ACP provided comments on a the recent Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Proposed Regulations that had several burden reduction elements, including provisions that would allow clinicians to claim full financial risk exceptions/safe harbors without submitting any additional documentation requirements. We further advocated for CMS and the Office of the Inspector General to align the safe harbors and exception requirements as closely as possible to minimize the compliance burden in having to learn and comply with two completely different sets of rules.
Additionally, ACP participated in several health IT-related events during the week of January 27 to 30, including the Electronic Health Record Association Usability Summit. The summit brought together several stakeholders, including EHR vendors and physician groups, to work through specific usability issues with existing EHRs. ACP highlighted the opportunity provided by the recent changes to the Evaluation and Management documentation requirements for EHRs to be able to streamline and improve clinical documentation.
ACP Patients Before Paperwork Initiative
Patients Before Paperwork is an ACP initiative designed to reinvigorate the patient–physician relationship by challenging unnecessary practice burdens. To help the Patients Before Paperwork Initiative, with our online data collection tool and contact the Patients Before Paperwork team directly at policy-regs@acponline.org.