Business Insurance reports that House and Senate negotiators have resolved the benefit related differences between the mental health parity bills that their respective chambers passed. Earlier the House backed off on its provision requiring health plans to cover all mental disorders identified by the American Psychiatric Association.

According to Business Insurance, “Negotiators now have also set the date for plans to comply with the new parity requirements at Jan. 1 of the first calendar year after the date of enactment.” I hope that’s an error because if this account is accurate then the new requirements would apply to health plans, including FEHB plans, on January 1, 2009, if the bill is enacted this year. 2010 would be much more reasonable in my view for such a major change. The negotiators now are turning to the pay go provisions adopted by the House that the Administration has threatened to veto. Stay tuned.

Mark your calendars now. The Indian generic drug manufacturer Ranbaxy has struck a deal with Pfizer to begin marketing a generic version of the blockbuster anti-cholesterol drug/statin Lipitor at the end of November 2011 according to the Financial Times. Ranbaxy will have 180 days of exclusive marketing rights to generic Lipitor.

Daiichi Sankyo of Japan is seeking to acquire Ranbaxy. The Indian business press reports today that the Bombay stock market which lists Ranbaxy reacted unfavorably to the deal. Reuters reports that the deal caused UBS to cut ratings on two large U.S. prescription benefits managers Medco and Express Scripts as a result of this deal because the UBS analysts expected Lipitor to go generic in 2010.

AIS Health Business Daily reprinted today an interesting article on how health plans can help avoid security breaches. The article reads in part as follows:

Health plan privacy and security officers interviewed by HPW say that while no information-protection system is totally foolproof, there are certain key steps plans can take to reduce significantly the risk of data being lost, stolen or inappropriately viewed. And they agree that in most cases, the problem is internal mistakes and carelessness rather than threats from hackers. “Typically the weak link is not some exotic hacker,” Craig Shumard, CIGNA Corp.’s chief information security officer, tells HPW. “In many cases, it’s an employee or third-party outsourcer who just didn’t consider the security implications of what they were doing.” Among the weak links cited by privacy and security officers:

• Overlooking the importance of a culture that values information protection;
• Sending PHI or other sensitive data by unsecured channels;
• Using laptops with unencrypted hard drives; and
• Not monitoring an outside vendor’s privacy and security procedures.

These weak links can be addressed by the right blend of administrative practices and technology safeguards. “The most important step you can take is arming your employees with the technology and the knowledge they need to protect this information,” says Mike Elinski, associate vice president for technology and e-business development at Michigan-based Health Alliance Plan. “Doing this puts you and your customers in the best possible position.”

Common sense also helps.

The American Medical Association has announced that it will begin to rank health plans on the quality and timeliness of their claims administration according to the Chicago Tribune. The AMA believes that their ratings will serve as a counterpoint to health plan on-line ratings of physicians. However, the AMA News reports this week that relatively few people select their physicians by using these ratings:

A Harris Interactive poll commissioned by the California HealthCare Foundation found that although more than 80% of the state’s adults turn to the Internet for health-related information, less than one-quarter have looked at physician ratings sites. Only 2% of those surveyed made a change in physicians based on information posted on a rating site.

That lack of reliance on ratings is not limited to choosing a physician. The survey, released in June, also found that only 1% of respondents made a change in their hospital or health plan based on ratings sites devoted to those entities.

The health plan trade association, AHIP, released a statement on the AMA’s actions.

• Last week, the Senate continued to debate, but made no real progress toward adopting, a Medicare bill that would avoid a 10.6% cut to physician reimbursement on July 1. CMS has warned that any reimbursement change will have to be made retroactively if a law is not passed by June 16.
• The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology awarded Booz Allen Hamilton a $450,000 contract to assess and evaluate the scope of the medical identity theft problem in the U.S.
• The eHealth Initiative issued a report on the state of electronic prescribing.

FCW.com reports that

On June 6, the Bush administration issued an executive order saying that all companies hired to perform work for federal agencies must use an electronic verification system to ensure that their employees are legally eligible to work in the United States. On June 9, the Homeland Security Department designated its online E-Verify system for use in the verification process. The Executive Order will be implemented through a Federal Acquisition Regulation contract clause that is being proposed this month.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has posted FAQs on E-Verify for federal contractors. The first FAQ is very helpful:

As a current or prospective Federal contractor, am I required by the Executive Order or the proposed rule to enroll in E-Verify now? Not at this time. At this time, the E-Verify program remains a voluntary program for employers, including federal contractors. The Executive Order instructs Federal agencies to require contractor participation in E-Verify as a term of future contracts, and the proposed rule provides detailed guidance on how that requirement is to be implemented. However, the proposed rule is not a final rule; it is a proposal that is open for public comment at this time. There may be substantive changes to the rule before it becomes final. Moreover, the final rule will not be effective until 30 days after publication. Under the proposed rule, you would only be required to enroll in E-Verify if and when you enter into a Federal contract or subcontract that requires participation in E-Verify as a term of the contract. Although Federal Contractors are not yet required to participate in E-Verify, you are encouraged to enroll in E-Verify now to verify the employment eligibility of your new hires.

• Modern Healthcare Online reports that Sen. Max Baucus (D Mont), the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has released his “Medicare reform” bill that would retain the current 0.5% increase in doctor reimbursement from Medicare in 2008 and allow a 1.1% increase in 2009. This is higher than the increase that Sen. Baucus initially proposed. Absent the enactment of this legislation, a 10.6% reduction in doctor reimbursement from Medicare will take effect on July 1, 2008. What’s more unless this legislation is enacted by June 16, Medicare will be required to implement the change retroactively according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
• The New York Times reports today on a Capitol Hill controversy over Medicare reimbursement of doctor owned or specialty hospitals.
• Today’s Washington Post includes a Jane Bryant Quinn column on a health care reform proposal offered by the ERISA Industry Committee. Meanwhile, AHIP, the health insurance carrier’s trade association, offered its own reform proposal recently.

• Government Health IT reported on the June 4, 2008, House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing on the bipartisan health information technology bill that has emerged from the leadership of that committee. What caught my eye were two points: (1) that the Bush Administration warned that
  

  The adoption of health IT standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria through the use of rulemaking should be avoided. We have seen from prior statutory requirements that it significantly delays the applicability and usage of new and improved standards.

  Amen! and (2) that there were voices in opposition to the privacy zealots who testified.

• The American Health Information Community (AHIC) met on Tuesday June 3. Healthcare IT News reports that
  

  Officials at Tuesday’s meeting received a positive report on the progress of healthcare IT policy efforts. However, experts cautioned, doctors are still slow to adopt electronic health records, and few of the approved standards for healthcare IT data exchange have made it into use in the real world.

Last December, Congress provided doctors, who were facing a 10.6% cut in Medicare reimbursement, with a stay of execution that expires on June 30. The House of Representative’s rules prevented a longer extension. (In fact, Congress gave doctors a 0.5% reimbursement boost for the first six months of 2008).

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have warned Congress that unless a new extension is enacted by June 16, the wheels implementing the 10.6% cut on July 1 will be set in motion. While both parties want to create an 18 month extension of the status quo, there is disagreement over how to fund it. Therefore, it is likely that the cut will be implemented and then retroactively reversed by Congress. This eventuality, which has occurred a few times in the recent past, causes problems not only for doctors and Medicare payers but also for FEHB plans which pay thousands of claims secondary to Medicare.

The Treasury Department has released here the 2009 indexed amounts on the maximum contribution levels for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and out-of-pocket spending limits for High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) that must be used in conjunction with HSAs.