King in the rearview mirror; Good for health IT? — E/C releases new 21st Century draft — Waiting for CMS smoke signal on ICD-10

With help from David Pittman and Darius Tahir

DEATH OF KING COULD BE GOOD FOR HEALTH IT: Now that the Supreme Court has tossed out the bid to eliminate ACA subsidies to 6 million newly insured people, the health IT world is hoping that the Hill will renew its focus on issues dear to our hearts. “Our hope is this will spark a continued bipartisan focus on interoperability and telemedicine,” said Joel White, executive director of the Health IT Now Coalition. “With the ruling effectively upholding the status quo there’s more predictability that the health IT committees of jurisdiction will continue to move forward on current [priority] issues like interoperability, telehealth and meaningful use,” HIMSS said in a statement. Many GOP leaders still want to kill Obamacare rather than moving on to other issues, though. And that could draw energy out of health IT reform. “I really don’t know if this decision would take some speed out of the process or slow things down,” says Jeff Smith, vice president of the American Medical Informatics Association. “I certainly hope not.” Pros get the whole story here: http://politico.pro/1Hjocpu

ENERGY AND COMMERCE CIRCULATE NEW 21ST CENTURY CURES BILL: The 1,027-page document includes the legislative text, background and explanation of the provisions in the bill. It does not include the final offsets, which are still under negotiation. Committee and industry sources tell our colleague Bret Norman that the $5 billion that was to come from Medicare Part D plans has been pulled from the package, to be replaced by several smaller pieces, which will likely include a small “haircut” from the drug industry. The report: http://politico.pro/1GLw6oc

— E&C has also reached an agreement with the Appropriations Committee to make the $10 billion for NIH and $550 million for FDA mandatory money, but will allow appropriators to specify how it is spent within the categories laid out in the bill, committee sources say. Aides on both sides of the E&C aisle are very confident the bill will pass. “It’s not about whether we get to 218 anymore,” said a Democratic aide. “It’s how high we can run up the score and the momentum and get the Senate to act.”

— The bill released late Thursday contained no substantial changes in language concerning interoperability, regulation of health software or telemedicine, but added language stressing the value of long-distance care and urging the federal government to avoid unnecessary regulation.

Tweet of the day: ‏@ samsteinhp That Senate aide responsible for the drafting error in the ACA must be so ****ing relieved right now. If you’re out there, call me!

Welcome to Friday’s ehealth report, where we’re enjoying the evening T-storms that relieve us of the duty to water our tomatoes and eggplants (and beans and, inshallah, peppers). Keep it up, weather Gods. And send us vegetables, tips and story ideas @ arthurallen202 or [email protected]. Or aim your thoughts and tweets at my bold young colleagues: @ david_pittman, @ dariustahir.

TIGHTEN YOUR BELT, ONC: The Senate Appropriations Committee, like the House the day before, on Thursday passed a budget that holds ONC’s funding at $60.4 million — and it directs $5 million of that to the Precision Medicine Initiative. Unlike the House bill, the Senate version doesn’t terminate the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality — it just cuts its funding by $100 million. The Senate committee also directed HHS to report within 180 days on efforts to improve coordination of eHealth and telemedicine work across federal agencies.

… LIKE A BROKEN RECORD: Senate appropriators again included a prohibition on creating a national patient identifier — considered key to health information exchange — in the spending bill. Section 510 contains the same language, verbatim, as the House committee’s. Health IT experts have clamored to have it stricken from annual spending bills as a way to ensure patient records are matched with the correct patient when shared among providers.

DOCS AWAIT WORD FROM CMS ON ICD-10 ‘TRANSITION’: CMS is still studying whether to allow a transition period for submitting ICD-10 coded claims when the complicated new system hits Oct. 1. The American Medical Association and others have been calling for a “safe harbor” or “grace period” during which physicians wouldn’t have claims denied for ICD-10 coding errors, mistakes or other malfunctions of the billing system. Legislation was recently introduced in the House that would create a two-year transition period. Doctors don’t want to be financially harmed for moving from ICD-9 to ICD-10, where the potential for mistakes increases because the skyrocketing number of diagnostic and procedure codes. Health IT experts — both those who favor and oppose ICD-10 — say some sort of a transition is possible but depends on details outlined by CMS and other payers. Pro story here: http://politico.pro/1QRSnsp.

INTERMOUNTAIN EXECS SAY MEANINGFUL USE IS USED UP: During a sit-down with POLITICO eHealth reporters Thursday morning, CIO Mark Probst and CMIO Stan Huff, both members of the ONC’s advisory committees, were blunter than folks usually are in those august debating bodies: They said that HHS should skip Stage 3, claim victory and end the meaningful use program. “I’d like to see it stopped,” said Probst. “I think stage 3 is useless.” In the future, the pair suggested, health IT policy would be better focused on the areas of privacy, security and interoperability. Incentivizing providers is probably the best way to drive needed software innovations.

HEALTHEWAY? THAT’S ‘THE SEQUOIA PROJECT’ TO YOU, BUB: The health IT nonprofit Healtheway has renamed itself the Sequoia Project, says CEO Mariann Yeager. Why sequoia and not maple — or douglas fir, or catalpa for that matter? Because “each [sequoia] tree can stand alone, but when there is a cluster of trees, their shallow root systems connect, supporting each other and accelerating their growth.” Sequoia trees can interoperate! The name changes but the song remains the same: the group will continue overseeing Carequality and the eHealth Exchange, while expanding to incorporate new data exchange initiatives and expanding education and research, according to a news release.

FDA SEEKS WAYS TO USE EHR DATA IN CLINICAL TRIALS: The FDA’s drug center is interested in a demonstration project to study the capability of pulling data from EHRs to use in clinical trials. In a Federal Register notice Thursday, the agency asked for feedback from stakeholders on how to make this practice possible.

TWO FOUR SIX EIGHT, WAY TO INTEROPERATE!: Playing pro football is risky for your brain. But at least the league’s medical software has good interoperability, NFL docs told a congressional briefing Thursday. When injured players get carried off the field “we have immediate access to x-rays as they’re taken,” said Matt Matava, team doctor for the St. Louis Rams. The league has developed a software program that scores players’ brain functions, returning results within six minutes, and it contains longitudinal records of brain scores for comparison. This and other innovation “makes for a very complete medical record, which the player has full access to,” said Michelle McKenna-Doyle, the league’s chief information officer.

WHAT WE’RE CLICKING:

Technology and the end of work, per an Atlantic cover story http://theatln.tc/1GlzXG6

Another survey showing that docs spend too much time catering to their EHRs’ needs http://bit.ly/1BGh4RE

Theranos tries to shake up the market http://econ.st/1Hkkkmd

Oscar, a new company, uses tech to make consumers less grouchy http://usat.ly/1fGqYZK

LGBT health study comes to the iPhone http://bzfd.it/1Ih9WfW