When representatives of the health IT community meet with members of Congress on Sept. 18, they intend to request, among other things, the expansion of telehealth services.
The scheduled Capitol Hill visits, organized by HIMSS (the parent company of mHealth News), are the grassroots component of National Health IT Week, which begins Monday, Sept. 15.
“During National Health IT Week HIMSS raises awareness of the power of health IT to transform how care is delivered, health information is shared, quality is measured, reimbursements are dispersed and patients are engaged in their own health and healthcare,” said Tom Leary, vice president of government relations at HIMSS.
Here's what HIMSS volunteers and their colleagues will express to their appointed representatives in Washington:
Ask #1
Congress should require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publish a review, evaluation and recommendations on the five-year roadmap of all mandated, HHS-administered health IT requirements and program changes affecting patients and the operations of providers, payers and/or health IT vendors.
"Appropriate policies and technical specifications need to be in place and rules need to be coordinated among federal agencies at a high level to reduce confusing - and at times conflicting - regulatory guidance, and the roadmap will help support that," explained Mary Griskewicz, HIMSS' senior director for health information systems.
Ask #2
Congress should fund the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT in fiscal year 2015 at sufficient levels requested in the Obama Administration's FY 2015 Budget Request. The 2015 request included $75 million for the ONC, $14 million more than allotted for FY 2014.
The HITECH Act of 2009 established the ONC as the principal federal entity charged with coordination of nationwide efforts to implement and use health IT and the electronic exchange of health information to improve the quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of patient care. However, as of FY 2014, the ONC no longer had access to the HITECH-specific operational funds used to support various ONC programs and interoperable health information exchange capabilities.
The $75 million in the FY 2015 budget request is necessary for the ONC to coordinate and support investments in policies, standards, testing tools and implementation guides that have dramatically accelerated the adoption and meaningful use of certified EHR technologies, according to HIMSS.
Ask #3
Congress should pass legislation that enables the nationwide realization of the full benefits of telehealth services: expanding access to quality care, controlling costs, enhancing secure interoperability of health information and improving the quality of care for rural and underserved populations.
As of Aug. 1, 2014, there were six bills pending in the 113th Congress designed to enhance telehealth. Opportunities include covering telehealth services in Medicare hospital and post-acute care payment bundles, expanding remote patient monitoring into the home, advancing the concept of the e-visit and including phone and electronic communications in the definition of telehealth as a means of providing care.
For concerned HIT proponents like Rick Moore, the Congressional Ask event is essential to sustaining and accelerating headway in health IT. Moore, advocacy chair for HIMSS' Central & Southern Ohio Chapter, has been participating in Congressional visits during National HIT Week every year since 2005.
"I have been part of a number of efforts with various organizations that tried to advance adoption of electronic health records. And I found the barrier was not technology; it was policy," he said. "I keep coming back each year to remind (my legislators) that the progress we have made in the last few years only will be in place if we keep moving forward. Health IT needs their support."
This article originally appeared on mHealth News sister site Medical Practice Insider.
