The AHA today voiced support for certain provisions in and proposed amendments to the Helping to End Addiction and Lessen (HEAL) Substance Use Disorders Act, which the Senate Finance Committee will begin marking up this afternoon. As introduced by Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the legislation would require Medicare and Medicaid to provide beneficiaries better education, prevention, management and treatment options for pain and addiction; increase Medicare beneficiary awareness of non-opioid alternative treatments; increase treatment for substance use disorder; improve tracking of opioid prescriptions under Medicare Part D; expand and clarify Medicaid’s options for treating beneficiaries with substance use disorder; and improve data used to evaluate treatments for opioid use disorder. Finance Committee members have filed more than 50 amendments to the Chairman’s mark. The House of Representatives also has begun considering a number of opioid-related bills this afternoon, including four bills supported by the AHA.

Related News Articles

Headline
AHA Chair-elect Marc Boom, M.D., president and CEO of Houston Methodist, and AHA Immediate-past Chair Joanne Conroy, M.D., president and CEO of Dartmouth…
Chairperson's File
Public
This month Congress enacted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — a sweeping package that contained many of President Trump’s legislative priorities on taxes,…
Headline
Fairview Health Services, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit health system of 10 hospitals and medical centers serving the greater Twin Cities metro area and north-…
Headline
The Rural Hospital Excellence in Innovation Award honors rural hospitals that are leading the way in innovative, sustainable and community-centered care. If…
Headline
AHA’s Circle of Life Award celebrates innovation in palliative and end-of-life care and seeks to provide best practices and models for the field. Programs and…
Headline
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services July 10 rescinded a policy that extended certain federal public benefits to immigrants lacking permanent legal…