Policy

Marilyn Tavenner, R.N., the acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), on Wednesday, May 15, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as CMS’s permanent administrator, the first nominee for the job to receive formal confirmation in nearly a decade.

The American Medical Association (AMA), a noted opponent of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) mandated transition to the ICD-10 code-set, is not advocating the government to skip right to the ICD-11 either, the non-profit group said in a recent Board of Trustees report.

In the second decade of the 21st century, amid the new transparency in everything, the days when issues like hospital pricing—and clinical outcomes—were obscure topics, are nearly over. What are the implications on both the pricing and outcomes sides of the equation?

According to a recent study headed by researchers at the University of Illinois, the oft-controversial transition to the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) code set will be a challenge for many providers thanks to convoluted conversion mappings. The convoluted, or complex, entangled, and non-reciprocal, mappings will possibly impact a provider’s staffing, supply management, and clinical revenue, the researchers found.

In his opening remarks to the May 7 Health IT Policy Committee, Farzad Mostashari, M.D., national coordinator for health IT, spoke about work flow and business process changes that must accompany payment reform and technology infrastructure. Mostashari chose not to use the policy committee forum to address the recent suggestion by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) that Stage 2 of meaningful use be extended for an extra year. “We are halfway through the process of computerizing and digitizing healthcare settings, but only 5 percent of the way through redesigning work flows,” he said.