July 17, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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CMS can't get enough of ACOs, so they announced another round this week. As of July 1, 1.2 million Medicare beneficiaries will be treated by providers participating in ACOs. 154 ACOs are now operational, including the 32 following the Pioneer ACO Model under CMS's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Innovation Center).
July 10, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME Share
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During a meeting this Tuesday, the Meaningful Use Workgroup of the federal Health IT Policy Committee convened to discuss how Stage 3 Meaningful Use might look, and an area of prime concern to the workgroup is care coordination. Also, during the week following the Supreme Court's historic decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, leaders in Washington drew a line in the sand with Republicans urging state-level resistance and the Obama administration ramping up implementation plans.
July 5, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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CHIME submitted comments this week to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, responding to the agency’s vision for nationwide health information exchange. ONC officials in May released a Request for Information (RFI) that sought feedback on how to establish a governance mechanism for the nationwide health information network (NwHIN).
June 27, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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May was a good month for the Medicare & Medicaid EHR Incentive Payment programs. As of June 1, more than 110,000 eligible professionals and 2,400 hospitals had received a total of $5.7 billion in meaningful use incentive payments, according to a monthly report released Tuesday from the Department of Health and Human Services.
June 19, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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The six-month battle cry for information about what the CMS Innovation is doing with its billion-dollar-a-year allowance grew louder this week. In a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Louisiana Republican Representative Charles Boustany Jr. said there needs to be more congressional oversight of grants and projects run by the CMS Innovation Center, also known was CMMI.
June 12, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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At the second International Summit on the Future of Health Privacy, some said that defining privacy should now be a main priority as new health information technologies introduce new privacy issues. With electronic health records, thousands of people’s information can be released with one wrong move according to James Pyles, a privacy lawyer and panelist at the event.
June 6, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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For those devoted readers of Advocacy Corner, you’ll know that we’ve been covering the interplay between Congress and the ICD-10 October 2013 deadline long before HHS Secretary Sebelius first promised a delay in February. A new development occurred this week when Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. issued a white paper with one of the more overt calls to delay ICD-10…indefinitely.
May 30, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee had a hearing on: “Progress in Health Care Delivery: Innovations from the Field.” Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) gave statements, and a panel of healthcare executives testified. Also, the Federal Communications Commission voted to designate 40 MHz of spectrum for mobile body area networks (MBAN).
May 23, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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At an invite-only event held in Washington this week, CHIME members, federal officials and other health IT stakeholders met at the Bipartisan Policy Center to discuss the issue of patient matching. The briefing was well attended with leading CHIME members, foundation firms and top officials from CMS and ONC looking at various approaches to accurate patient matching.
May 15, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) today submitted comments to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius regarding a notice of proposed rulemaking to postpone the compliance date for International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition diagnosis and procedure codes (ICD-10) to October 1, 2014. In its comments, CHIME urged HHS to remain committed to ICD-10, while calling the one year delay an appropriate “middle ground” for all stakeholders.
May 8, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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Despite a fairly constant flurry of news clippings regarding federal efforts to combat fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, prominent Senators want more “tangible results” from CMS to improve program integrity...Comments filed with both the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) identified concerns related to the proposed Stage 2 EHR reporting period as well as CMS’ varying approach to clinical quality measures (CQMs).
May 1, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
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Three Senators sent a letter to HHS Secretary Sebelius, reminding her office of a November request for information on the CMS Innovation Center. “[W]e remain concerned that at a time of significant uncertainty for the fiscal health of the U.S. government, funds are being expended by the Innovation Center with little to no actual value provided,” Sens Enzi (R-WY) Coburn (R-OK) and Hatch (R-UT) say in their letter.
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