Policy & Regulations

This channel includes news coverage of healthcare policy and regulations set by Congress, the states, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and medical associations and societies. 

CMS physician payment rule addresses EHRs

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its physician payment rule in the Dec. 10 Federal Register.

MGMA urges practice ICD-10 testing ASAP

The Medical Group Management Association is urging the Department of Health & Human Services to undertake full end-to-end testing with physician practices as soon as possible.

Associations weigh in on MU timeline change

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s major announcement of a one-year extension for Stage 2 got industry stakeholders talking. While there is added flexibility down the road, there remains no immediate relief as Stage 2 rolls out—leaving many in the field to question, is it enough?

HITPC approves ‘accounting of disclosures’ recommendations

The Health IT Policy Committee unanimously endorsed recommendations presented by the privacy and security tiger team governing the accounting of disclosures of an individual’s protected health information.

HITPC reviews recommendations for patient-generated data

Existing standards should suffice for incorporating patient-generated health data, according to an update from the Consumer Empowerment Workgroup, presenting at the Dec. 4 Health IT Policy Committee meeting.

Legislation seeks to promote wireless health technologies

New legislation introduced in the House seeks to more widely integrate wireless technologies in federal health agencies to decrease healthcare costs and improve quality of care.

Compounded drugs safety bill signed into law

President Barack Obama signed into law legislation geared toward improving the overall safety of compounded drug products.

CMS expands resources to help providers prepare for ICD-10

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are doing everything they can to help providers prepare for the Oct. 1, 2014, ICD-10 implementation date. Denesecia Green, CMS senior health insurance specialist, spoke with Clinical Innovation + Technology about the agency’s ICD-10 resources.

Around the web

U.S. health systems are increasingly leveraging digital health to conduct their operations, but how health systems are using digital health in their strategies can vary widely.

When human counselors are unavailable to provide work-based wellness coaching, robots can substitute—as long as the workers are comfortable with emerging technologies and the machines aren’t overly humanlike.

A vendor that supplies EHR software to public health agencies is partnering with a health-tech startup in the cloud-communications space to equip state and local governments for managing their response to the COVID-19 crisis.