American College of Cardiology

Call Now: Medicare Legislation Moving In Congress
Things are moving fast on Capitol Hill as Congress works to stop the 10.6 percent cut in Medicare physician payment before the June 30 deadline. A cloture vote that would have moved the “Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008" (S. 3101) directly to the Senate floor failed to garner the 60 votes necessary last week.  The bill, which was introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), would stop the physician payment cuts for 18 months and institute several new physician-related policies. To see how your Senators voted, click here. Democrats and Republicans now must come together and work toward a bipartisan compromise in order to stabilize physician payment for 18 months, while also helping ensure quality care for patients. It is critical that we continue to contact the Senate. Please call and encourage your members to call their Senators using the the ACC’s toll-free grassroots hotline at (800) 210-7193. To date, we've generated more than 1,000 emails and nearly 500 calls to Congress. Thanks to those of you who have called already. Let’s keep the drum roll going!

FIT, CCA Travel Awards Available for 2008 Legislative Conference
This year’s Legislative Conference will take place Sept. 14-16 at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, D.C. FITs  and CCAs are encouraged to attend this event and help ensure the voice of the entire cardiovascular care team is heard on Capitol Hill. The ACC has made a select number of travel awards available to cover up to $1,000 in airfare, hotel and other expenses. To apply for these awards, interested FITs and CCAs should send an email by July 11 with their full name, address and a brief explanation on why they’d like to attend. CCAs should send their email to kbohanno@acc.org, and FITs to kventura@acc.org. BOG members and Chapter Executives are urged to include this information in Chapter communications as appropriate.  In addition, Chapters are encouraged to nominate FITs and CCAs they believe would benefit from the attending the legislative conference. Award recipients will be announced in July.  Click here to learn more about the 2008 Legislative Conference.

Congressional Hearing Focuses on Health Care Reform
As part of its series of hearings in preparation for possible consideration of health care reform legislation in 2009, the Senate Finance Committee on Monday sponsored a day-long symposium for House and Senate members. During the hearing, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke called improving the performance of the nation's health care system one of the greatest challenges facing policymakers. He added that that more than a single set of reforms will be needed to improve quality and control costs. He also noted that increasing government spending on health care will require cuts in other government programs, higher taxes or wider budget deficits. The committee plans to hold at least four more hearings before the end of the year.

Physicians' NPI Data Must Match IRS Legal Name
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) last week announced that physicians will have to reconcile their National Provider Identifiers (NPI) data with their Internal Revenue Service (IRS) legal name data in order to get paid. Every aspect of the data must match, including the exact spelling of names, the use of initials and even blank spaces in the data. As a result, CMS is instructing some physicians to start over with a new NPI enrollment, which could take months.

Results of CMS Pay-for-Performance Demo Show Improvements
Outcomes from the third year of the Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration show strong improvements in the quality of health care delivered to patients in participating hospitals, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced this week. Designed to test new Medicare payment systems intended to improve safety, quality, and efficiency of care, the voluntary demonstration was launched in October 2003 by CMS and the Premier Inc. Healthcare Alliance, and was extended by the agency for an additional three years through September 2009. According to CMS, the results reinforce the need to implement value-based purchasing.