Congressman Sends Letter to Secretary of HHS Urging Her to Retract CMS’s Global Settlement Offer – On September 15, 2014, Congressman Kevin Brady (R-Tex), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, sent a letter to the Secretary of HHS urging her to “retract the settlement process CMS posted on its website on Friday, August 29” in which CMS offered a global settlement to hospitals with appeals of denials of inpatient claims.  Congressman Brady questioned whether “HHS has the statutory authority for this settlement process,” as well as how CMS established the proposed 68% settlement amount.

Congress Passes Act Requiring Quality Reporting by Post-Acute Care Providers – Last week, both the House and the Senate passed the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014 (HR 4994).  The legislation, if signed by the President, will require post-acute care providers to report certain resource use statistics, as well as standardized quality data, and for the results to be publicly reported by CMS.

HHS Clarifies that HIPAA Privacy Rule Extends to Same-Sex Spouses – The HHS, Office for Civil Rights, recently issued guidance that addresses the HIPAA Privacy Rule in light of United States v. Windsor, the 2013 Supreme Court decision that struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional.  The guidance clarifies that the Privacy Rule covers individuals who are in same-sex marriages.  Specifically, in certain circumstances, covered entities may share individuals’ protected health information with same-sex spouses, and health plans are prohibited from using same-sex spouses’ genetic information for underwriting purposes.

Recent MedPAC Meeting – On September 11-12, 2014, MedPAC held a public meeting to discuss various Medicare issues and policy, and to develop and approve reports and recommendations to Congress.  The meeting topics, briefs, and presentation slides are available here. 

Transcript and Audio Recording Now Available of CMS’s National Provider Call On Its Global Settlement Offer – Last week, we reported that CMS held a Medicare Learning Network (MLN) National Provider Call on September 9, 2014 to discuss its global settlement offer to acute care hospitals with pending appeals of denials for inpatient claims.  The transcript and recording of that MLN call are now available and can be accessed here.