Medicare regulatory reform panel looks to cut red tape

Work is under way to implement hundreds of recommendations to relieve the paperwork burden.

By Markian Hawryluk, AMNews staff. Dec. 9, 2002.

Washington -- What may end up being the largest single effort to reduce health care regulations came to a close in late November when a regulatory relief panel gave the Bush administration 255 recommendations to eliminate red tape for health practitioners and their patients.

Now it is up to the Health and Human Services Dept. to implement or reject the committee's suggestions.

The Advisory Committee on Regulatory Reform, called by HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson more than a year ago, included in its completed report more than 100 suggestions that would directly impact doctors. It addressed such thorny rules as the advance beneficiary notice, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, limited English proficiency, and Medicare evaluation and management guidelines.

"One by one, we are removing unnecessary barriers between patients and doctors, nurses and other health care providers," Thompson said. "By restoring common sense to our regulatory system, we are helping health care professionals spend more time caring for patients and less time consumed with paperwork."

Heeding Thompson's request not to wait until the final report, the panel made recommendations throughout the process, and HHS already had implemented 27 of them before the document was issued. One example is clarifications on EMTALA that physician groups had clamored for.

Of the 255 recommendations, more than half were directed at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The agency has already implemented 17 of those suggestions, and agency officials said work was under way to implement scores of further reforms. [...]