The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for September 22-28.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents.

The White House

President Biden has signed H.R. 2544, the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act,  which provides for awarding multiple grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements to operate the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

Congress

Congressional leaders have not come to agreement on how to avert a federal government shutdown this weekend.  While Senate leaders introduced a continuing resolution that would fund the government through November 17, that bill has not passed the Senate, and in the House, Speaker McCarthy has said that chamber will not consider such a measure.  House Republicans have not proposed a continuing resolution.

Critical health and human services programs would continue during a federal government shutdown, including Medicare payments and Medicaid funding for the states, although some delays could be possible.  Find HHS’s FY 2024 contingency staffing plan here and CMS’s plan here.

Without congressional action before October 1, $8 billion in reductions to state Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) allotments will begin to go into effect and it will be up to …

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for September 15 – 21.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents.

Congress

• With only nine days left in the current federal fiscal year, Congress still has not agreed on any kind of spending bill to keep the federal government operating past September 30.  If the federal government shuts down, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will “use the full extent of the authority under the Antideficiency Act (ADA) to maintain existing HHS activities…”  In previous shutdowns, Medicare has continued to pay providers and that policy is not expected to change.  You can review the HHS contingency staffing plan here.
• The House of Representatives planned to vote this week on H.R. 5378, the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act that called for the elimination of Medicaid DSH cuts for two years; increased requirements for hospital price transparency; and a number of site-neutral payment policies.  House leaders ultimately pulled the bill from consideration this week but have signaled that they intend to return to the legislation later this year.  View a section-by-section summary of H.R. 5378 here.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for September 1-7.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents.

Congress

House Republicans plan to introduce the Lower Cost, More Transparency Act for consideration before the end of the year.  This bill includes provisions passed by three committees with health care jurisdiction:  House Ways & Means, Energy & Commerce, and Education & Workforce.   Some of the bill’s provisions would:

• eliminate scheduled Medicaid DSH cuts for FY 2024 and FY 2025;
• reauthorize and extend funding for the Community Health Center program, the National Health Service Corps, and the Teaching Health Centers that Operate GME program;
• establishing site-neutral payments by reducing Medicare payments for drug administration services at all hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) to the same rate paid in non-hospital-based physician offices; and
• increase reporting requirements for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and ban certain spread pricing practices.

A few provisions included in bills already approved by Ways & Means and Energy & Commerce are excluded from this proposed legislation.  The draft of the Lower Cost, More Transparency Act does not include provisions that would:

• require providers to obtain location-specific National Provider Identifiers (NPIs) for each

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for March 13-16.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents.

Congress

• Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has introduced a bill, the “Primary Care and Health Workforce Expansion Act.”  The bill would:
• • Increase funding for community health centers by $65 billion over five years, fund the National Health Service Corps at $8.3 billion over five years, and provide $250 million for HRSA coordination for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program.
• • Add 10,000 graduate medical education (GME) slots over five years; reauthorize the Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education Program and the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Program; and reauthorize, expand, and fund other teaching and training programs for primary care, rural health care, and programs at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
  • Reauthorize, expand, and create training programs and grant and loan programs to increase the number of nurses.
  • Reauthorize and increase funding to increase the number of dentists,
  • Create new programs and fund existing programs to expand the behavioral health workforce, the direct care workforce, and the number of family caregivers.

To …

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for May 12-18.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents.

Congress

The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee has approved and advanced five bipartisan health care bills.

• H.R. 3281 combined a number of proposals into a larger package and includes provisions that would:
  • delay for two years Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) cuts currently scheduled to take effect on October 1;
  • require health providers to use a unique identifier for each off-campus or remote outpatient department beginning in 2026;
  • change how Medicare pays off-campus hospital outpatient departments that are currently paid the site-neutral rate under the outpatient prospective payment system.  Those departments would submit a professional bill instead of a hospital bill and would be paid the physician fee schedule rate.  The bill does not expand site-neutral payment policy to off-campus hospital outpatient departments that are currently excepted; and
  • reauthorize and increase funding for teaching health centers, community health centers, and the National Health Services Corps.
• H.R. 2666 would enable states to strike outcomes-based contracts for prescription drugs, which the committee believes would help improve access and reduce costs for expensive gene and