The North American Spine Society blog posted an update of legislative activity impacting spine surgeons and how the organization is monitoring these potential changes.
1. Safeguarding Care of Patients Everywhere Act (SCOPE ACT) in the Senate would repeal the Affordable Care Act's section 1311(h) which allows the Health and Human Services Secretary to determine whether physicians provide "quality healthcare measures" and could prohibit health insurers from working with providers who don't meet those criteria. A similar bill was introduced in the House, and NASS will continue to monitor this activity.
2. Expanding the Availability of Medicare Data Act designed to open Medicare claims data to certified qualified entities to study provider data in specific regions. The bill would also provide Medicare data to qualified clinical data registries. NASS is assessing the bill and will monitor future activity.
3. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing to explore how to improve care through telemedicine. The committee asked for information about specific policy and legislative ideas for the federal government to support technology adoption and ways the government currently inhibits the technology adoption or use.
More Articles on Surgery Centers:
7 Financial Warning Signs: How to Know if Your ASC is in Trouble
Prepared for Success: 5 Characteristics of Progressive ASCs
10 Things That Make ASC Board Meetings Inefficient