The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will present a webinar on the recently released Certification Programs for HIT Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). The webinar will be On March 25, 2010 from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. EDT.
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This is “Cover the Uninsured Week” (March 14-20) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) released today a stunning report entitled “Barely Hanging On: Middle-class and Uninsured.” This report concludes what we all know to be true, that the two recessions of the 21st century have had a huge impact on people’s ability to obtain insurance–and employers’ ability to offer it. As providers across the country see bad debt and charity care numbers rising at an alarming rate, this report confirms the root cause for this phenomenon. For our rural citizens and providers, these percentages are higher and have a greater relative impact.
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This notice was just issued by Amy Hall, Director, Office of Legislation, CMS:
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will instruct all of its Medicare contractors not to evaluate or enforce the supervision requirements for therapeutic services provided to outpatients in Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) for the duration of calendar year (CY) 2010. The final 2010 hospital outpatient prospective payment system rule had specified that a “direct supervision” standard is required for therapeutic services furnished in hospital outpatient departments. CMS believed this requirement to be a clarification of longstanding policy, but the rule has generated concern among some rural providers who had previously interpreted the CMS policy to require only “general supervision” and who believe that it may be difficult to meet this requirement.
CMS plans to revisit the issue of supervision for therapeutic services provided to hospital outpatients in CAHs through the annual rulemaking cycle for CY 2011. CMS continues to expect CAHs to fulfill all other Medicare program requirements when providing services to Medicare beneficiaries and when billing Medicare for those services. While CMS is instructing contractors not to enforce the supervision requirements in CAHs for CY 2010, we continue to emphasize quality and safety for services provided to all patients in CAHs.
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NRHA has submitted its comments to CMS regarding the proposed regulations to implement portions of the HITECH section of ARRA. NRHA’s letter outlines our support for the widespread adoption of HIT in rural areas but we are very concerned that many rural providers will not be able to access any of the incentive money. For this reason, we lay out suggestions that would make HITECH program more “rural friendly.” The comments are due today at 5:00 pm ET. Please submit a comment and feel free to use our letter as a guide.
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Today the Department of Health and Human Services released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the Establishment of Certification Programs for Health Information Technology (Health IT). The rule first proposes the creation of a temporary certification program for Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and EHR modules. This serves as a bridge to the second, permanent certification proposal, which establishes detailed guidelines to support an ongoing program of testing and certification of health IT. The meaningful use of certified EHR technology is a requirement for qualifying for incentive payments under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentives program. The temporary program therefore is critical as it assures the availability of Certified EHR Technology prior to the date on which health care providers may begin demonstrating meaningful use.
Significant stakeholder feedback was taken into account as these rules were developed, including formal recommendations from the HIT Policy Committee (a Federal Advisory Committee). Other comments are invited on the proposed rule which can be made at http://www.regulations.gov during the public comment period.
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According to a recently released Center for Rural Affairs’ report, approximately one in three rural Americans living in communities with fewer than 2,500 residents will be uninsured by 2019. Throughout the remainder of rural America, approximately one in four residents will likely go without health care coverage and the annual cost of health care for all rural households will rise from $2,705 to nearly $4,700 on average.
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