2018 Comment Letters

FY2019 Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS)

PBGH, along with 18 other consumers and purchasers, signed on to the C-P Alliance’s comment letter on the FY2019 Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) proposed rule. This proposed rule represents some of the most significant changes to CMS’s hospital and other inpatient programs since their inception. Through the C-P Alliance comment letter, we urge CMS to maintain the current systems for reporting quality measures while investing in technical and/or policy solutions that would allow providers to report a measure once for use in multiple programs. The proposed approach — to reduce provider reporting burden by streamlining (i.e., removing or de-duplicating) measures across CMS’s various hospital programs — is short-sighted and threatens the public’s right to quality transparency. Please find the comment letter here.

In Support of Pending Legislation H.R. 5138

PBGH signed on to two letters in support of pending legislation H.R. 5138 which would expand HSA regulations to better enable access to primary care and chronic disease management. The letter directed to the Senate Finance Committee urged them to support changes to HSA regulations to allow greater flexibility to offer first-dollar coverage of services and medications for chronic disease prevention; and the letter directed to the House of Representatives applauds their leadership in introducing the pending legislation which addresses many of the regulatory challenges faced by providers in implementing HSAs. Read the full comment letters here and here.

 

Electronic Access to Complete Health Records

PBGH issues email statement to CMS: Health Care Purchasers Support Actions to Provide Patients with Electronic Access to their Complete Health Record