Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Both Houses of Congress will return to work on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. On September 5, at 10 am, the Health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on opportunities to improve health care. One of the four witnesses is Dr. David Yoder who is in charge of Member Care and Benefits at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Federal Employees Program.

Tammy Flanagan, a federal retirement consultant, wrote a column in govexec.com on whether it makes sense for federal annuitants to opt out of FEHBP in favor of enrolling in a Medicare Advantage plan. OPM's rule permit annuitants who make such an election to rejoin the FEHBP. Significantly "when [Ms. Flanagan] compared using Medicare Advantage to an FEHBP plan in combination with Medicare A and B, [she] found [she] would have much greater choice of providers both in and out of network under FEHBP.

Thanks to Twitter, the FEHBlog ran across Phrma's Catalyst which is the pharmaceutical manufacturers' trade association blog. Catalyst is "a place where [Phrma] can share ideas, provide the perspective of America's biopharmaceutical companies and, most importantly, listen to you."  This Catalyst article on prescription drug cost sharing caught the FEHBlog's eye. The article supports manufacturer use of prescription drug discount coupons, a practice which OPM criticized at the 2018 carrier conference.

A colleague of the FEHBlog called his attention to this New York State government press release which discusses an information breach settlement between a Buffalo non-profit and the State's attorney general. It should remind all those who handle protected health information that HIPAA, as modified in 2009, also permits state attorneys general to enforce the privacy and security rules.