Federal Issues
1.
HHS
and Insurance Company Association Announce Alignment of Quality Measures
2.
NHSC Accepting
Applications for Loan Repayment through April 5
3.
Take Advantage of
the March 7 ACNM Annual Meeting Early Bird Special!
1. HHS and Insurance Company Association
Announce Alignment of Quality Measures
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and America's
Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the trade association for most health insurance
companies in the country, have announced
an effort, with other stakeholders, to align quality measures reported by
clinicians in both public and private payer programs.
It has been recognized that clinicians must currently report
multiple quality measures to different entities, sometimes with measure
requirements that are not aligned. To
address the confusion arising from this situation, CMS, commercial plans,
Medicare and Medicaid managed care plans, purchasers, provider organizations
and consumers worked through collaboratively to identify core
sets of measures that all payers could use.
Among the core sets of measures is one related to obstetric
care, including measures related to rates of episiotomy, early elective
delivery, cesarean, use of antenatal steroids, and exclusive
breastfeeding. A number of primary care
measures pertinent to OB/GYN care are also included in the core
set.
2. NHSC Accepting Applications for Loan
Repayment through April 5
Body: The National Health Service Corps (NHSC), which
provides funding for loan repayment to various practitioners who agree to
practice in shortage areas, is open for applications through April 5 at 7:30
p.m. ET. Information on the program as well as application instructions
are available here. The program can
provide up to $50,000 to repay student loans in return for a two-year
commitment. Once an applicant is determined to be qualified for the
program, receipt of funding is based on the Health Professionals Shortage Area
(HPSA) score associated with the location where the applicant will work. Thus,
the higher the HPSA score, the greater the likelihood of funding. You can
check the HPSA score associated with prospective employers through HRSA's website. We know that in 2014
funding was available to those working in an organization with a HPSA score of
16 or higher. The cut-off point will vary by year, based on the scores of
the applicants. But the higher the score, the better your chances!
3. Take Advantage of the March 7 ACNM Annual
Meeting Early Bird Special!
Registration for ACNM's 61st Annual Meeting &
Exhibition is open and early bird savings on registration are available to
those who register by March 7.
Click here to save on your
registration.
Questions about State Issues
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.
Questions about Federal Issues
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.
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.
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