The American Hospital Association laid out a set of actions Congress should take to "immediately" reduce the regulatory burden on Medicare providers.
In an Aug. 25 letter to the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, AHA noted "there are numerous duplicative and excessive rules and requirements on America's hospitals and health systems."
Here are seven of the IT-related actions AHA suggested to reduce regulatory burden on hospitals and health systems.
1. Expand Medicare coverage of telehealth services
2. Remove HIPAA's current barriers to sharing patient information for clinically-integrated care
3. Allow providers to access patients' substance use disorder treatment records
4. Cancel Stage 3 of the "Meaningful Use" program
5. Suspend the electronic clinical quality measure reporting requirement
6. Undo agency over-reach on penalties related to "information blocking," which arguably ask hospitals to take responsibility for technical issues outside of their control
7. Re-focus the ONC on EHR certification to improve health information standards and the information exchange infrastructure
Click here to view the full letter.