{"id":2137,"date":"2023-01-23T20:50:56","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T20:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thornrun.com\/health-policy-report-1-23\/"},"modified":"2023-08-18T16:07:20","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T16:07:20","slug":"health-policy-report-1-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thornrun.com\/health-policy-report-1-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Policy Report (1\/23)"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Both chambers of Congress will return for legislative business this week, starting with the Senate later today, followed by the House on Tuesday. On the floor, House Republican leadership has queued up a dozen\u00a0suspension bills<\/a>\u00a0for consideration, including legislation<\/a>\u00a0that would nix the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) leasing authority. Lawmakers will take up a pair of measures related to disaster relief that would: (1) establish an online repository of certain reporting requirements for recipients of federal disaster assistance (H.R. 259<\/a>); and (2) conduct a study that focuses on streamlining and consolidating information collection and preliminary damage assessment (H.R. 255<\/a>). In the upper chamber, Senators will hold a final up-or-down vote on Brendan Owens’ nomination to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense. Meanwhile, the current expectation on Capitol Hill is that all committee assignments in both chambers will be completed this week as lawmakers look to begin committee work for the 118th Congress in earnest.\u00a0 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Energy and Commerce\r\nDemocrats Put Pressure on NIH, FDA to Report on Clinical Trials<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

House Energy and\r\nCommerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) sent aletter<\/a> last week to the\r\nFood and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH)\r\ninquiring about the agencies\u2019 requirement to publicly report clinical trial\r\nresults. Pallone harped on the NIH\u2019s failure to report trial results on\r\nClinicalTrials.gov, referencing a recent report<\/a> from the\r\nDepartment of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General\r\n(OIG). He also pointed towards The FDA\u2019s lack of adequate enforcement, as the\r\nagency is supposed to warn companies and trial investigators when results are\r\nnot reported (which it has not done). Pallone\u2019s frustrations echo a similar letter<\/a> that Republican\r\nlawmakers sent to the NIH last fall, which cites the same OIG study. After that\r\nletter, the NIH and FDA sent some warning letters \u2014 which seemed to be\r\neffective \u2014 but there appeared to be no sustained effort to improve the lack of\r\npublicly available trial results. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Bipartisan Lawmakers\r\nCoalesce Around Medicare Payment Policy<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

After the December\r\n2022 omnibus bill mitigated several physician payment cuts facing Medicare\r\nproviders, lawmakers want to search for a more permanent fix for this recurring\r\ncrisis while the iron is still hot. This effort represents a bipartisan issue\r\nfor lawmakers with a medical background who want to see physicians get a pay\r\nraise in the next few years. Statutory cuts to Medicare physician payments are\r\nintended to go into effect each year, though Congress generally reduces or\r\neliminates the cuts to some extent, providing what doctors generally perceive\r\nas a last-minute move to soften the blow of lower payments. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In the context of the\r\nU.S. provider shortage, many stakeholders view payment cuts as having a\r\nparticularly adverse impact on low-income and rural patients. Bipartisan\r\nlawmakers interested in identifying policy solutions include Reps. Larry\r\nBucshon (R-IN), Michael Burgess (R-TX), Raul Ruiz (D-CA), and Kim Schrier\r\n(D-WA), among other members of key committees overseeing the Medicare program.\r\nHowever, differing political pressures on both sides of the aisle may prove to\r\nbe a hurdle for bipartisan agreement, as some Republicans are looking to\r\ndecrease Medicare spending in the midst of these funding shortfalls.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Senator Warner to\r\nExamine Health Care Cybersecurity <\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Sen. Mark Warner\r\n(D-VA) announced he intends to introduce legislation during the first half of\r\n2023 to protect patients\u2019 health care data. Back in November of last year, he\r\nissued areport<\/a> that asserted\r\nthat adopting minimum standards for data could mitigate many of the privacy\r\ndangers facing patients. Warner\u2019s report suggested that imposing new\r\ncybersecurity regulations could be accomplished by linking Medicare and\r\nMedicaid payments to data requirements, though the Senator has also suggested\r\ncircumventing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and instilling\r\na health care cybersecurity point person directly within the White House.\r\nWarner is not alone in working to fulfill these aspirations to secure patients\u2019\r\nhealth care data. He has hinted that he\u2019s been trading ideas with Sens. Bill\r\nCassidy (R-LA) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), both of whom sit on the Senate Health,\r\nEducation, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee.  <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

988 Hotline Sees Boost\r\nin Utilization <\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The 988 Hotline \u2014 a newly minted program serving as an alternative to 911 for Americans experiencing mental health crises \u2014 is experiencing positive results. Since its inception in July of 2022, wait times are going down as demand for the service rises. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA), the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) handling the hotline, reported that it is seeing a large uptick in texts and chats, especially among younger people. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As of September, SAMHSA has been partnering with the Trevor Project to train 988 counselors in sensitivity training for the LQBTQIA+ community. The agency is using new funding from the December 2022 omnibus spending bill to further expand its cultural competency training for Native communities as well as build a foundation for a video chat option to accommodate those with hearing disabilities. The congressional funding influx will be directed towards network capacity as well, such as hiring counselors and enhancing the Spanish-speaking network. Still, however, much of the 988 hotline Is enabled through state-based funding, which is leading to patchy success rates. Only 16 states have passed legislation to permanently fund the crisis hotline, and the U.S.\u2019s shortage of mental health professionals is pervasive. <\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Both chambers of Congress will return for legislative business this week, starting with the Senate later today, followed by the House on Tuesday. On the floor, House Republican leadership has queued up a dozen\u00a0suspension bills\u00a0for consideration, including legislation\u00a0that would nix the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) leasing authority. Lawmakers will take up a pair of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHealth Policy Report (1\/23) - thornrun<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thornrun.com\/health-policy-report-1-23\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Health Policy Report (1\/23) - thornrun\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Both chambers of Congress will return for legislative business this week, starting with the Senate later today, followed by the House on Tuesday. On the floor, House Republican leadership has queued up a dozen\u00a0suspension bills\u00a0for consideration, including legislation\u00a0that would nix the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) leasing authority. 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