News in brief - July 14, 2003

Medicaid drug costs investigated - HHS backs electronic records system - Government funds awarded for HIV/AIDS care

Medicaid drug costs investigated

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has launched a fraud investigation into the prices Medicaid pays for drugs. The committee has asked three wholesale drug distributors and 26 drugmakers for information on the difference between the costs charged to purchasers and the reimbursement buyers receive from state Medicaid programs.

The General Accounting Office has estimated that Medicaid and Medicare together are paying about $2 billion a year in overpriced drugs.

HHS backs electronic records system

The Dept. of Health and Human Services signed an agreement with the College of American Pathologists to license its standardized medical vocabulary system and make it available free. This is a step toward a national electronic system that will allow quick access of medical records. HHS also has commissioned the Institute of Medicine to design a free standardized model for electronic health records. HHS expects to have this model ready in 2004.

"Banks and other financial institutions all across the country can talk to each other electronically, which has streamlined customer transactions and reduced errors," HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson said. "We want to do the same thing for the American health care system. We want to build a standardized platform on which physicians' offices, insurance companies, hospitals and others can all communicate electronically, which will improve patient care while reducing the medical errors and the high costs plaguing our health care system."

Government funds awarded for HIV/AIDS care

The Dept. of Health and Human Services has announced 45 grants totaling $23 million to help communities provide outpatient and primary care services for low-income, medically underserved Americans who are living with HIV/AIDS or are at risk of contracting the virus.

"These grants help community-based organizations reach out to those who may be HIV-positive but don't know it and get them into care," Secretary Tommy Thompson said. In addition to counseling, testing and referral, and medical evaluation and clinical care, the grants support oral health care, adherence counseling, nutritional counseling, outpatient mental health care, outpatient substance abuse treatment, and referral for specialty and subspecialty care.