Today’s big news is that the ACA regulators (the Departments of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Labor, and Treasury) finalized a lengthy pricing transparency rule for payers, including ERISA and FEHBP group health plans (see footnote 233). The related fact sheet explains

This final rule includes two approaches to make health care price information accessible to consumers and other stakeholders, allowing for easy comparison-shopping.

First, most non-grandfathered group health plans and health insurance issuers offering non-grandfathered health insurance coverage in the individual and group markets will be required to make available to participants, beneficiaries and enrollees (or their authorized representative) personalized out-of-pocket cost information, and the underlying negotiated rates, for all covered health care items and services, including prescription drugs, through an internet-based self-service tool and in paper form upon request. For the first time, most consumers will be able to get real-time and accurate estimates of their cost-sharing liability for health care items and services from different providers in real time, allowing them to both understand how costs for covered health care items and services are determined by their plan, and also shop and compare health care costs before receiving care. An initial list of 500 shoppable services as determined by the Departments will be required to be available via the internet based self-service tool for plan years that begin on or after January 1, 2023. The remainder of all items and services will be required for these self-service tools for plan years that begin on or after January 1, 2024.

Second, most non-grandfathered group health plans or health insurance issuers offering non-grandfathered health insurance coverage in the individual and group markets will be required to make available to the public, including stakeholders such as consumers, researchers, employers, and third-party developers, three separate machine-readable files that include detailed pricing information.
The first file will show negotiated rates for all covered items and services between the plan or issuer and in-network providers.
The second file will show both the historical payments to, and billed charges from, out-of-network providers. Historical payments must have a minimum of twenty entries in order to protect consumer privacy.
And finally, the third file will detail the in-network negotiated rates and historical net prices for all covered prescription drugs by plan or issuer at the pharmacy location level.
Plans and issuers will display these data files in a standardized format and will provide monthly updates. This data will provide opportunities for detailed research studies, data analysis, and offer third party developers and innovators the ability to create private sector solutions to help drive additional price comparison and consumerism in the health care market. These files are required to be made public for plan years that begin on or after January 1, 2022.

The final rule also provides some medical loss ratio relief to compliant health insurance issuers as explained in the fact sheet. Here is AHIP’s reaction to the final rule.

Also today HHS issued an interim final rule with a comment period that “extends the compliance dates and timeframes necessary to meet certain requirements related to information blocking and Conditions and Maintenance of Certification (CoC/MoC) requirements. Released to the public on March 9, 2020, ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule established exceptions to the 21st Century Cures Act’s information blocking provision and adopted new health information technology (health IT) certification requirements to enhance patients’ smartphone access to their health information at no cost through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs).” The rule had been scheduled to take effect beginning next week.

Fierce Healthcare reports that “Regeneron’s anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody cocktail has significantly reduced medical visits in ambulatory COVID-19 patients. The phase 2/3 clinical trial linked REGN-COV2 to a 57% decline in medical visits associated with COVID-19 in the 29 days after treatment.”

HealthPartners, a Minneapolis health insurer that participates in the FEHBP, offers a helpful, complete explanation of the benefits of wearing masks to prevent COVID-19. “At its core, wearing a mask is an act of kindness and neighborliness. It’s one of the simplest good deeds you can do these days, and a great way to be a force of positivity for the people in your life.”

Fierce Healthcare reports

The financial crisis for hospitals and physician practices caused by the COVID pandemic is a “clarion call” for the healthcare industry to move from a fee-for-service payment model to value, said Kevin Mahoney, chief executive officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (Penn Medicine).

“The hospital sector has taken a giant hit. We keep hearing about ‘the new normal.’ The lesson that we learned is that there is nothing new or normal about a pandemic, there’s just been an acceleration of trends,” Mahoney said during a recent virtual event hosted by the University of Pennsylvania. “It has laid bare how dependent hospitals are on commercially-insured, elective procedures, and without them, we don’t make money.”

The FEHBlog’s youngest son is a research coordinator for Penn Medicine. The FEHBlog seconds his boss’s sentiments.

The Surgeon General issued a timely

Call to Action to Control Hypertension (Call to Action) seeks to avert the negative health effects of hypertension by identifying evidence-based interventions that can be implemented, adapted, and expanded in diverse settings across the United States.

The Call to Action outlines three goals to improve hypertension control across the United States, and each goal is supported by strategies to achieve success:

Goal 1. Make hypertension control a national priority.
Goal 2. Ensure that the places where people live, learn, work, and play support hypertension control.
Goal 3. Optimize patient care for hypertension.

Following up on yesterday’s post about mandatory of coverage of COVID-19 vaccines with no member cost sharing once available, the FEHBlog wants to add that the same rule applies to Medicare. CMS “estimates the overall cost of providing the vaccine to every senior on Medicare would be around $2.6 billion, which would be covered by the federal government. CMS will also cover the vaccine for any uninsured individuals by using money from a $175 billion provider relief fund passed as part of the CARES Act.” It appears however that the vaccine would be administered through the Part D program. That would not be much help to FEHB plans as most FEHB members with primary Medicare coverage does not carry Medicare Part D.

Nextgov reports that

The Health and Human Services Department, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI warn hospitals face an imminent threat from cybercriminals that encrypt and hold their data hostage—and some health care facilities are already dealing with the fallout.

The agencies collectively issued an advisory Wednesday detailing the tactics, techniques and procedures reportedly used against at least five hospitals already this week. The advisory includes recommendations for mitigating what observers are referring to as the most serious cyber threat the U.S. has seen to date, being perpetrated by an especially ruthless group of criminals.  

“CISA, FBI, and HHS have credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers,” reads the advisory.