendall/ONC and Peter Shin/Community Health Foundation.