Weekend Update

Happy Mothers' Day!!  Congress is in session this week. On Wednesday morning, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will a hold a business meeting to consider among other items a bill (S 1910) that would extend FEHBP coverage to the same sex domestic partners of federal employees.

The Department of Health and Human Services trumpeted the announcement that it is "reduc[ing] unnecessary, obsolete, or burdensome regulations on American hospitals and health care providers. These steps will help achieve the key goal of President Obama’s regulatory reform initiative to reduce unnecessary burdens on business and save nearly $1.1 billion across the health care system in the first year and more than $5 billion over five years." Mind you these changes come on top of the recent announcement that the federal government has shelled out over $5 billion so far to fund the cost of electronic medical records systems for health care providers.

The FEHBlog has no problem with cutting red tape. What is notable, however, is that HHS contemporaneously heaped more red tape on health insurers by requiring them to their notify insureds that they are not required to  pay them a minimum loss ratio rebate for 2011.  Because the FEHBlog has been around for a while, he remembers when FEHB plans rebated reserves to insureds with OPM's approval in the 1980s. They were rewarded with class action lawsuits over the rebate calculation methodology. No good deed, etc.

Speaking of electronic transactions, Thursday May 17 is the public comment deadline for the proposed rule that establishes a health plan identifier for those transactions (after 15 years) and extends the ICD-10 code set compliance date by one year to October 1, 2014. Modern Healthcare reports that the American Medical Association, whose complaints lead to the one year delay, wants a two year extension at a minimum. CMIO reports that two large medical information trade associations, AHIMA and CHIME, have also weighed in. AHIMA wants no extension, and CHIME is ok with the one year extension.

Following up on last week's post about the IOM conference on the Nation's obesity problem, Kaiser Health News reports that doctors and insurers are the key to fighting obesity.  Body Mass Index tracking already is included in the NCQA HEDIS measures and the Affordable Care Act made obesity counselling a free service. It strikes the FEHBlog that personal responsibility should be the first line of defense against this problem.

Finally, the Affordable Care Act regulators issued another round of FAQs on Friday (Part. IX (numbered like the Super Bowls)). This one focuses like FAQ Part VIII on the summary of benefits and coverage.