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News Release
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, Nov. 21, 2002
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Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343
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HHS MOVES TO FOCUS REGULATIONS ON IMPROVED PATIENT CARE
Advisory Panel Issues Final Report Bolstering HHS' Common-Sense Reform Efforts
HHS' Advisory Committee on Regulatory Reform today issued its final report highlighting hundreds of specific recommendations for improving regulatory requirements across HHS agencies -- including many that HHS has already moved to implement or address.
"One by one, we are removing the unnecessary barriers between patients and their doctors, nurses and other health care providers," HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said. "By restoring common sense to our regulatory system, we are helping health care professionals spend more time caring for patients and less time consumed with paperwork."
Secretary Thompson last year created the advisory panel of consumers, doctors, nurses and other professionals to help guide HHS' broader efforts to streamline unnecessarily burdensome or inefficient regulations that interfere with the delivery of and access to quality health care for Americans.
The panel's final report urges a broad range of actions in order to reduce the potential harm to patients that may result from unnecessarily complex, confusing and burdensome regulations. The panel made a total of 255 recommendations to reduce potential obstacles to patients' access to care, reduce the time doctors and other health care professionals must spend on paperwork, improve communication with consumers, and improve the use of technology to promote quality care while ensuring patients have strong privacy protections.
"Our goal has been to highlight ways to improve the quality of care that patients receive by focusing on some of the unintended consequences of various regulations," said Chairman Douglas L. Wood, M.D., a practicing cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic. "Already, Secretary Thompson has moved to implement many of our ideas in ways that better serve patients. This shows the department's real willingness to consider smarter ways to regulate health care."
HHS and its agencies have already implemented 26 recommendations and are taking significant steps to address many of others to better serve patients. For example:
- In June, HHS' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a new effort to streamline Medicare's paperwork requirements for home health nurses and therapists so that they can focus more on providing quality care to their patients. The changes will streamline Medicare's home health patient assessment requirements to include only those elements needed to promote quality of care and to ensure proper payment.
- On July 1, Medicare streamlined its paperwork requirements for nurses and other clinical staff caring for Medicare beneficiaries in nursing homes. While certain longer assessments are still required, nursing homes caring for Medicare beneficiaries can now use a shorter assessment form to gather information needed to pay Medicare claims. The change cuts the time it takes to complete the assessment form from 90 minutes to 45 minutes, while continuing to collect data needed to measure quality of care in nursing homes.
- In May, CMS proposed common-sense improvements to clarify the requirements for hospitals to screen and treat emergency room patients. The proposed revisions would ensure that patients with possible emergency conditions receive appropriate care as rapidly as possible.
- Early this year, Medicare reduced the frequency that hospitals must gather detailed information from Medicare beneficiaries about other insurance. Hospitals will now be able to gather this Medicare Secondary Payer information -- used to make sure the correct insurer pays each health care claim -- once every 90 days. This change means hospitals will not have to ask patients repeatedly for the same data.
"Our work doesn't stop here. We will continue to carefully consider all of the recommendations and take appropriate steps to promote quality care for all Americans," Secretary Thompson said. "In addition, we will continue to focus on the potential impact that reducing regulatory burden may have on patient care as we review existing requirements and consider new regulations."
Today's actions build on HHS' ongoing efforts to improve and streamline the regulatory process in order to improve access to quality health care and services. Secretary Thompson last year created an HHS-wide initiative on regulatory reform to conduct an ongoing review of HHS regulations and to oversee changes in regulations. In December 2001, he appointed outside members to the advisory committee to recommend actions to support these goals.
The committee's final report will be available at www.regreform.hhs.gov.
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Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are
available at www.hhs.gov/news.
Last Revised: November 21, 2002
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