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Health Information Technology Lobby Group Rallies Support For Certification Group; Critics Question Group's Ties
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society has asked HHS to give the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology authorization to determine which electronic health records systems can receive funding from the economic stimulus package, the Washington Post reports. In a letter dated April 27 to HHS officials, HIMSS officials wrote, "To ensure continuity, recognize CCHIT as the certifying body" of EHRs.Some health care industry officials have raised issue with giving CCHIT the responsibility of certifying EHR products because of the commission"s associations with various IT and health care companies, the Post reports. CCHIT has ties with HIMSS, which played a role in its inception in 2004 and is now managed by Mark Leavitt, the former chief medical officer of HIMSS. In 2005, the commission received a three-year, $7.5 million contract from HHS.According the Post, Internal Revenue Service tax documents show that HIMSS technically paid Leavitt"s salary through 2008, which was reimbursed by CCHIT. However, Leavitt said he is accountable only to CCHIT"s board members and he "was not supervised by HIMSS." He said he expects CCHIT will be "the body or one of several certifying bodies that are recognized" by HHS in part because it already is tasked with certifying health IT products. According to Leavitt, some of the commission"s critics are IT vendors who have failed to meet CCHIT"s standards. The Post reports that the provision in the stimulus package that requires health care providers to demonstrate "meaningful use" of health IT has become an issue because federal officials, IT systems vendors, and physicians and patient advocates have not been able to reach a consensus on the definition of meaningful use. Under the provision, providers must demonstrate meaningful use of health IT in order to receive Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments for adopting the technology (O"Harrow, Washington Post, 5/21). Blumenthal
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Determining Success Or Failure In Cholesterol-Controlling Drugs
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that a complex network of interactions between drugs and the proteins with which they bind can explain adverse drug effects. Their findings suggest that adverse drug effects might be minimized by using single or multiple drug therapies in order to fine-tune multiple off-target interactions.
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H1N1 Confirmed In Three More African Countries; Cambodia, Indonesia Confirm First Cases
The H1N1 (swine flu) virus has reached the sub-Saharan African countries of Cape Verde, Ethiopia and Ivory Coast, according to the WHO, the AP/Boston Herald reports. Last week, South Africa became the first country in the region to confirm a 12-year-old, who had returned from the U.S., tested positive for the H1N1 virus.
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Insurers Underpaid 'Billions' In Health Claims

The Senate Commerce Committee has found that a flawed payment database produced by a UnitedHealth subsidiary and distributed to other major insurance companies has led insurers to underpay millions of out-of-network claims, forcing patients to make up the difference of health care providers" fees, the Wall Street Journal reports. Aetna, Cigna, WellPoint, and other large insurers used the data to calculate their "reasonable and customary" charges. They also provided UnitedHealth"s subsidiary, Ingenix, with historic data about their payments, which became the foundation of ongoing versions of the flawed payment models. "A committee aide said those companies sometimes would "scrub" the data sent to Ingenix - throwing out outlying high costs. Ingenix then would use questionable statistical models to come to its own rate estimates," the Journal reports. "An Ingenix spokeswoman said the company stands by the integrity of its databases. The two databases in question by the committee represent less than 2% of Ingenix"s overall business. Ingenix also said it doesn"t set actual rates for health procedures." Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the committee, also sits on the Senate Finance Committee which is crafting a health reform proposal. "He hopes to insert into the health-care bill language creating some type of independent evaluator that can certify that health claims are evaluated properly" (Johnson, 6/25). The exact amount of charges deflected to patients remains unknown, but the Associated Press/New York Times reports the number is in the billions, and that two-thirds of the nation"s health insurance industry relied on the flawed payment models. "UnitedHealth has admitted no wrongdoing in its handling of Ingenix, though it agreed to close the database and help pay for a new one operated by a nonprofit group" (6/24). "The report was part of a multi-pronged assault on the credibility of private insurers by [Rockefeller]," the Washington Post reports. Wendell Potter, a former public relations executive at Cigna, testified "that the industry"s charm offensive, which is the most visible part of duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns, may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans" (Hilzenrath, 6/25). "Insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and they make it nearly impossible to understand - or even to obtain - information we need," Potter said according to the Hartford Courant. Now a paid consultant to the Center for Media and Democracy, Potter said wasn"t testifying because he had a grudge against Cigna, but he had a "growing feeling in recent years "that the health insurance industry was taking the country in the wrong direction and was directly contributing to the problem of the uninsured and under-insured in the country"" (Levick, 6/25). This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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