NEHEN has been focusing on proposed changes to HIPAA rules - most notably advancements of the X12 standards and CAQH Core operating rules - as well as the CMS proposal for attachments. We attended the NCVHS public hearings in January and have spent time at several recent NEHEN Business User’s Group meetings discussing these rules with attendees.
The DGC has also looked at those rules, but has focused more on the ONC USCDI v4 draft release, the CMS Advancing Interoperability and Improving Prior Authorization Processes Proposed Rule (NEHEN has looked at this as well), and the OMB Initial Proposals for Updating Race and Ethnicity Statistical Standards. We have spent multiple working group meetings discussing these rules and have incorporated participant comments with our own thoughts to write responses to both the CMS and OMB proposals (currently in various states of draft; contact us if you’d like the chance to provide feedback on either prior to submitting the final documents). Our staff has also left informal website comments on USCDI in accordance with their feedback process.
MHDC participates in public webinars and working sessions related to these and other regulations and proposals to help us understand them, public sentiment about them, and how industry experts view them.
Both groups are also meeting with local legislators and policy makers. In conjunction with the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation (NEHI), NEHEN is working with the Health Policy Commission (HPC) to assist Massachusetts' payers and providers adopt open and standards-based electronic prior authorization by 2026. We've also met with local legislators proposing new state laws covering prior authorization.
The DGC has met with MassHealth and the HPC to discuss advancement of quality measures in Massachusetts, particularly the potential use of FHIR for quality measures data exchange. We discussed how the industry is moving to FHIR for this and other clinical data exchanges and some of what that means in terms of both technology and process for provider organizations.
We will continue to prioritize the need to understand and provide feedback of various sorts to federal and state regulations and engage policymakers to advance patient-centric health data exchange. Are you interested in learning more? Please consider joining the DGC weekly meetings HERE.
Please let me know if there's a particular regulation or piece of legislation you'd like to see us examine. My door remains open to MHDC members about these and other topics.
Denny Brennan
MHDC Executive Director
