FHI's Week in Review

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Volume IV, Issue 45

Nov. 6 , 2017

CMS Finalizes Policies that Reduce Provider Burden, Lower Drug Prices

2018 Quality Payment Program and Physician Fee Schedule finalized

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule for the 2018 Physician Fee Schedule and final rule with comment period for the Quality Payment Program (QPP). "While part of CMS's broader strategy to relieve regulatory burdens for providers, these rules also reflect the agency's efforts to promote innovation in healthcare delivery aimed at lowering prices, increasing competition and strengthening the relationship between patients and their doctors," according to the release published at CMS.gov on 11/2/17.

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"During my visits with clinicians across the country, I've heard many concerns about the impact burdensome regulations have on their ability to care for patients," said Seema Verma, Administrator of CMS. "These rules move the agency in a new direction and begin to ease that burden by strengthening the patient-doctor relationship, empowering patients to realize the value of their care over volume of tests, and encouraging innovation and competition within the American healthcare system."

Accelerated Goals for Cancer Moonshot

The Lancet Oncology Commission was announced online 10.31.17. According to their executive summary:

Enactment of the Cancer Moonshot within the 21st Century Cures Act in the USA arrived at a propitious moment in the advancement of knowledge, providing nearly US$2 billion of funding for cancer research and precision medicine. In 2016, the Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) set out a roadmap of recommendations designed to exploit new advances in cancer diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. Those recommendations provided a high-level view of how to accelerate the conversion of new scientific discoveries into effective treatments and prevention for cancer.

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The executive summary continues:

This Lancet Oncology Commission now aims to bolster those recommendations to implement this important scientific roadmap. Here, we examine the BRP recommendations in greater detail and expand the discussion to additional priority areas, including surgical oncology, radiation oncology, imaging, health systems and health disparities, regulation and financing, population science, and oncopolicy. We prioritise areas of research in the USA that we believe would accelerate efforts to benefit patients with cancer. Finally, we hope the recommendations in this report will facilitate new international collaborations to further enhance global efforts in cancer control.

It's time to speak with a collective voice: Why doctors should unionize

"Unions are a force to protect the 'working population' from inequality, gaps in wages and a political system failing to represent specific industry groups," states Niran S. Al-Agba, MD, in an Oct. 31, 2017 KevinMD article.

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"Hospital administrators easily manipulated physicians, treating them as if they were hired hands. Insurance companies were dealing with them as if they were employees. Government programs...controlled key aspects of doctors' work, told them how much they would be paid, and what procedures they would be paid for," according to Dr. Sanford A. Marcus, a surgeon in private practice who formed the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD).

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