Weekend Update / Miscellany

• Following up on last Sunday's post, the Health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be holding on June 4 at 10 am a business meeting on the discussion draft of the health information technology legislation that a bipartisan group of Committee members has developed.
• Modern Healthcare Online and Government Health IT report no big commercial payer problems associated with the end of the HIPAA National Provider Identifier contingency period on May 23.
  
• In an interesting development, the State of Connecticut has filed suit in federal court in Boston against McKesson Corp. based on the alleged average wholesale price fixing scheme that is the subject of a private class action in the same court. The private sector class action was brought against McKesson and its alleged co-conspirator First Databank, Inc. (New England Carpenters Health Benefits Fund et al v. First Databank, Inc., et al., Civil Action No. 1:05-cv-11148-PBS. The class plaintiffs counsel and First Databank have proposed a revised settlement to the court after the court reject the first agreement. The class plaintiffs continue to litigate against McKesson. The Connecticut Attorney General sued McKesson, but not First Databank.
• It's also worth noting that Health Net, a large managed care company, and various class action plaintiffs are proposing a settlement agreement to a federal court in New Jersey where the subject of the dispute is out of network reimbursement levels. Health Net is one of the defendants in the class action filed in Connecticut federal court against Ingenix, the company that develops out of network reimbursement (UCR) schedules, and various managed care companies.