Healthcare Business Management Association



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Government Relations Committee Minutes for November 3, 2009

Present: Barry Reiter, Randy Roat, Bob Burleigh, Bill Finerfrock, Jud Neal, Dennis Mock, Kathy Canny, Don Rodden, Dave Nicholson, Tim Karhu, Susan Gregg

Absent: Sherri Dumford, Lonnie Johnson, Shawn Keough-Hartz, Holly Louie, Ken Goodin

Judd moved that the 9/22/09 Face To Face in Las Vegas minutes be approved and Dennis seconded.

1. Invitation to testify before National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS)

Bill received a invitation from Lorraine Doo, (liaison for CMS to NCVHS) to attend a Dec 10th hearing where they will have a panel dealing with Health Care Providers and health plan implementation issues. They would like HBMA to do a 20 minute presentation discussing the issues pertaining to implementation of the transaction standards and code sets for the HBMA clients and businesses. The focus will be on the activities HBMA is doing to educate members, make this transition smooth, and whatever questions or concerns we have about this process. There will be a Q & A section.

ACTION: The GR Committee will begin the writing of this testimony and prepare comments and suggestions. Holly is interested in presenting the testimony.

2. CMS Request for Information Survey

ACTION: Cindy will send out an email to members suggesting if they wish to view the survey questions ahead of time or share with office work colleagues that they can cut and paste the survey in a word document. Cindy will send the survey link to Clearinghouses and also include a reminder to everyone of the time sensitivity of the survey.

3. ICD-10

Holly gave an update sharing that Bob, Bill and Holly have composed a follow-up letter following their meeting that was hosted by Pat Brooks. They have included on the copy list Lorraine Doo, Karen Baker and other people they believe have an interest or significant responsibility to ICD-10. The letter will go out today. WEDI asked for business input from HBMA members rather than techno comments. Barry, Jud, Jerry Killough, and Chet Guardino have agreed to supply that business input to WEDI. Holly has been approached by some state Medical Associations questioning what HBMA plans for ICD-10. On the Town Hall call last week, it was clear that the two topics, limiting companion guides and that non-specific codes will be reimbursable has hit the radar screen. They did not have an answer for this. The ICD-10 presenter was not Pat Brooks, in fact was someone from Lorraine Doo’s staff and they announced they were the ones coordinating the transition to ICD-10 rather than Pat. Bill added that on the HCR plan according to the summary the Secretary is directed to adopt a single binding companion guide.

4. Advocacy Resources Vision

ACTION: Cindy and Brad will have a conference call with Kris from Web team tomorrow for this update.

5. Healthcare Reform - Bill

The Healthcare Reform continues to move ahead and last Friday the Health Reform Proposal was released all 1,900 pages +. Bill sent this out as a link so everyone could review it. The debates start this week and they hope to have a vote on Friday. The latest report was that they would not have a vote Friday because they were running into some problems with votes over the abortion issue or else they are short of 218 votes to pass it. Friday is the day for consideration of the Healthcare Reform legislation. The Senate will include a public option with a State opt out. This is not flying well with the moderates in the Democratic caucus and is a major bone of contention. Once the House gets 218 votes, nothing can stop it. The Senate is more difficult, major challenging on funding which is a tax of 40% excise on Cadillac health plans. Labor unions are strongly opposed to this proposal as they would qualify for these kinds of plans. The Senate has a dual challenge; what to do with the public option and how to pay for it especially if you cannot hold the Cadillac proposal which would generate 200 billion in revenue.

In the Senate, the Congressional Budget Office is reviewing a proposal between the HELP Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. They are going to provide a financial scoring by next week. The CBO delayed in their scoring because it is taking longer. Then they will be going back and rewriting the proposal so stay tuned for scoring.

Predictions for the election include big changes for Virginia as they will go Republican at the State level, NJ governor race goes Republican and the 23rd district in NY are key signs of dissatisfaction. At a member level it will send a message. The winners will be sworn in by the end of next week or early next week.

6. Red Flag Rules - Bill

The Washington Report has been sent out today and includes a Red Flag update. From now on, perhaps send certain issues in a separate e-blast and send it out to the membership. We are interested in disseminating information with quality and not speed.

ACTION: Bill will put out weekly updates on Healthcare Reform, and his goal will be to send on Friday to the GR Committee, BOD and Brad, and the office will send them out to the membership in order to give HBMA members a perspective.

The Republican proposal was summarized on the call. It contains no option plan, no denial on pre-existing conditions, no mandate to buy insurance and it hints at authorization to sell insurance across shared lines.

7. SGR

The issue is how to come up with the money to pay for it? The consensus is how to replace it and put something in its place for this $240 billion and where do you come up with the money to pay for it? They have pulled it out of the Healthcare Reform Bill. The Senate has a two year fix in its Healthcare Reform Bill and probably looking for a short term fix. Who would allow the 21.2 per cent cut in physician fee schedule to go into affect on Jan 1, 2010? The real time ramifications are huge and ultimately could pass as stand alone legislation.

ACTION: Bill needs administration ramifications at a practice level for an advocacy message to HBMA members.

8. IRS Rule

Barry commented of this 3 per cent withholding and is concerned that not everyone knows about this. With a December 2010 deadline of going into effect, this will create problems for billing companies.

9. Agenda Add Ons

ACTION: Add HITECH Update to the next GR Committee Agenda.

ACTION: The next dissemination to the Hill will be SGR in the next 5 days per Don

ACTION: The Education Committee is asking for ideas and thoughts about a good topic for a Distance Learning presentation. Please send topics to Jud, Barry or Cindy and the deadline is time sensitive for now.

ACTION: Bill will call his contact regarding a speaker for the HBMA Spring Baltimore Conference and check to see how far in advance they are willing to commit.

Adjourned.

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