Chapter Advocacy Roundtable (CAR) Monthly Call July 17, 2020 1 1
Agenda • Opening Remarks • Open Discussion • Government Affairs • Announcements 2
COVID-19 Open Discussion State Spotlights: • Passage of Florida HB 1391 • OCHIN and California Telehealth Network Updates • Colorado Telehealth Access Post-Coronavirus Pandemic Extension New Advocate updates? Advocacy Mentorship • 3
Government Updates • Social Determinants: On July 16, HIMSS hosted a webinar on how state, local, and national governments are taking on social determinants of health efforts to enable health equity. View recording here. • Telehealth: HIMSS supported a bipartisan House bill aimed at protecting telehealth advances post-COVID 19 • Preparedness: On June 26, HIMSS and PCHAlliance submitted a letter in response to Preparing for the Next Pandemic, a white paper by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Chairman of the U.S. Senate HELP Committee. See summary of letter here. • Patient ID: HIMSS became Founding Member of Patient ID Coalition. HIMSS joined several other leading healthcare organizations in the formation of Patient ID Now, a national coalition committed to addressing the issue of patient identification by advocating for legislation and regulations. 4
Telehealth Update Two weeks ago HIMSS and 17 HIMSS Chapters (!) helped lead an incredible group of 340 • healthcare organizations in a letter to Congressional Leaders outlining the immediate actions necessary to ensure CMS has the authority to continue to make telehealth services available once the national health emergency is rescinded. • Link to letter: http://connectwithcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Post-COVID- Telehealth-Priorities-Group-Letter-FIN.pdf. The letter outlined the four main reform priorities to protect Medicare beneficiary access to telehealth services post-COVID 19. Following up on that letter, yesterday members of the Congressional Telehealth Caucus • introduced the Protecting Access to Post-COVID 19 Telehealth Act. • This bill, led by Representatives Mike Thompson, Peter Welch, Bill Johnson, David Schweikert, and Doris Matsui, will continue the expanded use of telehealth beyond the Coronavirus pandemic by eliminating restrictions on the use in Medicare. 5
Protecting Access to Post-COVID 19 Telehealth Act Specifically, the bill has three key buckets. • • First, It would make permanent the HHS Secretary’s waiver authority over 1834m restrictions during ANY public health emergency and give a 90 day buffer for waivers to sunset after the emergency is rescinded • Second, it makes permanent the change that FQHCs and Rural Health Clinics can serve as eligible distant sites to provide telehealth services and be reimbursed for those services • And finally it removes all geographic limitations for originating sites under 1834(m) and adds the patients home as an eligible originating site, again regardless of geographic location The hope is that this bill will make it into the next House-passed COVID Relief Package. • • Here’s a link to Representative Thompson’s press release with a quote from HIMSS CEO Hal Wolf: https://mikethompson.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/thompson-welch-johnson-schweikert-matsui- introduce-the-protecting-access-to 6
Telehealth continued In a blog post on July 15 th , CMS Administrator Seema Verma doubled down • on CMS’s commitment to ensuring telehealth will be available to Medicare beneficiaries beyond COVID-19. • Administrator Verma asserted in the clearest terms yet that “CMS remains committed to ensuring that the government supports innovation in telehealth that leverages modern technology to enhance patient experience, providing more accessible care.” • She outlined the three key issues CMS is evaluating to review the temporary changes made and assess which of these flexibilities should be made permanent through regulatory action. The blog post can be found here: https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200715.454789/full/ 7
OIG Civil Money Penalty Rule On June 23rd, HIMSS and PCHAlliance submitted joint comments on this proposed rule which is focused on facilitating • broader data exchange across the entire healthcare ecosystem and enforcement around occurrences of information blocking as well as CMPs. Major highlights • • Enhanced coordination efforts among HHS agencies are necessary, particularly with ONC, on how the CMP Regulation will align with ONC’s Interoperability and Information Blocking Regulation, as well as how to ensure the community is better informed ab out all of the compliance and enforcement dates where the regulations intersect and overlap. • The existence of significant uncertainty across stakeholders about which entities should be considered health information networks/health information exchanges, healthcare providers or meet the definition of both regulated actors • Request that OIG exercise its enforcement discretion and delay imposing CMPs for six months after publication of the Final Regulation • Prioritize the development of sub- regulatory guidance to keep the community updated on OIG’s current thought processes on information blocking and how it is approaching various instances of potential violations during investigations. • Request HHS OIG align the factors that it will consider for investigations with similar work undertaken across HHS, e.g. OCR and HIPAA investigations View the Letter to OIG. 8
FCC 5G Fund for Rural America On June 25th, HIMSS and PCHAlliance submitted joint comments in response to • this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking requesting feedback on the establishment of the FCC 5G Fund for Rural America. Major highlights • • HIMSS & PCHAlliance were supportive of the overall Fund and deployment of the fund, which would use multi-round reverse actions to distribute up to $9 billion over the next decade and beyond to bring voice and 5G broadband services to rural areas of the country. • We recommended FCC delay deployment of funds until there was better quality data to rely on to determine what areas the funds were to be deployed. • Specifically, we urged to lean more on the requirements put forth in the recently enacted Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act. View the Letter to FCC. 9
Direct Hospital Reporting to HHS/ASPR COVID-19 Guidance for Hospital Reporting and FAQs For Hospitals, Hospital Laboratory, and Acute Care Facility Data Reporting Updated July 10, 2020. See: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-faqs-hospitals- hospital-laboratory-acute-care-facility-data-reporting.pdf What are the potential issues relating to the separation of healthcare and public health data that may make it more challenging to respond to the pandemic? Pandemics are not the time to change data collection practices CDC should not be bypassed in data collection The DMI is essential and needs ongoing funding We need authorizing language to ensure we build a system that lasts beyond COVID-19 10
Announcements 11
Upcoming Webinars Florida webinar • July 30th at 12:00 pm ET • State and Local Policy Learning Lab: How Health IT Can Support On-the-Ground • Social Determinant of Health Initiatives Save the Date: Wed, August 12 at 3:30 – 5:00pm ET • Chapter Leader Virtual Meetup |Transition best practice sharing • August 19 at 1:00 – 2:00pm ET • Full Chapter Leader schedule and recordings/slides on the CLRA. • 12
Thank you! Suggested monthly tasks: • • For new advocates: explore the CLRA Advocacy page • Create FY advocacy plan (see example template here) • Accountability Reporting on advocacy Review CAR call slides and recordings • posted on the CLRA. (Get Involved CAR Calls) Next monthly call: August 21 at 12pm ET • 13
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