The Postal Service Health Benefits Program was born today as the President signed into law the Postal Reform Act of 2022 (H.R. 3076). Here is a link to the President’s remarks made at the bill signing.

The PSHBP will become operational on January 1, 2025. OPM’s implementing rules must be finalized by April 6, 2023.

Govexec adds

The U.S. Postal Service is once again seeking to raise its rates by historically unusual amounts, announcing the increases on the same day President Biden signed into law a bipartisan bill to erase much of the agency’s debts and allow it to pursue new lines of revenue.  * * *

The new prices, which are set to go into effect July 10, would raise rates for regular, First-Class mail by 6.5% and by 8.5% for package services. A standard stamp would go from $0.58 to $0.60. The large increases were made possible under new authority the Postal Service’s regulator granted it in 2020 and which USPS employed for the first time last year. DeJoy promised as part of his 10-year business plan to use his authority to raise rates above inflation “judiciously,” but predicted USPS would generate between $35 billion and $52 billion by 2031 by raising prices.

From the Capitol Hill front, Roll Call reports “A bipartisan $10 billion COVID-19 supplemental is stuck in the Senate amid a dispute over a tangential pandemic-related border control policy, with both parties at a loss on how the impasse will be resolved.”

In other Omicron (and siblings) news

The Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine and Biological Products Advisory Committee met today for a general discussion of Covid vaccines. The Wall Street Journal reports

A top U.S. health regulator said that asking people to frequently get Covid-19 boosters wasn’t sustainable because of vaccine fatigue and that authorities needed to develop a long-term strategy for protecting the public from the virus as it evolves.

Dr. Peter Marks, who heads the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccines division, said that last week’s authorization of a second booster dose for people 50 years and older and for people 12 and older with weakened immune systems was a stopgap.

STAT News offers a play-by-play account of that meeting here.

The American Hospital Association informs us

Medicare and Medicaid will cover a second Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 booster at no cost to eligible enrollees, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today. Health care providers participating in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 Vaccination Program also must provide authorized COVID-19 vaccines at no cost to recipients.

The FEHBlog discovered from reading an AHA squib that CDC Director Rochelle Wolensky approved the FDA’s March 29 second booster recommendation last week. That joint recommendation permits adults aged 50 and older to receive a second Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine booster dose at least four months after an initial booster dose. In addition, those agencies authorized and recommended a second Moderna booster dose for certain immunocompromised adults and a second Pfizer booster dose for certain immunocompromised individuals aged 12 or older.”

What’s odd is that the ACA FAQ 50 indicates that the CDC advisory committee’s recommendation triggers the health plan to cover a particular use of a Covid vaccine with no member cost-sharing. Given that CMS has given the green light and the advisory committee reports to the CDC Director, the FEHBlog concludes that health plans also should step up to the plate and provide no cost-sharing coverage for these second boosters.

STAT Health tells us that

A new survey by STAT and The Harris Poll finds six in 10 Americans have already decided they will get another booster if it’s recommended for them.

Just under one-quarter of U.S. adults indicated they will only receive a second booster shot if a new variant arises or there is a surge in Covid-19 cases in their area, and 18% have no plans to get a booster at all, according to the survey, which polled 2,028 U.S. adults between March 25 and 27.

America has spoken.

From the No Surprises Act front, the AHA notes

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released a new FAQ for health care providers on the No Surprises Act’s requirements and prohibitions, and the independent dispute resolution process; and a new FAQ on providing good faith estimates to uninsured and self-pay patients. CMS plans to launch next week the online portal through which uninsured and self-pay patients may initiate the dispute resolution process.

The CMS FAQs are worth reviewing by health plans because they go beyond the out-of-network bill consumer protections to address the NSA good faith estimate, continuity of care, and provider directory accuracy provisions. For example, the good faith estimate discussion on page 6 is quite informative.

From the Health Affairs front

• Jane Zhu and a team of fellow experts wrote an article on Trends in Outpatient Mental Health Services Use before and during the pandemic. Here are excerpts from the abstract which is quite pro-telemental care.

In-person mental health encounters were reduced by half in the early months of the pandemic, with rapid recovery of service delivery attributable to telehealth uptake (accounting for 47.9 percent of average monthly encounters). We found variation in the degree to which telehealth use increased across groups: People with schizophrenia made up a lower proportion of telehealth encounters relative to in-person visits (1.7 percent versus 2.7 percent), whereas those with anxiety and fear-related disorders accounted for a higher proportion (27.5 percent versus 25.5 percent). These findings highlight the importance of broadening access to services through new modalities without supplanting necessary in-person care for certain groups.

• Joshua Liao and Amol Navathe wrote an article in the Health Affairs Forefront describing a new Accountable Care Organization model designed to improve health equity.

From the healthcare business front —

• Fierce Healthcare reports

Optum continues its buying spree and has picked up Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, a large, multi-specialty group practice based in Houston, Texas, Axios reported Monday.

With more than 500 physicians, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic operates multi-specialty care centers, a cancer center, a women’s health center, two ambulatory surgery center locations, and a specialized sleep center with more than 30 locations in the Greater Houston area. Kelsey-Seybold partners with major insurers to offer value-based commercial health plans. Kelsey-Seybold partners with major insurers to offer value-based commercial health plans. The organization partners with payers to offer value-based commercial health plans also owns its own Medicare Advantage plan for seniors, KelseyCare Advantage.

• Healthcare Dive informs us

Intermountain Healthcare and SCL Health completed their merger, creating one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems, the two organizations announced Tuesday.

The new system, which will use the Intermountain name to reflect the parent entity, will operate 33 hospitals and hundreds of clinics across seven states and insure 1 million people in Utah and Idaho.

Colorado’s attorney general signed off on the merger last week after conducting a review, concluding the tie-up will not result in a material change to the charitable purposes of nonprofit SCL Health, based in Colorado, and that SCL assets will not leave the state.

• Business Wire tells us “Millennium Trust Company, LLC (“Millennium Trust”), a leading provider of retirement and financial services for employers, institutions, advisors, and individuals, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire PayFlex Holdings, Inc. (“PayFlex”), a provider of health savings accounts (HSAs) and consumer-directed benefit administration services, from CVS Health Corporation (“CVS Health”).

In HIPAA Privacy and Security Rule News, the Department of Health and Human Services announced issuing

a Request for Information (RFI) seeking input from the public on two requirements of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH Act), as amended in 2021.  The growing number of cybersecurity threats are a significant concern driving the need for enhanced safeguards of electronic protected health information (ePHI).  This RFI will enable OCR to consider ways to support the healthcare industry’s implementation of recognized security practices. The RFI also will help OCR consider ways to share funds collected through enforcement with individuals who are harmed by violations of the HIPAA Rules.

* * *

Individuals seeking more information about the RFI or how to provide written or electronic comments to OCR should visit the Federal Register to learn more: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/04/06/2022-07210/considerations-for-implementing-the-health-information-technology-for-economic-and-clinical-health

Please note that comments must be submitted by June 6, 2022 in order to be considered.

Interestingly, the HHS seeks public input on developing the safe harbors created by the 2021 law.