United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Tom Price, MD and CMS Administrator Seema Verma, MPH hosted a trio of roundtable discussions this week to discuss regulatory burdens imposed on physicians by HHS/CMS that interfere or have the potential to interfere with the physician-patient relationship. AAHKS President Mark I. Froimson, MD and Health Policy Council Chair Richard Iorio, MD represented the association at the surgical roundtable that included a range of surgical specialty and subspecialty organizations.
As part of our participation, AAHKS submitted a list of more than 20 burdens to HHS based on your input from our recent Regulatory Burdens Survey. We intend to further collate and publish the outcomes from that survey soon. Additionally, HHS/CMS/CCIIO issued a request for information on Reducing Regulatory Burdens Imposed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act & Improving Healthcare Choices to Empower Patients (CMS-9928-NC). AAHKS encourages members to submit their feedback via the Federal Register.
While in our nation’s capital, AAHKS leadership met with staff from the House Energy & Commerce Committee and Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn’s office to discuss refinements to MIPS and APMs to make them more user friendly and useful to our members.
