President Biden on March 15 signed the $1.5 trillion omnibus fiscal year (FY) 2022 appropriations bill, following passage in the House and Senate last week.

Of note, the package included several health policy provisions, including the extension of Medicare telehealth flexibilities for five months after the current COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) expires. In addition, the package would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products the authority to regulate synthetic nicotine.

The legislation provides $213.6 billion for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, a 7.7% increase over FY 2021, and $108.3 billion for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), an increase of $11.3 billion over FY 2021.

ACC’s appropriations requests mostly saw increases:

Program	FY 2021 Funding Level	FY 2022 Omnibus
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)	$3.664 billion	$3.8 billion
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Heart and Stroke Prevention	$143 million	$145 million
Million Hearts initiative	$4 million	$4 million
CDC Well-Integrated Screening and Evaluation for WOMen Across the Nation (WISEWOMAN)	$28 million	$30.12 million
Congenital heart disease (CHD) research	$7 million	$7.25 million
CDC Office on Smoking and Health	$237.5 million	$241 million

The bill’s report language supports cutting-edge cardiovascular research and drug discovery across the disciplines of medicine, immunology, imaging, chemistry, biomedical engineering, physics, statistics, mathematics, and entrepreneurship to design new therapies and therapy delivery systems and strategies that are safer, more effective, and improve patient compliance. In addition, the package encourages NHLBI to prioritize congenital heart disease (CHD) research, including efforts to improve understanding of outcomes and comorbidities; modifying treatment options across the lifespan; and accelerating discovery, analysis, and translation by leveraging CHD registries and networks.

The report language also requests the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to conduct a review of audio-only services delivered during the PHE and provide an update on the provision of such services. In addition, HHS is asked to submit a report detailing the actions taken by the HHS secretary during the PHE to increase telehealth services under Medicare, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, as well as other HHS entities engaged in policy or programmatic telehealth changes during the PHE.

ACC staff are continuing to review the spending package to identify additional topics of interest. Stay tuned to ACC.org and the ACC Advocate newsletter for future updates.

Clinical Topics: Cardiovascular Care Team, Congenital Heart Disease and Pediatric Cardiology, COVID-19 Hub, Prevention, Congenital Heart Disease, CHD and Pediatrics and Prevention, CHD and Pediatrics and Quality Improvement, Smoking

Keywords: ACC Advocacy, SARS-CoV-2, Stroke, Smoking, Telemedicine, Registries, Tobacco Products, Heart Defects, Congenital, Health Policy, Medicare, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (U.S.), Medicaid, COVID-19, Biomedical Engineering, United States Food and Drug Administration, Public Health, Nicotine, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.

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