HHS regulatory reform: A reality check for good intentions

A new committee will advise HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson on which of his agency's rules are more trouble than they're worth.

Editorial. Feb. 25, 2002.

Much to his credit, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson has appointed a panel to tell him what's wrong with the rules written by his agency.

Most doctors already have an answer: plenty. Fortunately, six physicians are among the 27 health-care-savvy members of Thompson's Advisory Committee on Regulatory Reform, among them AMA House of Delegates Vice Speaker Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD. The AMA also has sent word throughout the Federation of state and specialty societies not to pass up this chance to underscore the HHS regulatory problems faced by their members.

The committee's mission is to collect and present solutions for those bureaucratic missteps. There's one qualifier -- the rules must be ones that do not require congressional action to change. Thompson says he wants to hear about what he can address on his own and has gone as far as to tell panel members not to wait until the final report, due late this year, to report a problem. He should expect that medicine will be watching closely how well he carries through on this highly personal and public commitment to change.

He can start with one of medicine's top requests -- that HHS rethink its so-called translator rule from the agency's Office for Civil Rights. The rule requires any medical practice that takes "federal financial assistance" -- in practical terms, any doctor who takes even a single Medicaid payment -- to pay for the services of a language translator on demand, for any patient with "limited English proficiency." [...]