Government & Policy

Ohio Governor John Kasich said during Tuesday night's Presidential Town Hall that he has a plan to replace Obamacare while Texas Senator Ted Cruz pointed to the VA as an area that needs greater accountability when it comes to healthcare.  

The President and CEO of HIMSS highlights some of the major announcements and activities at HIMSS16, including new government funding for health IT and the expanding global involvement at the conference.

The group seeks permanent waivers for physicians who write 25 or fewer prescriptions per year.

Arguing that too many well-meaning providers are facing financial penalties from meaningful use, the American Hospital Association called on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this week to offer more flexibility. Specifically, AHA says hospitals that meet 70 percent of meaningful use requirements should be deemed as having complied with the program. With the current "all-or-nothing approach," writes Ashley Thompson, AHA's senior vice president of public policy analysis and development, "failure to meet any one of the requirements under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs has meant a provider would not receive an incentive payment; more recently, it has meant a provider would be penalized." [Also: Hospitals press HHS on meaningful use] Given the huge complexity and high hurdles of meaningful use, the fact that a hospital missing a given threshold by small amount leads to overall failure is "unfair to providers that make good faith efforts to comply," according the March 22 letter to CMS Acting Principal Deputy Administrator Patrick Conway, MD. CMS has told AHA that it doesn't have the statutory authority to offer anything less than that absolutist approach, according to the letter. But AHA offers a legal analysis that suggests that's not true: "We believe that CMS possesses the authority to eliminate the all-or-nothing approach to meaningful use and that the agency should do so." Among the arguments put forth by CMS for the necessity of an all-in requirement: The law requires more stringent MU measures to improve quality over time; certain measures capture policies, such as health information exchange, that are specifically required by statute; use of a "qualified EHR" must meet all the requirements, not some, in order to meet the law's objectives. The agency has also argued that a more flexible framework wouldn't reduce providers' reporting burden anyway – a contention with which AHA "respectfully disagrees" but points out isn't statutorily binding anyway. "We strongly believe that CMS is not legally required to maintain its  all-or-nothing approach to meaningful use," AHA argues, but instead has "ample legal authority" to adopt a more forgiving approach like the 70 percent threshold it suggests. "This flexibility would support providers who have implemented IT functionality but may not have optimized each function sufficiently to meet the full set of requirements in the EHR Incentive Program in order to avoid a payment adjustment." Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

Physicians are embracing electronic prescribing more rapidly than ever before, according to new data from Surescripts – especially in New York. In the Empire State, more than 48,000 providers have embraced digital prescriptions as a way to avoid fraud and abuse of prescription drugs – and a way to avoid fines. The deadline for complying with the state’s Internet System for Tracking Over Prescribing, or I-STOP, mandate for digital prescribing is March 27. [See also: NY e-prescribing law takes effect March 27, doctors now face fines for pen-and-paper.] Since March 1, the number of New York providers adopting electronic prescribing of controlled substances increased 28 percent, Surescripts reports. New York Is ahead of other states in e-prescribing adoption with 47 percent uptake, compared with numbers nationwide at just 8 percent. “The industry has made remarkable progress in adopting this critical technology that can have a direct and immediate impact on improving patient care and saving lives,” commented Surescripts CEO Tom Skelton, in a news release. Skelton pointed out that pharmacy adoption of the technology is nearly universal, with 95 percent of pharmacies in New York ready to prescribe controlled substances electronically. In 2013, more than two million Americans abused prescription painkillers such as hydrocodone, oxycodone and methadone, according to Surescripts. Drug diversion is a significant concern when it comes to controlled substances, officials say, with between three and nine percent of diverted drugs for abuse tied to fraud or forgery of paper prescriptions.  Twitter: @Bernie_HITN Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

A Government Accountability Office report points to security weaknesses and to Health and Human Services’ incomplete information about how many people are impacted when breaches happen.  

A member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a Federal Trade Commission official have called for greater protections against and notifications of ransomware attacks – and bolstered cybersecurity for healthcare overall.

The Office for Civil Rights has launched a new round of HIPAA audits. Will the program succeed in improving privacy and security practices and protecting patient data? Or could it have the opposite impact?  

The hospital said it did not pay the ransom and is now working with the FBI as part of an ongoing investigation.

The National Quality Forum has published its guidance for the new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System. NQF's Measure Applications Partnership examined some five-dozen MIPS performance measures, proposed for implementation in 2017, from which data would be collected to track eligible providers' performance in 2019. "As the U.S. healthcare system increasingly shifts to a performance-based payment system, MAP’s role (is to serve) as an impartial advisor bringing stakeholders together from across the healthcare spectrum," NQF’s chief scientific officer Helen Burstin said in a statement. To that end, MAP offered some suggestions to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for better aligning with multiple federal healthcare programs, namely the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [Also: Meaningful use will still be part of MIPS reimbursement, CMS official says] Chief among those was that aligning of measures should be a top priority, and not just for MIPS programs and alternative payment models, but across all federal programs and with states and the private sector where possible. Indeed, NQF found that gaps still exist across clinician-level programs – most notably in patient-centered areas such as patient-reported outcomes, functional status and care coordination. These measures should go beyond patients' experience with the healthcare system to the impact of healthcare on patients' health and well-being. Meanwhile, MAP urged continued exploration of the impact of socioeconomic status and other demographic factors on measure results, noting that the program should be taking into account when providers are caring for high-risk populations. NQF also weighed in on measures for public reporting on CMS' Physician Compare website. With regard to those most useful for consumers and patients, MAP expressed a preference for those focused on care coordination, population health, appropriate care and on outcomes – especially those that are patient-reported. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN