Tuesday Tidbits

It appears to the FEHBlog that the federal government is on track to avoid another partial government shutdown this week. Fingers remain crossed.

Federal News Network reports that

The Office of Personnel Management has chosen to continue its relationship with ID Experts, the company originally tasked to provide free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to victims of the agency’s 2015 cyber breaches.
OPM awarded a follow-on contract to ID Experts under the General Services Administration’s identity protection services multiple-award blanket purchase agreement (BPA). The contract began on Jan. 1 and will continue through at least June 2020. ID Experts said the contract has an option for up to five years.
The contract is worth at least $416 million, according to USA Spending data.
Individuals currently enrolled in the MyIDCare don’t need to take action to continue their service and will be automatically covered, ID Experts said in a statement announcing the continued contract.

Speaking of data breaches,

In 2018, 15,085,302 patient records were breached, according to new data released today in the Protenus Breach Barometer. Published by Protenus, an AI-powered healthcare compliance analytics platform that protects patient data for the nation's leading health systems, the Breach Barometer is the industry's definitive source for health data breach reporting.  

There was a slight increase in the number of breaches, from 477 in 2017 compared to 503 in 2018. Alarmingly, the number of affected patient records almost tripled from 5.5 million in 2017 to 15 million in 2018. As first reported in 2016, a trend of at least one health data breach per day remained in 2018.

This brings us to the HIMSS conference. Here's a link to CMS Administrator Seema Verma's speech at the conference today. Apropos of the Administrator's talk, HHS yesterday announced a proposed CMS rule and a proposed Office of National Health IT Coordinator rule that are intended to open existing road blocks to healthcare information sharing.

Regulatory Focus reports on today's House Ways and Means Committee hearing on prescription drug pricing.  The Committee's chair and ranking minority member advised that they are committed to working together “to take meaningful action to lower the cost of prescription drugs in the US health care system.”

The Health Care Cost Institute released its 2017 report on healthcare cost and utilization.  "While overall spending growth slowed in 2017 compared to 2016, the report finds that prices continued to drive rising costs.  "Health care spending growth exceeded 4 percent for the second consecutive year, outpacing per capita GDP growth," said Niall Brennan, president and CEO of HCCI. "And for the most part, Americans aren't using more health care services, which means we're essentially paying more and more for the same amount of health care."

Fierce Healthcare discusses a Deloitte Consulting report visualizing health plans of the future. "Deloitte suggests five steps insurers should be taking now as they plan for these looming changes:

• Build an internal culture that focuses on business transformation
• Make investments in technology sooner rather than later
• Being reorienting staffers to what work will look like—highly automated and electronic—compared to current processes
• Incorporate governance for data into existing policies and practices
• Keep a close eye on cybersecurity risks, and be prepared for emerging threats."

Meanwhile, the President's Council of Economic Advisors issued a report on the market advantages and cost savings to consumers and the government offered by the Administration's deregulatory efforts in the healthcare market.