News in brief - Jan. 10, 2011

Va. panel supports health IT loans, eased scope-of-practice limits

Virginia is being called on to help physicians secure loans to purchase health information technology, change scope-of-practice laws to allow health professionals to practice "to the evidence-based limit of their training," and create a health insurance exchange as allowed under the national health reform law.

These are a few of the 28 recommendations from the Virginia Health Reform Initiative Advisory Council issued Dec. 21, 2010. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell appointed the panel of 24 health care, civic and business leaders to recommend ways the state could improve the quality and efficiency of care and to guide local implementation of health reform.

The council said the state should consider more cost-sharing requirements for Medicaid enrollees. It said Virginia should support study of the effectiveness of health care teams that could include doctors, nurses, pharmacists, mental health professionals, case managers and others.

The council recommended that it continue to advise the secretary and governor and hold quarterly meetings through 2011. The council report is available online (www.hhr.virginia.gov/initiatives/healthreform).

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Pay-for-performance finalized for Medicare dialysis facilities

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued a final rule to provide the framework for adjusting Medicare payments to renal dialysis facilities based on how well they meet or exceed performance standards for quality measures.

The rule, issued on Dec. 29, 2010, establishes the scoring methodology the agency will use to rate physicians' quality of dialysis care and establishes a sliding scale for payment adjustment based on a facility's performance. Dialysis facilities that do not meet or exceed performance standards will be subject to a payment reduction of up to 2%. Physicians and facilities will be evaluated for the payment period that ran from Jan. 1, 2010, through Dec. 31, 2010, and will be given the opportunity to review their scores and payment adjustments before they are released publicly, CMS said.

The end-stage renal disease quality incentive program was mandated by Medicare legislation in 2008. Nearly 350,000 Medicare beneficiaries are being treated for the disease, at a cost of nearly $9 billion each year, according to CMS.

The print version of this content appeared in the Jan. 17 issue of American Medical News.

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