It turns out the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be considering the President’s nomination of Craig Leen to be OPM Inspector General at its June 10 business meeting which begins at 10 am ET. The FEHBlog expect him to receive Senate confirmation later this month.

On Friday June 5 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services summarized all of the COVID-19 mandates applied and flexibilities offers to non-federal governmental health plans. It’s nevertheless a useful summary for FEHB plans too.

Today the Internal Revenue Service released the PCORI fee around for plan years beginning not earlier than October 1, 2019 or later than September 30, 2020. In other words this notice applies to the current FEHB contract / plan year which aligns with the calendar year. The amount is $2.54 per belly button up nine cents from last year. The payment deadline is July 31.

Finally, Health Payer Intelligence posted a hopeful story about cooperation between the State of Washington and a community health plan in a successful effort to improve the social determinants of health data available to the plan.

Organizations may find it overwhelming to tackle every social determinant of health at once, especially when they see how expansive the social services network can be. So [Jennifer] Polello], MHPA, PCMH-CCE, director of clinical data integration and social determinants of health at Community Health Plan of Washington] recommended beginning with one social determinant of health, maybe the most prevalent.

“Create workflows and workflow aids and education around just one social issue to start the ball rolling,” she said.

Regardless of the strategy employed, building this network of community resources to address social determinants of health is important now more than ever.

Well put.