The Washington Debrief
provides CHIME members weekly news and information related to important healthcare IT legislative, regulatory and political developments in Washington, D.C.
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Volume 6, No. 15
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April 16, 2018
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Spring is Finally Starting to Bloom in our Nation's Capitol!
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WORKING FOR YOU IN WASHINGTON
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Leslie Krigstein
VP Congressional Affairs, CHIME
Mari Savickis
VP Federal Affairs, CHIME
Bradley Simonich
Public Policy Coordinator
Thoughts, Questions or Comments? Please contact
Leslie
,
Mari
Office Hours: 9 am - 5 pm
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CHIME Member on the Hill
Key Takeaway: John Kravitz, CIO of Geisinger Health testified in front of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee last Thursday on Opioids.
Why It Matters: Kravitz joined other healthcare stakeholders in discussing the role of Medicare and Medicaid policies in solving the opioid crisis. If you'd like to view his participation on the panel, you can find a replay on the Energy and Commerce
website
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Courtesy of Energy and Commerce
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Public Policy Call
Key Takeaway:
Monthly policy webinar - join us the third Wednesday of every month.
Why It Matters: Need your policy fix? Our next public policy call will be this week, 2-2:30 p.m. (EST) on April 18. Members and Foundation firms can
email us to be added to the distribution list.
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Seeking Cyber Enthusiasts for Industry Work Groups
Key Takeaway: There is an important opportunity for CHIME members to participate in industry-wide work groups that will tackle salient issues facing our sector on cybersecurity.
Why It Matters: Healthcare is one of 16 critical infrastructures and healthcare is further behind than most when it comes to cyber. A joint public / private group, the Healthcare Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC), is seeking people to join their Joint Cybersecurity Working Group. We strongly encourage CHIME members or their designees to sign up and participate. Curious about who has joined already? There is a list of people who are already signed up in the google document
here. The CWG will be assessing the recommendations made in a report sent to Congress last summer by the
Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force. Please consider joining!
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Calling All Ohio Members
Key Takeaway: Event 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. on April 25.
Why It Matters: CHIME is co-sponsoring an event with the Ohio Chapter of HIMSS on Medicaid expansion funding and its impact on Ohio's healthcare system, healthcare IT initiatives and jobs. The event is free. Register
here.
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Opioid Memorial Is Standing
Key Takeaway: The president-commissioned temporary memorial in President's Park, just south of the White House, is now up and running.
Why It Matters: This very somber memorial focuses on helping people realize the extent of the national opioid crisis. Three black walls hold over 22,000 pills imprinted with faces of victims to emphasize that this crisis truly is pervasive.
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Next Generation Sequencing
Why It Matters:
The guidances outline innovative regulatory approaches for the oversight of medical technologies that play an important role in the continued advancement of individualized, genetic-based medicine. From 2-3:30 p.m. ET Thursday, May 24 the FDA will host a webinar for product developers, database administrators, and others interested in learning more about these final guidances. More information about the webinar is available at
http://www.fda.gov/CDRHwebinar
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Why It Matters: This report will help organizations identify systems and components that are most vital to operations and may be in need of increased protection and security. The report additionally proposes a unique model, titled the Criticality Analysis Process model which is targeted at those who manage privacy risk and information security.
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Why It Matters: NIST is giving a list of recommendations to help secure virtualized server platforms from any risks. The recommendations are based in the core software used in virtualized server platforms, the hypervisor, to ensure that any and all information remains secure against attacks.
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CMS Releases 2018 MIPS Eligibility Tool
Why It Matters: The tool will help evaluate 2018 eligibility for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).
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House Oversight Calls Manufacturers to Testify
Key Takeaway: Next month, five executives from opioid manufacturing companies have been called to testify in front of Congress on their role in the opioid crisis.
Why It Matters: Although the Department of Justice has created their Prescription Interdiction and Litigation (PIL) Taskforce to prosecute manufacturers, this is the first time the manufacturers are being called to testify on the Hill.
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Comprehensive Legislation Forthcoming: CHIME Comments
Key Takeaway: Both chambers of Congress have concrete goals for when they would like to bring legislation to the floor for a debate and vote, moving solutions forward.
Why It Matters: In the House, Energy and Commerce have held three hearings that examined over 70 bills total with a goal to get legislation to the floor by Memorial Day. Meanwhile in the Senate, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) has also held a number of hearings and released their draft legislation titled
The Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 with the goal of reaching the floor next week. Also, CHIME submitted a
statement to Energy & Commerce which were submitted into the record, and sent a
statement to the Senate HELP Committee.
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Key Takeaway: Bill takes aim at easing conflicting federal patient consent policies.
Why It Matters: Nestled into the dozens of bills on opioids under consideration is one that tackles patient consent. There's one way for mental health and substance abuse (42 CFR Part 2 rules) and another for the rest of patient care (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)), and yet even different state rules.
H.R. HR 3545, the Overdose Prevention and Patient Safety Act attempts to reconcile the situation - at least at the federal level - by allowing substance abuse disorder information to be shared according to the same rules that govern HIPAA. The bill was originally sponsored by Rep. Murphy (R-PA), who resigned last year. The bill was taken over by Rep. Mullin (R-OK). A statement about the bill from him can he found
here.
Are you a member who has wrestled with managing the varying rules around patient consent? We want to hear from you. Please email is at
policy@chimecentral.org.
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CMS Needs Your Input on Quality Reporting
Key Takeaway: CMS is seeking feedback from providers around quality data submission. Please take their 10-minute survey.
Why It Matters:
CMS' contractor, HQR, is seeking your input to better understand how software developers and health IT professionals could quickly and easily integrate application programming interfaces with potential EHR data submission application programming interfaces (APIs). This is aimed at EHR Quality Reporting Document Architecture (QRDA) submissions and the tools needed to facilitate easier data reporting between a provider's EHR and CMS. Armed with this feedback, they will make recommendations around process improvement. This survey is completely anonymous. There is an optional addition of your name and email if you'd like to speak in further detail. The survey can be found
here.
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Hospital IQR Program Registration
Key Takeaway: On Wednesday, April 18, CMS will host a webinar titled
Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program CY 2018 Voluntary Reporting: Hybrid Hospital-Wide 30-Day Readmission Measure Overview.
Why It Matters: The webinar will go from 2-3 p.m. (EST) and you can register
here. If you can't make the presentation, you will be able to view the slides
here under "Upcoming Events" the day before the presentation.
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Click here to view our
CHIME Public Policy Playbook
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College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME)
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