Tuesday's Tidbits

OPM, acting at the President's decision issued an interim final rule today to extend FEHB coverage to emergency responders who work for the federal government to fight wildfires during certain times of the year.  OPM overrode its regulation, 5 C.F.R. Sec. 890.102, that generally excludes temporary or seasonal federal employees from FEHB coverage.  The rule is effective immediately. The Washington Post reports that "OPM said the firefighters will be allowed to continue their insurance coverage when not federally employed, although entirely at their own expense." This option will be available under the FEHBA's temporary continuation of coverage provisions.

The AMA News includes a helpful explanation of how CMS's recent proposed rule stating its Medicare Part B payment policies for 2013 will affect primary care providers and specialists in this essentially zero sum game. "For instance, the effect of new policies on services that primary care physicians tend to bill would increase overall pay to family physicians by 7%. Other changes to services billed by radiation oncologists would result in overall payments for that specialty dropping by 14%."  Medicare pricing impacts the FEHB Program in several ways because there is a large cadre of annuitants over age 65 in the program. Also as the FEHBlog has noted health plans increasing are basing their out of network provider pricing on Medicare Part B pricing.

AHIP called the FEHBlog's attention to an American Journal of Managed Care analysis that "examines perspectives on health plan efforts to use data on the race, ethnicity, and language of their members to measure such differences and to develop approaches that improve quality of care."  Reducing the impact of such cultural disparities on health care is an objective of the Affordable Care Act.