Senate passes big VA bill
With help from Mohana Ravindranath (@ravindranize) and David Pittman (@David_Pittman)
SENATE PASSES BIG VA BILL: The Senate passed the VA Mission Act Wednesday, a week after the House gave its approval to a companion bill. In the big picture perspective, the legislation will put billions of dollars on the fiscal tab to shore up the Department of Veterans Affairs’ private care system. But it also has some relevant nooks and crannies for health IT watchers.
For example, the bill (S. 2193 (115)) expands the categories of information that can be shared for some payment purposes, and requires implementation of an IT system to assess the department’s family caregiver program by June 1. The legislation also provides Congressional imprimatur to a licensure initiative begun during Shulkin’s tenure, allowing for VA providers to practice telemedicine across state lines.
Hosannas filled your correspondent’s inbox after the passage of the bill. The Concerned Veterans of America, a conservative group, predictably praised the bill — which will shore up a favorite program for conservatives, the private care plan. The American Medical Association also broadly affirmed the bill.
But a number of other, less predictable, groups weighed in. The Sequoia Project and eHealth Exchange — two affiliated groups working to promote interoperability — also praised the bill.
“With the passage of VA Mission Act, we hope to see exponential improvements in health data sharing between community providers and the Veterans Health Administration, with the resulting benefits of patient satisfaction and health outcomes,” said eHealth Exchange vice president Jay Nakashima. The Sequoia Project’s Mariann Yeager had similar sentiments.
Health IT Now was enthused by the telemedicine portion of the bill. “"For too long, veterans have dealt with inflexible laws requiring them to travel long distances to federal facilities in order to receive care from a VA provider located in another state,” said the group’s executive director, Joel White. He concluded by publicly hoping for yet more telemedicine-related legislation.
The bill awaits Trump’s signature.
eHealth tweet of the day: Jonathan Rockoff @jonathanrockoff “1st thing @PureTechH does with promising early science is run the same experiment behind an academic publication, @daphnezohar tells #WSJHealth. Half the time, they can’t repeat the results. Sometimes it takes two or three tries.”
THURSDAY: Your correspondent has heard a distressing amount of optimism about the weather, surprise at the speed at which the week has passed by and graciousness regarding the lack of news. Is everyone just jinxing it? Discuss with [email protected]. Express a more jaundiced view of the world in its natural home — social media — with @arthurallen202, @dariustahir, @ravindranize, @POLITICOPro, @Morning_eHealth.
POLITICO and the South China Morning Post are partnering to expand coverage of U.S.-China relations. Read our note from POLITICO Editor-in-Chief John Harris and Editor Carrie Budoff Brown to learn more.
DISAPPOINTMENT FOR CPC: A Health Affairs paper published Wednesday was sour on one key Obama-era pilot payment plan, concluding the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative failed to lower Medicare spending or improve quality. But why? The team from Mathematica, which analyzed the four-year program’s result, gave a few reasons:
1) Weak financial incentives not only for primary care practices in the program, but for specialists they work with as well as patients.
2) Barriers to practice including reporting burden, limited access to data and poor health IT.
3) Other non-CPCI practices made improvements on their own, effectively raising the bar for the primary care practices to show results.
CPC and its close cousin, CPC+, had attracted much interest from health IT vendors and value-based pay enthusiasts — not all of it positive. CMMI has also struggled to demonstrate that its value-based pay models actually save money in practice.
ELSEWHERE IN CONGRESS: Several associations representing telemedicine companies are urging Sens. Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden to include in the final opioid package a measure designed to help Medicare beneficiaries pay for telemedicine treatment for substance abuse.
Sens. John Thune, Mark Warner, Ben Cardin, John Cornyn, Brian Schatz and Roger Wicker this week introduced the Expanding Telehealth Response to Ensure Addiction Treatment Act or eTreat Act, which would waive reimbursement restrictions tied to the originating site of care. In their letter to Congress, several groups including the Alliance for Connected Care and HIMSS cited an uptick in seniors addicted to opioids and noted that virtual treatment could address a shortage of behavioral therapists.
EPIC-CERNER BATTLE HEATS UP IN ILLINOIS: Back in April, a procurement battle began in Illinois when the state’s Procurement Policy Board voted to initiate a review of an EHR contract between Epic and University of Illinois Health at the instigation of competitor Cerner. The Kansas City EHR vendor had made charges of a financial conflict of interest between Epic and the advisors who made recommendations about the University’s decision.
That battle continued last week with a letter of protest from Epic’s CEO, Judy Faulkner, to the state procurement policy board. After dismissing charges of a conflict of interest, Faulkner gets to the company’s main contention, writing: “Epic is a better system.” It’s so much better, in fact, that most Illinois systems use Epic. Among other factors, Faulkner touts Epic users’ inherent ability to interoperate.
MONEY TIME: The NIH released a funding announcement for its “All of Us” genomic research program Wednesday. It’s looking for applicants who can generate and analyze vast amounts of genomic data. In its more detailed overview, NIH says it is seeking “unprecedented scale of genomic data generation, up to 200,000 assays per year,” among other criteria – like collaborativeness. The project period is five years, and applications are due by July 12. The agency wants to fund one to two awards in fiscal year 2018.
HITRUST CERTIFICATION PROGRAM: HITRUST announced this week it is opening a certification program for NIST’s cybersecurity program. The certification will allow participating organizations to demonstrate their cybersecurity bona fides.
FUNDING: AI startup OWKIN announced a new funding round from GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) earlier this week, bringing its total fundraise to $18 million. The startup wants to aid academic and pharmaceutical researchers, among others, to do their jobs better through machine learning.
WHAT WE’RE CLICKING ON
—Should tech entrepreneurs be aspiring to fix clinical trials?
—Are consumer genetics startups properly marketing their ability to precisely target depression-related therapies?
—What if EHRs allowed doctors to “subscribe” to your patients?
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