The American Hospital Association, which represents about 5,000 hospitals and healthcare organizations, sent the Trump administration 100 recommendations on reducing regulatory burdens.
In a May 12 letter to the Office of Management and Budget, HHS and CMS, the AHA said administrative tasks required by these burdens are exorbitant and contribute to more than one-fourth of all healthcare spending. The suggestions revolve around billing and other administrative requirements, quality and patient safety, telehealth and workforce.
Some of the most prominent suggestions are:
Billing and administrative tasks
- Make all CMS models voluntary. The AHA specifically asked the Transforming Episode Accountability Model model be voluntary and that the government repeal the mandatory Increasing Organ Transplant Access model and Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility Review Choice Demonstration.
- Repeal provider disincentives related to information blocking included in a CMS final rule that was issued in June.
- Standardize more insurance-related transactions, particularly prior authorizations.
Quality and patient safety
- Repeal COVID-19 reporting mandates, including staff COVID-19 vaccination rates and weekly data on acute respiratory illnesses.
- Replace the sepsis bundle measure with a sepsis outcome measure.
- Eliminate duplicative validation surveys of accrediting organizations and adopt concurrent validation surveys. Additionally, resume conducting low-risk complaint surveys virtually.
- Eliminate the requirement that a patient’s record of substance use disorder be separated from other healthcare data.
Telehealth
- Remove select telehealth originating and telehealth geographic site restrictions.
- Remove in-person visit requirements for behavioral health telehealth.
- Remove requirements that compel hospice recertification to be completed in person.
Workforce
- Streamline care plan documentation requirements, which are primarily nursing-specific, to support interdisciplinary care teams.
- Eliminate the telehealth physician home address reporting requirement.
- Eliminate select scope of practice limitations for nurse practitioners and other advanced practice practitioners.
- Remove the requirement that outpatient physical therapy care plans be signed by a physician or nonphysician practitioner every 90 days.
