Ways and Means Committee reports on efforts to reduce Medicare burdens

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Subcommittee on Health Chairman Peter Roskam (R-IL) yesterday released a report reviewing the committee’s year-long initiative to reduce legislative and regulatory burdens on Medicare providers and potential next steps. According to the report, the committee is sending letters to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services acknowledging the administration’s efforts to reduce burdens in the inpatient prospective payment system final rule and other areas and asking the agency to take additional action. Hospitals, health systems and post-acute care providers spend nearly $39 billion a year on administrative activities related to regulatory compliance, according to a study released last October by the AHA and cited in the report. The report also highlights regulatory relief provisions included in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, including an AHA-supported provision to ease future electronic health record burdens. “As we look to the fall, the committee will continue to explore common-sense solutions based on the feedback from stakeholders and the administration,” the report states. In a letter to the subcommittee last year, AHA laid out actions that Congress could take immediately to reduce the regulatory burden on hospitals, health systems and the patients they serve.