Midweek update

Electronic health records

Midweek update

David Ermer–Congress, Electronic health records, U.S. Healthcare–
Portrait of Ludwig Van Beethoven Vintage portrait of famous classical composer, Ludwig Van Beethoven. ludwig van beethoven stock illustrations

It’s the 250th anniversary of the birth of that great composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Speaking of birthdays, the FEHBlog heard today that Dr. Anthony Fauci turns 80 on December 24. According to the Washington Post, he is urging Americans to have a merry little Christmas. Touche.

On the omnibus/COVID-19 relief bill front, Bloomberg reports that

Congressional leaders are still haggling over the final details of nearly $900 billion in coronavirus aid as staff members try to write the legislative language needed for House and Senate votes this week. 

If the aid deal, combined with a spending bill needed to fund the government, isn’t ready to get a vote in both chambers by Friday, another stopgap measure will be needed to avert a partial government shutdown after midnight Friday.

People briefed on the negotiations say the draft of the plan includes $600 in payments for individuals, $300-per-week in supplemental unemployment insurance payments and aid for small businesses, but it omits aid to state and local governments and lawsuit liability protection. It also includes roughly $17 billion for airlines.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy continued negotiations on Wednesday, although the deal is more likely to come together by Thursday, according to a lawmaker briefed on the talks.

The FEHBlog expected the legislative language today but good things come to those who wait, right?

The CMS actuary released his annual report on the previous year’s healthcare spending. “Total national healthcare spending in 2019 grew 4.6%, which was similar to the 4.7% growth in 2018 and the average annual growth since 2016 of 4.5%.” 2020 may be the outlier.

Healthcare Dive reports that

HHS began distributing the third phase of COVID-19 relief funding for providers Wednesday, with $24.5 billion to go to more than 70,000 providers through the end of January. The amount exceeds the original $20 billion planned for this tranche as officials realized more would be needed to get providers close to whole from coronavirus-related losses. HHS said up to 88% of applicants’ reported losses are being reimbursed.

In that regard, Fierce Healthcare reports that major healthcare systems which own a health insurer are weathering the COVID-19 storm better than most health systems according to a PwC report. “PwC pointed to major health systems such as Intermountain, Kaiser Permanente and Presbyterian Healthcare Services that used health plans to help bolster their finances.” It’s not surprising to the FEHBlog that hedges like this work. Large health insurers similarly are acquiring healthcare providers.

In other news —

  • The EEOC offers guidance for employers who want to make sure that their employee are vaccinated again COVID-19 and also want to comply with federal anti-discrimination law. This new guidance is Q&A K.
  • EHR Intelligence discusses the Gravity Project’s efforts to introduce social determinants of health data into electronic health records.
  • Health Payer Intelligence informs us about a PwC Health Research Institute report concluding that “Payers and stakeholder collaborators have the opportunity to rebuild the healthcare system into a more effective and consumer-centric system in 2021 by honing virtual care and other strategies.”
  • Krebs on Security details the malicious hack on the SolarWinds/Orion platform used by federal agencies and Fortune 500 companies “to monitor the health of their IT networks.”

Friday Stats and More

David Ermer–COVID-19, Electronic health records, Medicare, Rx coverage, U.S. Healthcare–

Based on the CDC’s COVID-19 Data Tracker website, here is the FEHBlog’s chart of new weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths over the 20th through 46th weeks of this year (beginning May 14 and ending November 18, roughly six months; using Thursday as the first day of the week in order to facilitate this weekly update):

The upward surge in COVID-19 cases is reflected the CDC’s latest overall weekly hospitalization rate chart for COVID-19 (disregards the dip at the right side of the chart):

The FEHBlog has noted that the new cases and deaths chart shows a flat line for new weekly deaths  because new cases greatly exceed new deaths. Accordingly here is a chart of new COVID-19 deaths over the same six month long period (May 14 through November 18) (the dip at the tail of this chart is accurate information).

Meanwhile the CDC’s weekly flu surveillance report continues to inform us that “Seasonal influenza activity in the United States remains lower than usual for this time of year.” Better one epidemic than two.

On the bright side, according to the Wall Street Journal, Pfizer and BioNTech did file an emergency use authorization request for their COVID-19 vaccine today.

Now it will be up to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to decide whether the two-shot vaccine works safely enough to roll out to millions of people.

It is unclear how long the agency will take to review the vaccine, which Pfizer and BioNTech just days earlier said was 95% effective and well-tolerated in a 44,000-subject trial.

Given the urgency, the FDA is expected to move quickly. The timing of the filing is in line with industry and government officials’ projections for authorization and distribution to begin next month. Pfizer said the filing could allow for distribution to begin the middle to end of December.

The Health and Human Services Department (“HHS”) released a string of final rules today affecting Medicare prescription drug plans and both hurting and helping the finances of doctors participating in Medicare and certain other federal health programs (but thankfully not the FEHBP). As the saying goes, he who lives by the sword can die the sword.

  • HHS issued a final rule generally barring the use of prescription drug rebates in the Medicare Part D program effective January 1, 2022.
  • HHS issued another final rule that implements, effective January 1, 2021, a pilot program”, known as the Most Favored Nation (MFN) Model, [that] will test [for seven years] an innovative way for Medicare to pay no more for high cost, physician-administered Medicare Part B drugs than the lowest price charged in other similar countries.”
  • Finally. HHS issued a final rule which loosens up on self-referral a/k/a Stark Act rules that inhibit the entrepreneurial spirit of doctors participating in Medicare. The purposes of the change is to facilitate value based pricing and coordinated care. Doctors should like this one but the FEHBlog wonders whether the AMA will think that it goes far enough.

Of course, we also will have to wait to see the incoming Biden Administration’s reaction to these rules.

Healthcare Dive discusses conflicting viewpoints on AHIP’s position which the FEHBlog shares that the COVID-19 relief law Wild West approach to health plan coverage of out-of-network COVID-19 leads to price gouging. Only Congress can fix this problem.

Speaking of Congress, Govexex.com reports that

Congressional leaders have voiced early speculation in recent days that lawmakers will be able to set line-by-line funding levels for agencies throughout government before the end of the year without the need for another stopgap measure. 

Top negotiators in the House and Senate met on Thursday to discuss a potential compromise for the rest of fiscal 2021 appropriations. On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was the most recent leader to cautiously express optimism that Congress can pass a full-year, omnibus spending bill before the current continuing resolution expires Dec. 11. 

“The anticipation was that it was really about the omnibus,” Pelosi said of the meeting. “You have to remember, we have to have an omnibus bill. We must keep government open.” She added it was a “very important responsibility” during the lame duck session of the 116th Congress. “We don’t want another continuing resolution. I don’t think they do either.”

Finally, the FEHBlog was impressed by Humana CEO Bruce Broussard’s call for health system interoperability without further delay. Mr. Broussard is Board Chair of America’s Health Insurance Plans for 2021. Here’s a snippet.

Change requires reforming the incentive structure to encourage and require vendors to create and sell systems that can talk to each other. Health care systems, hospitals, and physician practices — guided or encouraged by the market and the federal government — should choose interoperable systems. Public and private payers should implement value-based payment models that reward the purchase and use of interoperable systems. It’s also up to the federal government to implement and enforce standards for EHR vendors that promote interoperability while simultaneously strengthening the protection of personal health information.

If industry and government don’t lead the charge to make America’s health care system interoperable, consumers will bear the challenge of piecing together their own health data across the system — a dangerous prospect that could hinder patient care in the midst of a global pandemic. The free flow of protected data across the health care system ensures that treatment decisions are informed safely and effectively by the most current information available and tailored to the individual. A clinician with complete information at her fingertips can easily see the full picture and manage her patient’s care from the hospital to the pharmacy to long-term follow-up care.

This pandemic will eventually end. But the need for interoperability will remain urgent as we seek long-term solutions to bring down costs, improve care delivery, and increase efficiency in our health care system.

There’s no time like the present.

Happy National Rural Health Day

David Ermer–CDC, COVID-19, COVID-19 testing, COVID-19 vaccine, Electronic health records, Rx coverage, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Tomasz Filipek on Unsplash

It is National Rural Health Day which HHS’s Health Resources and Services Administration is proud to celebrate.

The Defense Department reports on yesterday’s Operation Warp Speed press conference. The Wall Street Journal adds that

Initially, people will be vaccinated at hospitals and large medical centers because supplies will be limited, said Marion Whicker, deputy chief of supply, production and distribution at Operation Warp Speed, the federal initiative to speed development of Covid-19 drugs and vaccines. “When you see vaccines start to equal or exceed demand is when you’ll see it out of the pharmacies,” said Ms. Whicker.

According to Endpoint News, “BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told CNN Wednesday that they and Pfizer plan to file for an emergency use authorization for their jointly developed vaccine on Friday [/ tomorrow].

The Wall Street Journal further reports on the COVID-19 front that

U.S. hospitals say they are facing the pandemic’s largest surge armed with treatment improvements that allow them to save lives, care for more patients and accelerate the recovery of coronavirus sufferers.

HCA Healthcare Inc., one of the nation’s largest hospital chains with 186 hospitals, has more intensive-care capacity as the sickest patients recover more quickly. At the Mayo Clinic’s hospital in Rochester, Minn., coronavirus patients now stay a median of five days, half as long as in March. The time Covid-19 patients spend at Advocate Aurora Health’s 26 Midwestern hospitals has fallen 25% on average since May.

The shift could be a result of several factors and more study is needed, said doctors and researchers. But the results are consistent with anecdotal reports from doctors saying that new tools and a better understanding of how Covid-19 attacks the body are helping to improve medical outcomes.

Also HHS announced today launching

a pilot program with five states to use portable, cartridge-based COVID-19 molecular test kits that provide rapid results. The pilot program will assess how to best integrate diagnostic technology developed by Cue Health, Inc., into strategies for disease surveillance and infection control in institutions such as nursing homes.

Used successfully as the primary molecular point-of-care (POC) test to control the spread of COVID-19 within in the National Basketball Association “bubble,” as well as by leading healthcare providers in the U.S., the nasal swab POC test generates results in about 20 minutes. Currently, molecular COVID-19 tests provided by HHS must be sent to a laboratory for interpretation, which can take two to three days.

The Centers for Disease Control and the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and the American Nursing Association are encouraging Americans to curb holiday travel and scale back holiday gatherings due to the recent surge in COVID-19 cases. That’s a useful message for health plans circulate to members and employees.

Following up on this week’s launch of Amazon’s online Pharmacy, the Drug Channels blog comments that

This announcement is much less disruptive than it appears to be. Amazon is copying the GoodRx discount card model—including GoodRx’s partnership with Express Scripts. At the same time, Amazon is launching a mail pharmacy that will accept insurance and be in PBM pharmacy networks. Amazon’s actions are another negative headwind for retail pharmacies, but not a fatal blow to the system. Perhaps Amazon will one day become a true disrupter. For now, Amazon is choosing to join the drug channel, not fundamentally change it.

Healthcare Dive lets us in other expert insights on this development.

In other prescription drug coverage news, the Wall Street Journal reports this evening that

The Trump administration is planning on Friday [/ tomorrow] to roll out two final rules aimed at lowering drug prices—one curbing rebates paid to middlemen in Medicare and another pegging the prices of certain prescription drugs in the U.S. to their prices in other developed countries, according to a person familiar with the planning. The plans, slated to be announced in the White House Rose Garden, have been a signature pledge of President Trump’s since his 2016 election campaign. Both rules are expected to be final, meaning they have completed the required public comment period and can take effect immediately.

“Immediately” in this setting would not prevent the incoming Biden Administration from putting the brakes on the iniative without trouble, in the FEHBlog’s opinion.

In other news —

  • According to a press release, “The Sequoia Project, a non-profit and trusted advocate for nationwide health information exchange, patient identity management experts collaborated with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) to apply A Framework for Cross-Organizational Patient Identity Management for the payer community and develop person matching strategies. Today, The Sequoia Project published Person Matching for Greater Interoperability: A Case Study for Payers which demonstrates high matching accuracy rates, and provides actionable insights for improving person identity matching across the payer community, a critical component of successful health information exchange and interoperability.” Helpful.
  • According to Fierce Healthcare, “While insurers are set to weather COVID-19’s financial storm, an inability to keep up with how the pandemic is changing healthcare will be credit-negative in the long term, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service. The coronavirus pandemic has put a spotlight on chronic conditions, the need for continued investment in telehealth and virtual care and the drive toward value-based care, according to the report. Health plans that are able to adapt to these changing trends are far better positioned for long-term success, Moody’s said.”

Weekend Update

David Ermer–Congress, COVID-19, COVID-19 testing, Electronic health records, OPM, U.S. Healthcare–

The FEHBlog is back inside the Beltway after a relaxing week on the Jersey Shore.

Both Houses of Congress will be conducting legislative and committee work this week following Yom Kippur which occurs from sundown tonight until sundown tomorrow. The Senate must pass the compromise continuing resolution funding the federal government through December 11 no later than Wednesday September 30.

On September 30, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will take up the nomination of Chad Wolf to be Secretary of Homeland Security. The Committee continues to defer action of the nomination of John Gibbs to be OPM Director.

Before long OPM will be publicizing the 2021 FEHBP government contribution. The September 1, 2020, OPM Benefit Administration Letter states that OPM will be taking this action in “early October” and early October starts this Thursday October 1. Thanks to Google Alerts, the FEHBlog ran across this Janesville (Wisc.) Gazette article reporting that an FEHB plan called MercyCare with only 80 enrollees understandably will be leaving the FEHB Program at the end of this year.

While driving back from New Jersey the FEHBlog was musing about the uptick in COVID-19 cases. This musing reminded him to provide a link to this lengthy Wall Street Journal article published earlier this month about the “really diabolical” COVID-19 virus. WSJ articles on COVID-19 usually are accessible outside the paper’s paywall.

Taken on its own terms, SARS-CoV-2 is the infectious disease success of the past 100 years.

Almost unmatched in the annals of emerging human contagions, it has parlayed a few chance infections into a pandemic of around 27 million confirmed cases so far.

Doctors long expected the advent of such a virus, but even so, the shrewdness of the coronavirus caught many by surprise, and goes a long way to explaining how the world has struggled to contain it ever since.

“We underestimated it,” said Peter Piot , the head of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a co-discoverer of Ebola, who fell victim to the coronavirus himself in March.

In any event, looking forward, Healthline offers an update on the state of rapid COVID-19 testing.

In other news

  • Fierce Healthcare reports on UnitedHealthcare’s vision for a path forward on health reform. The study highlights the following policy priorities: 1. Universal coverage, 2. Improving affordability, 3. Enhancing the health experience, and 4. Boosting health outcomes.
  • Fierce Healthcare also provides insights into last week’s final rule creating a process for importing less expensive drugs from Canada. “HHS didn’t comment on whether Canada was on board with any re-importation proposals. The country has vociferously opposed national re-importation measures because of concerns it would dwindle their own drug supplies.” Time will tell. The FEHBlog is not a fan of this sort of drug importation.
  • Healthcare Dive reports that “Microsoft’s video platform, Teams, is integrating directly with electronic health records software to permit clinicians to launch telehealth visits from the EHR.” Microsoft’s first integration deal is with the largest EHR vendor Epic. This will facilitate direct telehealth visits between primary care providers and the patients.
  • Health Payer Intelligence discusses payer strategies for offering home healthcare / remote monitoring to members.

Friday Stats and More

David Ermer–CDC, COVID-19, Electronic health records, OPM, Uncategorized–

Based on the CDC’s Cases in the U.S. website, here is the FEHBlog’s chart of new weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths over the 20th through 34th weeks of this year (beginning May 14 and ending August 26; using Thursday as the first day of the week in order to facilitate this weekly update):

and here is the CDC’s latest overall weekly hospitalization rate chart for COVID-19:

Note that today, the CDC revamped its COVID-19 websites. Sharp eyed readers will notice the CDC changed the scale on this hospitalization chart since last Friday. In any event, both charts continue to move in the preferred downward direction.

The CDC added a webpage on how regular folks should select, wear and clean their protective masks. It should be helpful for health plans to share this CDC webpage on their own sites.

Also, Medpage Today interviewed Dr. Anthony Fauci about the ongoing development of monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID-19.

Fauci explained how the mechanism of monoclonal antibodies “is really one of a direct antiviral.” “It’s like getting a neutralizing antibody that’s highly, highly concentrated and highly, highly specific. So, the mechanism involved is blocking of the virus from essentially entering its target cell in the body and essentially interrupting the course of infection,” he said. While Fauci noted the success of monoclonal antibodies to treat Ebola, he added that they are not practical for other viruses that only last a day or two, where the virus may already be cleared once the patient receives the treatment. “If you have a disease that’s serious enough and prolonged enough, such as what we saw with Ebola, and what we are currently seeing with COVID-19, then you have enough opportunities to get the monoclonal antibody to actually work,” he added.

The article notes that work also is underway to develop these antibodies as an HIV treatment.

Managed Healthcare Executive News reports on issues that providers are encountering with electronic prior authorization and efforts to resolve those issues. For example,

[Rose] Moore says one of the obstacles to a more streamlined approach to prior authorizations is the lack of uniformity. “There must be greater collaboration between payers and providers to set universal guidelines on requirements, starting with the high-volume, low-complexity procedure types that consume the greatest administrative cost across the healthcare continuum,” says Moore.

That should be resolvable.

Finally, Govexec.com reports that “The government will begin deferring withholding payroll taxes for federal employees [beginning September 1] to fulfill a memorandum President Trump issued earlier this month, according to a notice from one of its payroll processors.” Because the executive order cannot and does not waive these taxes permanently, this action will get Congressional attention.

Thursday Miscellany

David Ermer–CDC, COVID-19, Electronic health records, Rx coverage–

The Wall Street Journal reports that “Around the country, medical centers have begun setting up clinics focused on evaluating and treating Covid-19 patients reporting symptoms that last weeks or months after their initial illness or diagnosis. But the clinics are relatively new and hospitals are still adding resources, so wait lists can stretch months at the ones that exist so far.”

Healthcare Dive informs us that

Rideshare giant Uber is entering the prescription drug delivery business through a new partnership with on-demand prescription platform NimbleRx, the two companies announced Thursday. The partnership is currently live in Seattle and Dallas, with plans to expand to other parts of the country in the coming months, per a release. Nimble and Uber have completed more than 15,000 deliveries since the pilot launched earlier this summer.

Digital delivery marketplace Nimble, based in Redwood City, Calif., is used by more than 700 pharmacies in 34 states, giving the new partnership significant room to scale. Through an integration with Uber Direct, Uber’s delivery platform, the rideshare behemoth’s fleet of drivers will now be another delivery option for consumers.

It’s a crowded space: Retail pharmacy giants CVS Health and Walgreens have invested heavily in prescription home delivery following Amazon’s acquisition of online pharmacy Pillpack two years ago. Established players and startups alike are vying for a cut of runaway drug spending, while pitching better medication maintenance

CVS Health / Caremark and Express Scripts, among other PBMs, offer programs to allow health plan members to receive mail order pharmacy pricing on 90 day maintenance prescriptions at the pharmacy.

The Centers for Disease Control today released “Prevention and Control of Seasonal Influenza with Vaccines: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — United States, 2020–21 Influenza Season.”

Routine annual influenza vaccination of all persons aged ≥6 months who do not have contraindications continues to be recommended. No preferential recommendation is made for one influenza vaccine product over another for persons for whom more than one licensed, recommended, and appropriate product is available.

Balancing considerations regarding the unpredictability of timing of onset of the influenza season and concerns that vaccine-induced immunity might wane over the course of a season, vaccination is recommended to be offered by the end of October [2020].

Efforts should be structured to optimize vaccination coverage before influenza activity in the community begins. Vaccination should continue to be offered as long as influenza viruses are circulating and unexpired vaccine is available.

In the same vein, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced yesterday the issuance of a “third amendment to the Declaration under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) to increase access to lifesaving childhood vaccines and decrease the risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks as children across the United States return to daycare, preschool and school. ‘Today’s action means easier access to lifesaving vaccines for our children, as we seek to ensure immunization rates remain high during the COVID-19 pandemic,’ said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. The amendment authorizes State-licensed pharmacists (and pharmacy interns acting under their supervision to administer vaccines, if the pharmacy intern is licensed or registered by his or her State board of pharmacy) to order and administer vaccines to individuals ages three through 18 years, subject to several requirements” described in the announcement. Pharmacies have become a convenient administration point for many vaccinations, such as the flu vaccine.

Health Payer Intelligence reminds us that “Although the interoperability rule will not be implemented until mid-2021, payers can be aware of what to expect regarding how this rule will change their processes, as outlined in a recent AHIP brief.” The rule generally applies to plans regulated by HHS. While FEHB plans are not subject to the rule, they can benefit from riding in the slip stream by benefitting from interoperability innovations, such as HL7’s FHIR API standard.

Thursday Miscellany

David Ermer–COVID-19, Electronic health records, Rx coverage–

The Centers for Disease Control updated their guidance on how COVID-19 spreads earlier this week. Here’s the main takeaways from the FEHBlog’s standpoint:

COVID-19 is thought to spread mainly through close contact from person-to-person. * * * Some people without symptoms may be able to spread the virus. The virus that causes COVID-19 is spreading very easily and sustainably between people. Information from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic suggests that this virus is spreading more efficiently than influenza, but not as efficiently as measles, which is highly contagious. In general, the more closely a person interacts with others and the longer that interaction, the higher the risk of COVID-19 spread.

Check it out.

Healthcare Dive reports

The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed changes to how drugmakers can report their prices to Medicaid, seeking to make it easier for pharmaceutical companies and insurers to enter into contracts that tie payment to patient outcomes. Typically, drug contracts are linked to the volume of product sold, providing for larger manufacturer rebates the more a product is prescribed and covered by an insurer. Increasingly, however, drugmakers and insurers have been exploring alternative approaches centered on some measure of a medicine’s value.

Why is this relevant to the FEHBP? “The Medicaid best price policy requires drug manufacturers to give Medicaid programs the best price among nearly all purchasers [Medicare Part D is excepted].” So for example, if a prescription drug manufacturer cuts a deal for value based drug pricing, the VBD pricing cannot drop below the Medicaid price. If the manufacturer can cut the same deal with Medicaid under this proposed rule, then everyone benefits. This is a proposed rule that won’t go into effect until later this year at best.

Fierce Healthcare reports that

Health Care Service Corp., which owns and operates Blue Cross plans in five states, has tapped Epic to develop a data exchange platform between health plans and providers. HCSC health plans will be able to exchange medical information with health providers in its networks that use Epic’s electronic health record (EHR) software. The contract is one of the first of its kind between Epic and a large insurer, according to the companies.

Given the importance of clinical data in government and large employer healthcare quality programs imposed on health plans, including OPM’s Plan Performance Assessment, this certainly won’t be the last such deal.

Monday Musings

David Ermer–Congress, COVID-19, Electronic health records, SCOTUS–

Here’s a musing for you. The FEHBlog expects that everyone is familiar with the spiritual titled “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.” Well after reviewing lots of news, the FEHBlog to paraphrase this spiritual sometimes feels like the only person in America who believes that the U.S. healthcare system can pull us through this pandemic.

The House and Senate announced today that each body of Congress will be returning to Capitol Hill next Monday May 4. Welcome back.

In a decision sure to delight health insurers that took the initial plunge with the ACA marketplaces back in 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in a virtually unanimous opinion that the U.S. owes many of those insurers a total of roughly $12.3 billion for unappropriated yet mandated risk corridor payments. The only dissenter was Justice Alito who agreed that the government owed the money but questioned whether there was a private right of action under the ACA to sue the government for the money. It’s not a crazy thought because the government is generally protected against lawsuits by a doctrine known as sovereign immunity.

The FEHBlog thought that this would be a good opportunity to update readers on the major commercial COVID-19 testing sites:

Castlight offers a COVID 19 testing directory which organizations can link to their own websites.

Verily Health, which is an affiliate of Alphabet/Google, has “launched COVID-19 Pathfinder— a new set of tools that provide on-demand access to COVID-19 information directly from a hospital or health system website.” Cool.

In a bit of good news for HHS, Fierce Healthcare reports that the EPIC, the electronic health record (“EHR”) giant, has switched from “fiercely” opposing to supporting the HHS EHR interoperability rules. “Epic controls more than a quarter of the hospital EHR market, according to KLAS Research, and, among hospitals with 500 or more beds, Epic has a 58% market share.”

Tuesday Tidbits

David Ermer–Congress, COVID-19, Electronic health records–

Today the Senate passed a bill expanding funding for the Small Business Administration’s COVID-19 relief programs ($370 billion), healthcare providers ($75 billion) and COVID-19 testing ($25 billion). The Wall Street Journal further reports that “the bill now goes to the House, which is expected to vote on it Thursday.” The President has tweeted that he will sign it when both Houses of Congress pass it..

Speaking of COVID-19 testing, Labcorp announced today that “it has received an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The EUA permits nasal swab specimens to be collected at home using the Pixel by LabCorp™ COVID-19 test home collection kit if recommended by a healthcare provider after completing a COVID-19 questionnaire.” Furthermore, CVS Health announced today that it has opened another large scale drive up COVID testing site in Dearborn Michigan.

As anticipated the Department of Health and Human Services informed the public today about

a policy of enforcement discretion to allow compliance flexibilities regarding the implementation of the interoperability final rules announced on March 9th in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) public health emergency. ONC, CMS, and OIG will continue to monitor the implementation landscape to determine if further action is needed.

Absent this new policy, the rules would have been fully enforceable on January 1, 2021.

Finally the FEHBlog ran across today this long, handy AHIP prepared list of benefit improvements and related actions that its health plan members have made in response to the COVID-19 emergency. Bravo.

Interesting Ideas

David Ermer–COVID-19, Electronic health records, Rx coverage–

Health Payer Intelligence reports that CIGNA and SCAN Health Plan are teaming up to reach out to Medicare Advantage members in an effort to help them with senior loneliness during the great hunkering. SCAN’s “employees are calling on seniors, starting with the most at-risk and isolated. During their birthday and welcome calls, SCAN’s Senior Advocates—individuals who are both members and SCAN Health Plan employees—listen for potential social determinants of health needs.” What a great approach for FEHB plans to follow.

STATNews discusses the value of using chest CT scans to reliably reliably supplement other forms of COVID-19 testing in our country.

STATNews also has developed a new electronic dashboard to gauge the readiness of rural counties in the U.S. to deal with the COVID-19 emergency or other pandemics. The developers are seeking public comment on the dashboard. This dashboard should have benefits beyond the current emergency.

Healthcare Dive reports that

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working to automate generation and transmission of COVID-19 case reports to deliver data put in provider EHRs directly to public health agencies.

For providers that don’t have EHRs with the ability to electronically send case reports, CDC is creating a FHIR-based app [called eCR Now] to connect COVID-19 electronic case reporting (eCR) to existing health IT infrastructure to confirm cases and route the data to appropriate end users. The goal is to give public health officials a more accurate, timely picture of the pandemic.

The FEHBlog is quite a fan of the FHIR API.

This is the time of the year when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) hold events that allow citizens to safely dispose of unused prescription drugs. Obviously these events are not being held this April. The DEA has creates a website on safe householder disposal of unused prescription drugs. It’s good information for health plans to share with members.