Congress has voted to pass an important piece of legislation that would effectively stop a 25% pay cut for physicians treating Medicare patients. This Congressional “doc fix” provides a one year fix to the payment formula. Included alongside the freeze are extensions for several Medicare programs, including an extension of the therapy caps exception process. The bill was supported by numerous health groups, including the American Medical Association. Experts asserted that the abrupt pay reduction would result in a lack of available healthcare providers to Medicare users, which are comprised of the elderly and military families.

The fix comes with a $15 billion cost and will be paid for by changing a provision on recovering excess subsidy payments in the healthcare legislation enacted this year. The government will recoup more excess insurance subsidy payments to individuals than what current law provides. It is estimated that the change will save $19 billion over the next 10 years.

Many physicians see the current Medicare formula as outdated and state that the steep pay cuts would dissuade physicians from treating Medicare patients. Others affirm that altering the formula would only serve to produce long-term deficits. During the one year freeze, lawmakers will work closely with health groups, such as the American Medical Association in order to work towards putting together a long term solution to the Medicare system.

Billian’s HealthDATA and Porter Research partnered to conduct a survey of hospital executives’ understanding of the HITECH Act.  In 2009, their research revealed that only 67% of the respondents described the impact of the new legislation to be moderate to significant.  However, in 2010 that number escalated to more than 80%.

Many of the hospitals who participated in the survey had adopted new technologies for their physicians and patients.  In fact, the number of respondents that had adopted these new IT solutions increased in 2010 by an average of 21%.  Some of those new programs include EHR, ePrescribing, and Computerized Physician Order Entry.  While one of the respondents’ biggest fears was that their hospitals would put important IT decisions on hold until funding was received, the survey results indicated that for every decision put on hold, two more were pushed through.

Respondents were also asked how much they agreed with certain concepts of the HITECH Act.  90% agreed with the adoption of EHR technology, but only 43% believe that the Act will insure that every American has an electronic health record by 2014.  Regardless, over 75% of respondents believe that the HITECH legislation will strengthen the health IT infrastructure, and 58% believe that it will improve overall efficiency and quality of the healthcare system.

The research shows that hospital executives are ready to meet the requirements of the new legislation.  Respondents believe that the HITECH Act will accelerate adoption of EHR and other technologies, but concerns still exist about the ultimate impact of these technologies on efficiency and quality of the healthcare system.

Read the full article at http://www.porterresearch.com/Resource_Center/Porter_White_Papers/The_Road_Traveled.html

Source:  “The Road Traveled: Providers’ Perceptions of ARRA Legislation from Inception to Meaningful Use”

In order to modernize our health system, physicians have to adopt and USE technology.  The HITECH Act, which involves the incorporation of electronic health records (EHR) is a major part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) legislation.

Billian’s HealthDATA and Porter Research conducted a 2 phased research program aimed at understanding providers’ perceptions of the HITECH Act.  The first survey was conducted in March and April 2009, with a follow up survey in January and February 2010.  IT-leaders, hospital executives, and department directors from 150 hospitals participated in this survey.

In 2009, 40% of respondents said they were knowledgeable about the details of the new legislation, and in 2010 those numbers jumped to 74%.  This statistic is also backed by the fact that in 2009, most of the respondents had relied on mainstream media, whereas in 2010 70% took it upon themselves to research the Act online.  The increase in the number of hospital executives who personally researched the new legislation reflects their concern over how the Act will affect their hospitals.  In fact, about 50% of the respondents in 2010 who felt knowledgeable about the ARRA claimed to have actually read the document itself.

The respondents who were surveyed were given a basic definition of EHR and Meaningful Use (refer to full article for definition).  30% of the respondents had her systems in place that met the requirements of the HITECH Act for electronic health records, however only 23% of those respondents have physicians or providers that are using EHR consistent with the requirements of the Early Meaningful Use Summary.

The respondents were then questioned about their concerns with the HITECH Act.  Concerns regarding funding decreased by 27% from 2009 to 2010.  There was also a slight decrease in concerns about government administration of the program, however concerns shot up drastically in 2010 about the the timetable hospitals are being given and their ability to meet the requirements of the HITECH Act.

80% of hospital executives surveyed said that they were knowledgeable of the Meaningful Use document issued by the CMC, and 45% of those respondents agreed with the requirements that were proposed.  The respondents’ biggest concerns in achieving meaningful use are the timeline that they are given as well as having the resources to accomplish meaningful use.  Almost half of the respondents felt that they would not receive enough funding, as they expect the government to cover less than a quarter of the total cost.  76% say they will have to pursue additional funding.  Smaller hospitals, however, are expected to receive more coverage estimated at half of their total costs.

Needless to say, hospitals of all sizes will be taking a hit financially in order comply with the ARRA.

Read the full article at
http://www.porterresearch.com/Resource_Center/Porter_White_Papers/The_Road_Traveled.html

Source:  “The Road Traveled: Providers’ Perceptions of ARRA Legislation from Inception to Meaningful Use”

The health care reforms present in the economic stimulus bills met with praise from Jeffrey P. Harris, MD, FACP and president of the American College of Physicians. He had some advice for House and Senate negotiators who are currently trying to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the economic stimulus package.

He is asking Congress to retain the $600 million in funding that is currently present in the House version of the bill for training of primary care physicians under the Title VII and National Health Services Corps programs. The Senate “regrettably left funding out of its bill” according to Dr. Harris. The country needs 16,000 physicians to even out care standards in underserved portions of the country, physicians that could be paid for with this funding. This funding is of particular interest to any hiring organization as it may facilitate hiring of these doctors where they are most needed.

He asked the government to retain $20 billion in funding to improve health care information and records and access to the same, with a longer wait time for adoption of these measures for smaller physician practices which was spelled out in the House bill but not the Senate bill.

He also notes that the House version of the bill contained higher subsidies to COBRA for lower-income unemployed persons (65%) over the Senate version of the bill (50%). He stated that persons who lost their jobs temporarily should also be included in such subsidy programs. “Some say that Congress must choose between short-term measures to stimulate the economy and longer-term health care reforms. This is a false choice,” said Dr. Harris. “We need to make sure that people who lose their jobs are able to obtain affordable coverage. We need to make the investments in health information technology, primary care, and effectiveness research that that will create jobs today – and make health care more affordable tomorrow.”