Dive Brief:
- Congress should take on some major healthcare issues during its 114th session, including FDA regulation of health IT, telemedicine expansion, the Meaningful Use incentive program, interoperability between EMR systems and an omnibus "fix it" package known as 21st Century Cures, according to Politico.
- While legislators aren't sure that the FDA should regulate health IT, there's a possibility they will enact legislation making vendors liable for cybersecurity attacks. However, Congressional leaders seem likely to expand telemedicine reimbursement through Medicare, and also to relax anti-kickback restrictions so hospitals face no legal problems when they buy telehealth technology for physicians.
- Observers also expect to see Meaningful Use standards to be rolled back to help struggling practices and facilities. At the same time, members of Congress are likely to demand that EMR vendors, at long last, make their systems capable of speaking to each other.
Dive Insight:
Congress is in a unique position this coming year to both help the healthcare industry and smack it down.
Movement on telemedicine, relaxing meaningful use rules and ratcheting up on funding in the 21st Century Cures package could be a big boost for healthcare providers and professionals. On the other hand, interoperability, cybersecurity and privacy issues could push Congress to punish the industry for not being more efficient with its adoption of EMRs and taking risks with patient data.
Most critical will be the final version of 21st Century Cures, as it looks like it will be addressing a wide variety of areas and perhaps add more money to Medicare, specifically for telemedicine. Let's hope that the lobbyists, activists, advocates and lawmakers all emerge from the holidays rested and ready for the session ahead, because the results could have a dramatic impact on the continued post ACA healthcare world.