1. ACNM
President Ginger Breedlove Testifies on Capitol Hill
2. Are You
Aware of an Innovative Payment Model for Maternity Services?
3. ACNM to Host
Webinar on Medicare Physician Fee Schedule - The Basis of How You get Paid
4. ACNM to Host
Webinar on Midwifery's Place in the Maternity Care Workforce
5.
Institute for Patient Access Releases a Policy Brief on "The Value
of Human Milk Diets for Premature Infants"
6. Participate
in ACNM's Member Get a Member Drive - Win a Free Membership Renewal
1. ACNM
President Ginger Breedlove Testifies on Capitol Hill
On Thursday, Wednesday,
December 9, ACNM President Ginger Breedlove, PhD, CNM, FACNM testified before
the Health Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce regarding
H.R. 1209, the Improving Access to Maternity Care Act of 2015. As ACNM members are aware, this
legislation would establish a health professional shortage area designation for
maternity care services, similar to shortage designations that exist for
primary care, dental and mental health services. This designation would help to
identify areas in the US that experience significant shortage of full scope
maternity care professionals, including certified nurse-midwives (CNMs) and
certified midwives (CMs). ACNM's press
release on the event is available here, and materials related to the hearing can be accessed here.
The informational hearing is an important step in the
legislative process for this bill. ACNM
expects that in the new year the Committee will take up the legislation for a
markup and vote before then reporting it to the full House for
consideration.
2. Are You
Aware of an Innovative Payment Model for Maternity Services?
To help achieve better care, smarter spending,
and healthier people, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is working
in concert with partners in the private, public, and non-profit sectors to
transform the nation's health system to emphasize value over volume. This
partnership, known as the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network
(HCPLAN) has established a small taskforce whose job it is to come up with
alternative payment models that emphasize value for specific episodes of
care. One of the episodes on which they
will be working is maternity care.
Carol Sakala, who works with Childbirth
Connections, has been selected to participate on that taskforce and has
requested that any ACNM members who are aware of innovative, value-based
reimbursement models for maternity care forward details on those models to her
so that she can be aware of them while working with the HCPLAN taskforce. If you have such information, please forward
it to me at [email protected]
and I will ensure that Carol receives it.
If you're interested in the work
of the HCPLAN, they will be holding a listening
session for providers on Wednesday, December 16, from 12 -
1:15 pm ET. During that session they
will be soliciting provider perspectives on a draft white
paper on alternative payment models (APMs). ACNM has previously joined other provider
organizations to comment
on
draft versions of this document.
3. ACNM to Host
Webinar on Medicare Physician Fee Schedule - The Basis of How You get Paid
On Thursday, December 17
from 1:00 - 2:00 pm ET, ACNM will host a webinar to go over the basics of the
Medicare physician fee schedule. This
fee schedule is the basis for the reimbursement methodology used by most payers,
so even if you see no Medicare beneficiaries, it behooves you to understand how
those payments are calculated. If you
don't know how you're reimbursed, you can't know how to prove your worth. The goal is to go over the basics of how
payments are calculated as well as a few policies related to payment to CNMs
(note that CMs are not currently approved Medicare providers). To register for the webinar, visit ACNM's website.
4. ACNM to Host
Webinar on Midwifery's Place in the Maternity Care Workforce
ACNM has recently
completed a significant analysis of the place of midwives in the US maternity care workforce. The goal of this analysis was to discuss the
roots of the existing and worsening shortage of maternity care professionals in
the US, describe how midwives could be used to address that shortage, and then
put forth specific policy goals to facilitate the education of larger numbers
of midwives. ACNM members may find this
presentation useful for various purposes and are encouraged to review it, as
well as a long and short set of
talking points associated with this work.
ACNM will host a webinar
on Tuesday, February 9, from 1:00 - 2:00 pm ET during which I will go over
these materials and entertain questions.
For now, just put a hold on your calendar if you are interested. Details related to registration will be
forthcoming.
5. Institute
for Patient Access Releases a Policy Brief on "The Value of Human Milk
Diets for Premature Infants"
The Institute for Patient
Access has released a policy brief
on The Value of Human Milk Diets for Premature Infants. Authored by Mitchell Goldstein, MD, medical
director the National Coalition for Infant Health, the brief explores the value
of human milk diets, the importance of safety measure for donor milk and the
access barriers that some mothers and premature infants face.
6. Participate
in ACNM's Member Get a Member Drive - Win a Free Membership Renewal
Don't
forget to take advantage of the opportunity offered through ACNM's new "Member get a Member" campaign to get some
free CEUs. This is a fantastic way to win a great prize and strengthen
ACNM. In doing so, you strengthen our association AND make our advocacy
efforts more powerful. So grab your midwifery colleagues and friends
andsign
'em up! Then tell them to use ACNM's Action Centerto write their
legislators about issues important to midwives.
Should you have questions about
state issues, please contact Cara Kinzelman, ACNM's Associate Director of State
Government Affairs at[email protected]or 240-485-1841.
If you have questions regarding
federal issues, please contact Jesse Bushman, ACNM's Director of Advocacy and
Government Affairs at[email protected]or 240-485-1843.
Not an ACNM member? You
can access all of the member benefits, including receipt of every ACNM Policy
Update, byjoining today.
Want to take action or get
involved? Contact ACNM'sGovernment Affairs
Committee.
Don't have the time or energy to
get involved, but still want to contribute? Support theMidwives-PAC.
