VA intrigue continues
With help from Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202) and Mohana Ravindranath (@ravindranize)
VA INTRIGUE CONTINUES: VA Secretary David Shulkin’s top PR man lobbied Capitol Hill to demand his boss’s resignation, according to a USA Today article late Wednesday. The report, which was denied by John Ullyot, the agency’s assistant secretary for public affairs, said Ullyot asked a senior aide at the House Veterans Affairs Committee to persuade lawmakers to call the White House and say they wanted Shulkin out.
If true, it would certainly back up Shulkin’s claims that he is facing “subversion” from within the agency. For now, he seems to enjoy strong backing from VA committee members of both parties as well as the powerful veteran service organizations.
The paper quoted two sources who said Ullyot made the request in a call initiated by VA Press Secretary Curt Cashour the day after the release of an inspector general’s report that Shulkin had misused taxpayer dollars during a trip to London and Copehagen.
Ullyot and Cashour issued a joint statement in which they flatly denied the story and said the call was aimed at refuting reports that Shulkin’s chief of staff’s email had been hacked. A spokesperson for Vets Chairman Phil Roe told our colleague Arthur Allen that Shulkin and his deputy, Thomas Bowman (another target of VA ‘subversives,’ per the Washington Post) “have his full support.”
— More on the whole hacking thing: There’s no evidence that doctored emails from the former Veterans Affairs Department chief of staff were hacked externally, the VA’s office of the inspector general concluded in the latest chapter in Secretary David Shulkin’s travel imbroglio. Shulkin had told POLITICO that there were signs chief of staff Vivieca Wright Simpson’s email had been hacked when he was asked about the controversy surrounding taxpayer-funded travel for his wife.
However, on Tuesday he backed off that idea, and the IG agrees. It “now believes that the allegations of ‘hacking’ are limited to unrelated and relatively unsophisticated ‘spoofing’ of Ms. Wright Simpson’s identity through messages sent from an external, non-VA email address,” the IG wrote to the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
“Accountability at VA will always be paramount and I expect VA will take additional actions if appropriate after VA completes its review of the OIG’s report,” said Rep. Tim Walz, top Democrat on the committee, who released the IG letter.
WHITE HOUSE INTEROPERABILITY MEETINGS CONTINUE: The White House has been holding more meetings on interoperability, we’re told by multiple sources who attended Tuesday. That gathering was insurance industry-focused, with Humana’s CEO Bruce Broussard and executives from Anthem, Centene, Cigna, and BlueCross BlueShield (both from the wider association and one of the state companies) in attendance. Ceci Connolly, head of the Association of Community Health Plans, also went to the meeting. Both Don Rucker and Seema Verma listened in from the government side.
According to notes from one attendee, the industry participants discussed the benefits of interoperability for payers and the health care system broadly, with requests for policy changes on HIPAA, 42 CFR Part 2, and universal patient identifiers aired.
eHealth tweets of the day: Vineeta Agarwala @vintweeta Quick rant: #EHR documentation norms need to take a page out of the genomic data playbook. You can only report a negative finding when you ACTUALLY assessed for it!
So tired of seeing “normal” physical exam findings and “negative” review of systems in notes, when it’s almost certain that the writer did not assess for everything in the EHR checkbox “smart” form.
THURSDAY: Technology is in revolt against your correspondent: one computer has taken to turning off at inconvenient moments, and a wireless speaker won’t interface with his computer. Advise how to quell unrest at [email protected]. Discuss technology at @ravindranize, @arthurallen202, @dariustahir, @POLITICOPro, @Morning_eHealth.
SPATE OF eHEALTH-RELATED BILLS: A lot of eHealth-y legislative activity percolated Wednesday:
— Telemedicine package: Reps. Doris Matsui and Gregg Harper have unveiled the draft of a bill that would allow mental health and addiction treatment centers to facilitate the virtual prescription of controlled substances to their patients.
The bill was considered as part of the day-long House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing on combating the opioid epidemic. The draft doesn’t specifically mention opioid addiction treatment medication, but those therapies are often controlled substances.
The bill would amend the Ryan Haight Act — itself an amendment to the Controlled Substances Act — that bans the delivery, distribution and dispensation of certain drugs online without a valid prescription. Today, state-licensed hospitals and clinics that have registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration are authorized to offer a virtual prescription system to their patients.
The bill, called “Improving Access to Remote Behavioral Health Treatment,” would allow certain community health centers to obtain such authorization. “Access to treatment continues to be a major hurdle in many communities fighting the opioid crisis,” Matsui said in a news release. Congress needs a comprehensive approach toward using telemedicine to increase access to health care, she said. More for Pros here.
— Pallone on telemedicine: House Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone has some concerns about telemedicine and the opioid crisis. During a hearing Wednesday on the epidemic, he expressed reservations about the use of telemedicine, saying that while it “holds the potential to expand treatment options for those suffering, we must carefully consider how we can safeguard against further abuse or misuse of controlled substances.”
— ePrescription bill introduced: A bipartisan group of four Senators have introduced a bill requiring the use of ePrescribing for controlled substances in Medicare. The Every Prescription Conveyed Securely Act — co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Dean Heller, Pat Toomey, and Michael Bennet — would generally require electronic prescribing of controlled substances by January 2020, though HHS can define certain exceptions. It’s a companion bill to House legislation of the same name.
-- Senators introduce Sickle Cell bill: Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced legislation Wednesday to combat sickle cell disease. The bill would empower HHS to make grants to organizations conducting public health surveillance and collecting data on sickle cell patients, among other initiatives.
FDA SEEKS DATA ON PRESCRIPTIONS: The FDA intends to award up to a five-year contract, for up to $500,000, for data related to health care practitioner prescribing practices, the agency announced.
The solicitation stems from the 21st Century Cures Act; the agency wants to analyze post-market surveillance data to uncover safety problems with drugs. Data might include patient demographics and surveys about outpatient treatment.
ONLINE VISION CARE TELEHEALTH GROUP LAUNCHES: A coalition of organizations supporting online vision care launched Wednesday. A number of states have passed laws restricting access to online vision care, such as the prescription of contact lenses; the group, calling itself Americans for Vision Care Innovation, intends to roll back legislative restrictions. Members include Americans for Tax Reform, online contact lens startup Opternative, and the National Hispanic Medical Association. The group’s website is here.
HOW’S COMPLIANCE?: Cybersecurity compliance at provider and payer organizations is poor, a survey from Accenture and HIMSS reveals. The organizations contacted more than 900 individuals — about two-thirds from providers, and a third from payers — and found that employees can be rather casual about protecting their organization’s data. 18 percent of respondents said they’d be willing to sell access to their organization’s data, and a similar percentage admit to poor compliance with password and other security policies.
WHAT WE’RE CLICKING ON:
Law firm Crowell and Moring forecasts regulatory activity in 2018.
Gail Wilensky, administrator of the predecessor to CMS, weighs in on MACRA in the latest New England Journal of Medicine issue.
STAT discusses patients who want their medical device data.
Oschner, Epic and Microsoft are partnering on a predictive analytics initiative.
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