Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
Health Care Workers May Get Relief From New H-1B Visa Fee
A bill newly introduced in the House would provide relief to non-U.S. born health care workers from the $100,000 fee for H-1B visas that was introduced by executive order last year. Under the Physicians and Healthcare Workforce Act, health care workers from other countries would not be required to pay the new $100,000 visa fee to emigrate to and work in the U.S. In introducing the measure, the bill’s bipartisan sponsors noted that the $100,000 visa fee will only exacerbate the current shortage of doctors and other health care workers. [...]
CMS Plans IDR Changes
The Independent Dispute Resolution process that is the central implementation mechanism of the No Surprises Act will soon undergo reengineering. Working with the Labor Department and the Department of the Treasury, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services plans to transition the IDR process from single-use web forms into a new IDR gateway later this year. Previewing a process that it anticipates officially unveiling in the near future, CMS notes that through this new gateway, users be able to start and respond to disputes; gain access to dispute dashboards and [...]
MACPAC Submits March Report to Congress
The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission has submitted its mandated March report to Congress. The report consists of four chapters: Chapter 1 offers a recommendation to support the home- and community-based services (HCBS) workforce by requiring states to report hourly wages paid to HCBS workers to help states set effective HCBS payment rates. Chapter 2 focuses on behavioral health in Medicaid and CHIP. Chapter 3 looks at the role of Medicaid in supporting justice-involved youth. Chapter 4 provides an overview of how Medicaid meets the needs of children in child [...]
MedPAC Submits March Report to Congress
As required by law, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has submitted its March report to Congress. In this year’s report, MedPAC: evaluates the adequacy of Medicare’s fee-for-service payments and offers its recommendation for changes in the coming year; offers its perspectives on the Medicare Advantage program (Medicare Part C) and the Medicare prescription drug program (Medicare Part D); describes trends and key issues in post-acute care and offers a status report on ambulatory surgical centers; and submits reports mandated by Congress on the performance of special-needs plans for dually eligible [...]
MACPAC Meets
Members of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission met recently in Washington, D.C. The following is MACPAC’s own summary of its two days of public meetings. MACPAC’s March meeting began with a discussion on the role of automation in the Medicaid prior authorization (PA) process. MACPAC conducted a literature review, a federal policy review, and stakeholder interviews on the role of automation in the PA process. During this session, we reviewed findings and challenges that surfaced in this research, including the extent to which automation is already in [...]