To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes.

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act (111th Congress). Support Implementation and Improvement of the Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148, P.L. 111-152) by: Expanding coverage and improving Medicare benefits; Providing needed protections to guard against insurance practices that unfairly limit, deny or rescind coverage based on health status; Ensuring access to primary care physicians; and beginning to bend the cost curve; Prohibiting insurers from excluding or charging excessive rates to children based on pre-existing conditions, which later will be expanded to all persons; Covering young adults on their parents' plans; Eliminating lifetime and annual limits on health insurance coverage; Requiring that health insurers spend more on patient care and less on administration; support enactment of S. 248, the Empowering States to Innovate Act, which amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to: (1) allow states to apply for waivers of certain health insurance coverage requirements in such Act (including requirements for the establishment of qualified health plans and health insurance exchanges) for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2014 (currently, January 1, 2017), and (2) require the waiver application process to begin not later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act; Phasing out the Medicare Part D doughnut hole; Eliminating patient cost-sharing for preventive services offered by Medicare or private insurers; Increasing Medicare and Medicaid payments to primary care physicians; Establishing a new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to help physicians and patients make care decisions based on the best available evidence; Creating a new Center on Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to fund pilots of delivery models to improve outcomes and reduce costs, including patient-centered medical homes; Training more primary care physicians through the National Health Service Corps, Title VII health professions funding, and redistributing unused graduate medical education positions to primary care specialties facing shortages; Beginning in 2014, ensuring that nearly all Americans have access to coverage either through subsidized private health insurance offered by state health exchanges or through Medicaid, if they don't already have access to coverage through an employer, Medicare, or another public program. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS): Support the re-nomination of Don Berwick, MD, as the Administrator of CMS and urge the Finance Committee to approve his nomination in a timely manner; Support delaying the date from Apr. 1, 2011 to no earlier than July 1, 2011 at which CMS would fully enforce the so-called physician face-to-face encounter rule that is the outgrowth of section 6407 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide a voluntary shared savings program, Accountable Care Organizations, that promotes accountability for services delivered to a defined Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) patient population with the goals of increasing the quality and efficiency of services delivered; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). Specifically, in April 2011, urged Congress to enact legislation that would provide stable payments for all physician specialties for at least five years while providing higher updates for undervalued evaluation and management services, require that different payment models (including Patient-Centered Medical Homes) be pilot-tested on a voluntary basis during the five year period of stable payments, and designate a specific transition period for broad adoption of the new models that have been shown to be the most effective based on the pilots. Urged action on legislation to provide stability and predictability for the Medicare physician payments at least through 2011; The Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010, H.R. 4994, prevents the 25 percent physician payment cuts under Medicare, brought on by the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, from going into effect on Jan.1, 2011, and continues current rates through Dec. 31, 2011; Urged Congress to repeal the SGR formula and permanently reform the Medicare physician payment system as part of any final agreement between Congress and the Administration on authorizing an increase in the debt ceiling. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646 in the 111th Congress). Advanced Care Planning: Worked with the sponsors of the Personalize Your Care Act of 2011, H.R. 1589, to modify this legislation that would provide coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans. It would also provide states and communities with grants to create or expand programs that assist with advance care planning. ACP expressed concerns regarding section four of the bill that would require that certified electronic health records display current advance directives and physician orders for life sustaining treatment, as this provision would bypass a process, mandated by the HITECH Act, in which CMS conducts extensive consultations with stakeholders to determine the certification standards for electronic health records. Healthcare in the FY2012 Budget: recommend funding of $65 billion for discretionary public health programs (Function 550) in the FY 2012 budget resolution. Appropriations FY2011: Advocated for strong investment in Titles VII and VIII programs in FY 2011 Labor, Health & Human Services & Educations appropriations bills; these programs provide direct financial support for health care workforce development and education. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268 (in the 110th Congress), to provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury; Urge enactment of H.R. 5, the HEALTH Act, which would set national standards for medical malpractice, including a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation;; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Administrative simplification; Appointments to the new Workforce Commission, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), as created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Tanning Bed Cancer Control Act of 2011 Supported H.R. 1676, which directs the Commissioner of Food and Drugs (FDA): (1) to complete a study to examine the classification of ultraviolet tanning lamps as class I medical devices; and (2) not later than one year after completion of such study, to either issue a rule providing for the reclassification of an ultraviolet tanning lamp as a class II or class III device or submit to Congress a report providing a justification for not issuing such a rule. The Empowering States to Innovate Act (S. 248, H.R. 844): Supported this legislation, which will allow states to seek waivers three years earlier than the Affordable Care Act to design their own plans to provide comparable levels of coverage to their residents. The Patients Freedom to Choose Act (S. 312, H.R. 605): Supported this legislation, which will repeal a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires that physicians provide written authorization for over-the-counter drugs reimbursed by a Flexible Spending Account or Health Savings Account.

Client expense: $157,352 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act. Support Implementation and Improvement of the Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148, P.L. 111-152) by: Expanding coverage and improving Medicare benefits; Providing needed protections to guard against insurance practices that unfairly limit, deny or rescind coverage based on health status; Ensuring access to primary care physicians; and beginning to bend the cost curve; Prohibiting insurers from excluding or charging excessive rates to children based on pre-existing conditions, which later will be expanded to all persons; Covering young adults on their parents' plans; Eliminating lifetime and annual limits on health insurance coverage; Requiring that health insurers spend more on patient care and less on administration; support enactment of S. 248, the Empowering States to Innovate Act, which amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to: (1) allow states to apply for waivers of certain health insurance coverage requirements in such Act (including requirements for the establishment of qualified health plans and health insurance exchanges) for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2014 (currently, January 1, 2017), and (2) require the waiver application process to begin not later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act; Phasing out the Medicare Part D doughnut hole; Eliminating patient cost-sharing for preventive services offered by Medicare or private insurers; Increasing Medicare and Medicaid payments to primary care physicians; Establishing a new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to help physicians and patients make care decisions based on the best available evidence; Creating a new Center on Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to fund pilots of delivery models to improve outcomes and reduce costs, including patient-centered medical homes; Training more primary care physicians through the National Health Service Corps, Title VII health professions funding, and redistributing unused graduate medical education positions to primary care specialties facing shortages; Beginning in 2014, ensuring that nearly all Americans have access to coverage either through subsidized private health insurance offered by state health exchanges or through Medicaid, if they don't already have access to coverage through an employer, Medicare, or another public program. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS): Support the re-nomination of Don Berwick, MD, as the Administrator of CMS and urge the Finance Committee to approve his nomination in a timely manner; Support delaying the date from Apr. 1, 2011 to no earlier than July 1, 2011 at which CMS would fully enforce the so-called physician face-to-face encounter rule that is the outgrowth of section 6407 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide a voluntary shared savings program, Accountable Care Organizations, that promotes accountability for services delivered to a defined Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) patient population with the goals of increasing the quality and efficiency of services delivered; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). Urged action on legislation to provide stability and predictability for the Medicare physician payments at least through 2011; The Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010, H.R. 4994, prevents the 25 percent physician payment cuts under Medicare, brought on by the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, from going into effect on Jan.1, 2011, and continues current rates through Dec. 31, 2011. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646 in the 111th Congress). Healthcare in the FY2012 Budget: recommend funding of $65 billion for discretionary public health programs (Function 550) in the FY 2012 budget resolution. Appropriations FY2011: Advocated for strong investment in Titles VII and VIII programs in FY 2011 Labor, Health & Human Services & Educations appropriations bills; these programs provide direct financial support for health care workforce development and education. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268 (in the 110th Congress), to provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury; Urge enactment of H.R. 5, the HEALTH Act, which would set national standards for medical malpractice, including a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation;; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Administrative simplification; Appointments to the new Workforce Commission, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), as created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Client expense: $134,343 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act. Support Implementation and Improvement of the Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148, P.L. 111-152) by: Expanding coverage and improving Medicare benefits; Providing needed protections to guard against insurance practices that unfairly limit, deny or rescind coverage based on health status; Ensuring access to primary care physicians; and beginning to bend the cost curve; Prohibiting insurers from excluding or charging excessive rates to children based on pre-existing conditions, which later will be expanded to all persons; Covering young adults on their parents' plans; Eliminating lifetime and annual limits on health insurance coverage; Requiring that health insurers spend more on patient care and less on administration; support enactment of S. 248, the Empowering States to Innovate Act, which amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to: (1) allow states to apply for waivers of certain health insurance coverage requirements in such Act (including requirements for the establishment of qualified health plans and health insurance exchanges) for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2014 (currently, January 1, 2017), and (2) require the waiver application process to begin not later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act; Phasing out the Medicare Part D doughnut hole; Eliminating patient cost-sharing for preventive services offered by Medicare or private insurers; Increasing Medicare and Medicaid payments to primary care physicians; Establishing a new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to help physicians and patients make care decisions based on the best available evidence; Creating a new Center on Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to fund pilots of delivery models to improve outcomes and reduce costs, including patient-centered medical homes; Training more primary care physicians through the National Health Service Corps, Title VII health professions funding, and redistributing unused graduate medical education positions to primary care specialties facing shortages; Beginning in 2014, ensuring that nearly all Americans have access to coverage either through subsidized private health insurance offered by state health exchanges or through Medicaid, if they don't already have access to coverage through an employer, Medicare, or another public program. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS): Support the re-nomination of Don Berwick, MD, as the Administrator of CMS and urge the Finance Committee to approve his nomination in a timely manner; Support delaying the date from Apr. 1, 2011 to no earlier than July 1, 2011 at which CMS would fully enforce the so-called physician face-to-face encounter rule that is the outgrowth of section 6407 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide a voluntary shared savings program, Accountable Care Organizations, that promotes accountability for services delivered to a defined Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) patient population with the goals of increasing the quality and efficiency of services delivered; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). Urged action on legislation to provide stability and predictability for the Medicare physician payments at least through 2011; The Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010, H.R. 4994, prevents the 25 percent physician payment cuts under Medicare, brought on by the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, from going into effect on Jan.1, 2011, and continues current rates through Dec. 31, 2011. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646 in the 111th Congress). Healthcare in the FY2012 Budget: recommend funding of $65 billion for discretionary public health programs (Function 550) in the FY 2012 budget resolution. Appropriations FY2011: Advocated for strong investment in Titles VII and VIII programs in FY 2011 Labor, Health & Human Services & Educations appropriations bills; these programs provide direct financial support for health care workforce development and education. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268 (in the 110th Congress), to provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury; Urge enactment of H.R. 5, the HEALTH Act, which would set national standards for medical malpractice, including a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Administrative simplification; Appointments to the new Workforce Commission, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), as created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Client expense: $245,102 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and CHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the CHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). H.R. 4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, which contained a temporary extension of current SGR payments to physicians; H.R. 3962, the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010, which sets 2.2% as the update to the single conversion factor in the formula for determining physician payment rates for June 1, 2010, through November 30, 2010; Urged action on legislation to provide stability and predictability for the Medicare physician payments at least through 2011; The Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010, H.R. 4994, prevents the 25 percent physician payment cuts under Medicare, brought on by the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, from going into effect on Jan.1, 2011, and continues current rates through Dec. 31, 2011. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 and FY2011 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Appropriations FY2011: Advocated for strong investment in Titles VII and VIII programs in FY 2011 Labor, Health & Human Services & Educations appropriations bills; these programs provide direct financial support for health care workforce development and education. Advanced Care Planning: The Personalize Your Care Act of 2010; provides coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans. It would also provide states and communities with grants to create or expand programs that assist with advanced care planning. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Establishing Innovation Center to fast-track testing of new payment models; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Increasing Medicaid payment rates to physicians to those of Medicare; Funding for a transparent process to conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER); Administrative simplification; Appointments to the new Workforce Commission, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), as created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Client expense: $240,589 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and CHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the CHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicare's reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). H.R. 4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, which contained a temporary extension of current SGR payments to physicians; H.R. 3962, the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010, which sets 2.2% as the update to the single conversion factor in the formula for determining physician payment rates for June 1, 2010, through November 30, 2010; Urged action on legislation to provide stability and predictability for the Medicare physician payments at least through 2011; The Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010, H.R. 4994, prevents the 25 percent physician payment cuts under Medicare, brought on by the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, from going into effect on Jan.1, 2011, and continues current rates through Dec. 31, 2011. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 and FY2011 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Appropriations FY2011: Advocated for strong investment in Titles VII and VIII programs in FY 2011 Labor, Health & Human Services & Educations appropriations bills; these programs provide direct financial support for health care workforce development and education. Advanced Care Planning: The Personalize Your Care Act of 2010; provides coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans. It would also provide states and communities with grants to create or expand programs that assist with advanced care planning. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Establishing Innovation Center to fast-track testing of new payment models; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Increasing Medicaid payment rates to physicians to those of Medicare; Funding for a transparent process to conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER); Administrative simplification; Appointments to the new Workforce Commission, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), as created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Client expense: $135,939 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and CHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the CHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). H.R. 4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, which contained a temporary extension of current SGR payments to physicians; H.R. 3962, the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010, which sets 2.2% as the update to the single conversion factor in the formula for determining physician payment rates for June 1, 2010, through November 30, 2010; Urged action on legislation to provide stability and predictability for Medicare physician payments at least through 2011. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 and FY2011 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Appropriations FY2011: Advocated for strong investment in Titles VII and VIII programs in FY 2011 Labor, Health & Human Services & Educations appropriations bills; these programs provide direct financial support for health care workforce development and education. Advanced Care Planning: The Personalize Your Care Act of 2010; provides coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans. It would also provide states and communities with grants to create or expand programs that assist with advanced care planning. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Establishing Innovation Center to fast-track testing of new payment models; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Increasing Medicaid payment rates to physicians to those of Medicare; Funding for a transparent process to conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER); Administrative simplification; Appointments to the new Workforce Commission, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), as created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Client expense: $277,506 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and CHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the CHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). H.R. 4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, which contained a temporary extension of current SGR payments to physicians; H.R. 3962, the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010, which sets 2.2% as the update to the single conversion factor in the formula for determining physician payment rates for June 1, 2010, through November 30, 2010; Urged action on legislation to provide stability and predictability for Medicare physician payments at least through 2011. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 and FY2011 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Appropriations FY2011: Advocated for strong investment in Titles VII and VIII programs in FY 2011 Labor, Health & Human Services & Educations appropriations bills; these programs provide direct financial support for health care workforce development and education. Advanced Care Planning: The Personalize Your Care Act of 2010; provides coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans. It would also provide states and communities with grants to create or expand programs that assist with advanced care planning. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Establishing Innovation Center to fast-track testing of new payment models; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Increasing Medicaid payment rates to physicians to those of Medicare; Funding for a transparent process to conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER); Administrative simplification; Appointments to the new Workforce Commission, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), as created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Client expense: $136,378 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). H.R. 4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, which contained a temporary extension of current SGR payments to physicians; H.R. 3962, the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010, which sets 2.2% as the update to the single conversion factor in the formula for determining physician payment rates for June 1, 2010, through November 30, 2010. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 and FY2011 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Establishing Innovation Center to fast-track testing of new payment models; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Increasing Medicaid payment rates to physicians to those of Medicare; Funding for a transparent process to conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER); Administrative simplification; Appointments to the new Workforce Commission, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), as created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Client expense: $427,338 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). H.R. 4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, which contained a temporary extension of current SGR payments to physicians; H.R. 3962, the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010, which sets 2.2% as the update to the single conversion factor in the formula for determining physician payment rates for June 1, 2010, through November 30, 2010. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 and FY2011 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage: Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Establishing Innovation Center to fast-track testing of new payment models; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Increasing Medicaid payment rates to physicians to those of Medicare; Funding for a transparent process to conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER); Administrative simplification; Appointments to the new Workforce Commission, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), as created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Client expense: $169,266 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Establishing Innovation Center to fast-track testing of new payment models; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Increasing Medicaid payment rates to physicians to those of Medicare; Funding for a transparent process to conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER); Administrative simplification.

Client expense: $292,628 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Establishing Innovation Center to fast-track testing of new payment models; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Increasing Medicaid payment rates to physicians to those of Medicare; Funding for a transparent process to conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER); Administrative simplification.

Client expense: $152,236 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962 and H.R. 3590): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Establishing Innovation Center to fast-track testing of new payment models; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Increasing Medicaid payment rates to physicians to those of Medicare; Funding for a transparent process to conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER); Administrative simplification.

Client expense: $289,221 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962 and H.R. 3590): Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury. Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation; Establishing Innovation Center to fast-track testing of new payment models; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Increasing Medicaid payment rates to physicians to those of Medicare; Funding for a transparent process to conduct Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER); Administrative simplification.

Client expense: $147,925 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation: Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury.

Client expense: $300,237 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation: Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation. Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury.

Client expense: $147,842 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation: Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation.

Client expense: $449,557 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1004 and H.R. 2307, the Reaching Elders with Assessment and Chronic Care Management and Coordination Act, or the RE-Aligning Care Act, would create a Medicare benefit for a comprehensive geriatric assessment for beneficiaries with chronic diseases or dementia. The legislation would also provide a separate Medicare monthly payment to physicians who provide ongoing care coordination services for such patients. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula. Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation. Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation: Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage. Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government. Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis. Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Direct the Secretary of HHS to conduct a market analysis to determine how much payments for primary care should be increased to make primary care physicians competitive with other specialties within five years, starting with a major increase in 2010 as the first step toward market competitiveness; Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions. Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation.

Client expense: $148,894 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1340/H.R. 2244, the Geriatric Assessment and Chronic Care Coordination Act of 2007. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula. Primary Care Workforce: Establish a primary care advisory committee to provide explicit planning at the federal level to increase the primary care workforce to meet anticipated health care needs of the nation. Medicare Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC): Provide support for an internal medicine physician, and member of the College, as a candidate for MedPAC in 2009; candidacy discussed with members of Congress and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation.

Client expense: $283,059 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps, provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act; S. 1340/H.R. 2244, the Geriatric Assessment and Chronic Care Coordination Act of 2007. Health Coverage: Guarantee all Americans access to health coverage; create tax credits to subsidize coverage for low income persons to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP); create new options for small businesses to buy into group coverage based on the FEHBP; expand Medicaid and SCHIP; support state experimentation. Economic Stimulus Legislation: Increase the federal matching rate under the Medicaid program, re-authorize the SCHIP program with additional funding to assure adequate coverage of all eligible children; target increases in Medicare payments for primary care physicians; target incentives directed toward primary care physicians in smaller practices to acquire health information technology (HIT) applications to support care coordination through the medical home; provide subsidies for newly unemployed workers to obtain COBRA coverage; provide temporary Medicaid coverage to laid-off workers; increase funding for community health centers; provide substantial funds for the Prevention and Wellness Fund to fight preventable chronic diseases; support healthcare research and quality programs to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP; support existing work being done by public and private sector partnerships on HIT policy, standards and certification; H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula. Primary Care Workforce: Establish a primary care advisory committee to provide explicit planning at the federal level to increase the primary care workforce to meet anticipated health care needs of the nation. Medicare Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646). Healthcare in the FY2010 Budget: Account for the costs of preventing Medicare physician pay cuts under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula; address the negative impact of Medicare payment cuts on small physician practices; support the concept of dedicating funding for health care reform; support funding for physicians to acquire health information technology (HIT) to be used in a meaningful way; note concerns about penalties that would reduce baseline payments to physicians not using certified HIT systems beginning in 2015; support a policy reserve fund for physician payment reform, as reported out of the House Committee on the Budget, including the language to ensure primary care receives appropriate compensation. Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC): Provide support for an internal medicine physician, and member of the College, as a candidate for MedPAC in 2009; candidacy discussed with members of Congress and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety. Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268, provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation.

Client expense: $148,372 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S., SENATE

HR 5613 - Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008 HR 5268 - To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal Medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes S 2819 - Economic Recovery in Health Care Act of 2008 HR 2642 - Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2008 HR 6331- Medicare Improvements for Paients and Providers Act of 2008 HR 6174 - Equality in Medicare Advantag Payment Act of 2008

Client expense: $311,546 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

HR 5268 - To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage FY '09 Appropriations - House and Senate Senate appropriations Hearings HR 2642 - Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations Act, 2008 Labor HHS Appropriations S 3260 - Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2009 Stimulus Package S 2642 - American Renewable Energy Act of 2008 HR 5613 - Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008 Fiscal Relief for States Senate Con Resolutnion 709 Emergency Suplemental S 2051 - Rural Education Achieement Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 LaborHHS Appropriations FY '09 HR 3058 - Public Land Communitiies Transition Assistance Act of 2007 HR 17 - Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Reauthorization Act of 2007 Senate Amendment 709 HR 2249 - Achievement Through Technology and Innovation Act of 2007 State Fiscal Relief IDEA Funding

Client expense: $311,546 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

HR 5613; Medicare Bill; H.R. 5268; HR 5613; Medicare Prescription Drug Savings and Choice Act of 2007; 12 month extension of the Medicare Secondary Payer provision for End State Renal Disease patients in Medicaid legislation being assembled by Senate Finance Committee

Client expense: $471,984 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Natl Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), SENATE

HR 3162, Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007, all provisions relating to comparative effectiveness research, Medicare (including Medicare Advantage), Medicaid, and SCHIP; HR 2639, Promoting Health for Future Generations Act of 2007, all provisions relating to Medicare Advantage Medical Savings Accounts; S 2499, Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007, all provisions relating to Medicare (including Medicare Advantage and Medicare Secondary Payor), Medicaid, and SCHIP; HR 5613, Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008, all provisions relating to CMS regulatory action on Medicaid; S 2620, To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes; all provisions relating to Medicaid payment; HR 5268, To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes; all provisions relating to Medicaid payment; S 1701, To provide for the extension of transitional medical assistance (TMA) and the abstinence education program through the end of fiscal year 2007, and for other purposes; provisions relating to Medicare Advantage; HR 5480, Medicare Funding Warning Response Act of 2008, all provisions relating to Medicare (including Medicare Advantage), health information technology, and health care quality measurement; S 2662, Medicare Funding Warning Response Act of 2008, all provisions relating to Medicare (including Medicare Advantage), health information technology, and health care quality measurement; HR 976, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007, all provisions relating to children's health and dental insurance coverage; HR 3963, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007, all provisions relating to children's health and dental insurance coverage; HR 2206, U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007, all provisions relating to SCHIP funding; S 334/ HR 3163, Healthy Americans Act, all provisions relating to health insurance coverage, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and employer taxes related to health insurance; Medicare Advantage Payment; Medicaid payment and state plans oversight; SCHIP reauthorization; S.3101 - Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008; HR 6331 - Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008

Client expense: $80,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Executive Office of the President (EOP), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE, Treasury, Dept of

HR 3162, Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007, all provisions relating to comparative effectiveness research, Medicare (including Medicare Advantage), Medicaid, and SCHIP; HR 2639, Promoting Health for Future Generations Act of 2007, all provisions relating to Medicare Advantage Medical Savings Accounts; S 2499, Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007, all provisions relating to Medicare (including Medicare Advantage and Medicare Secondary Payor), Medicaid, and SCHIP; HR 5613, Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008, all provisions relating to CMS regulatory action on Medicaid; S 2620, To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes; all provisions relating to Medicaid payment; HR 5268, To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes; all provisions relating to Medicaid payment; S 1701, To provide for the extension of transitional medical assistance (TMA) and the abstinence education program through the end of fiscal year 2007, and for other purposes; provisions relating to Medicare Advantage; HR 5480, Medicare Funding Warning Response Act of 2008, all provisions relating to Medicare (including Medicare Advantage), health information technology, and health care quality measurement; S 2662, Medicare Funding Warning Response Act of 2008, all provisions relating to Medicare (including Medicare Advantage), health information technology, and health care quality measurement; HR 976, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007, all provisions relating to children's health and dental insurance coverage; HR 3963, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007, all provisions relating to children's health and dental insurance coverage; HR 2206, U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007, all provisions relating to SCHIP funding; S 334/ HR 3163, Healthy Americans Act, all provisions relating to health insurance coverage, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and employer taxes related to health insurance; Medicare Advantage Payment; Medicaid payment and state plans oversight; SCHIP reauthorization; S.3101 - Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008; HR 6331 - Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008

Client expense: $80,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Executive Office of the President (EOP), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE, Treasury, Dept of

S. 2586, State Fiscal Relief Act of 2008 (regarding state fiscal relief) H.R. 5613, Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008 S. 2819, Economic Recovery in Health Care Act of 2008 (regarding Medicaid regulations, state fiscal relief and the August 17th SCHIP directive) H.R.5268, To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes. S. 3101, Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (provisions related to private-fee-for-service, low-income Medicare improvements, and extension of TMA) H.R. 6331, Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (provisions related to private-fee-for-service, low-income Medicare improvements, and extension of TMA) H.R.2642, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008 (provisions related to Medicaid Regulations and the August 17th SCHIP directive)

Client expense: $120,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

S. 2586, State Fiscal Relief Act of 2008 (regarding state fiscal relief) H.R. 5613, Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008 S. 2819, Economic Recovery in Health Care Act of 2008 H.R.5268, To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes. S.2460/H.R. 3533, To extend by one year the moratorium on implementation of a rule relating to the Federal-State financial partnership under Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. S. 2578/ H.R. 5173, To temporarily delay application of proposed changes to Medicaid payment rules for case management and targeted case management services. S.1200, A bill to amend the Indian Health Care Improvement Act to revise and extend the Act (provisions relating to Medicaid ID requirements and moratorium on targeted case management regulations) HR 4355, A bill to impose a moratorium on certain Medicaid payment restrictions. H.R. 3963, Childrens Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 (veto override)

Client expense: $120,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

MMM (Legislative Issues): H.R. 4: Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act (Dingell); H.R. 976: Childrens Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (Rangel) (continued) H.R. 1990: Medicare Cost Contract Extension and Refinement Act (Pomeroy); H.R. 2945: Medicare Advantage Truth in Advertising Act (Stark); H.R. 3025: Medicare Prescription Drug Savings for Our Seniors Act (Doggett); H.R. 3061: Medicare Part D Drug Class Protection Act (Doggett); H.R. 3162: Childrens Health and Medicare Protection Act (Dingell); H.R. 3932: Medicare Prescription Drug Savings and Choice Act (Berry); H.R. 3963: Childrens Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (Dingell); H.R. 4296: Medicare Electronic Medication and Safety Protection Act (Schwartz); H.R. 5268: Medicaid FMAP (Pallone); H.R. 5480: Medicare Funding Warning Response Act (Hoyer-Boehner); H.R. 5613: Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act (Dingell); H.R. 5683: GAO Act (provisions relating to access to Medicare part C/part D data) (Davis); H.R. 5998: Protecting Children's Health Coverage Act (Pallone); H.R. 6331: Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (provisions relating to Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, Medigap, Medicaid, health care disparities, and electronic prescribing) (Rangel-Dingell); H.R. 6388: GAO Improvement Act (provisions relating to access to Medicare part C/part D data) (Waxman); H.R. 6359: Medicare Beneficiary Protection Act (Biggert); H.R. 6365: Medicare Special Needs Plans Extension and Amendments Act (Kind); H.R. 7077: QI Program Supplemental Funding Act (Dingell) (provisions relating to cost sharing assistance for low-income Medicare beneficiaries); H.R. 7197: Medicare Advantage Funding (Gonzalez) (provisions relating to limiting increases in Medicare Advantage payment rates); H.Res. 1368 (provisions relating to Medicare Funding Warning); S. 3: Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act (Reid); S. 130: Medicare Cost Contract Extension and Refinement Act (Allard); S. 706: Medicare Advantage Stabilization Fund (Feingold); S. 799: Community Choice Act (Harkin); S. 1102: Part D Equity for Low-Income Seniors Act (Bingaman); S. 1103: Helping Fill the Medicare Rx Gap Act (Bingaman); S. 1107: Home and Community Services Copayment Equity Act (Smith); S. 1108: Medicare Part D Outreach and Enrollment Enhancement Act (Smith); S. 1200: Indian Health Care Improvement Act (includes Medicaid/MA provisions); S. 1507: Access to Medicare Data Act (Grassley); S. 1544: Medicare Quality Enhancement Act (Gregg); S. 1589: Drug Rebate Equalization Act (Bingaman) (provisions relating to Medicaid drug rebates); S. 1827: Pharmacist Access and Recognition in Medicare Act (Cochran); S. 1893: Childrens Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (Baucus); S. 1954: Pharmacy Access Improvement Act (Baucus); S. 2219: Medicare Prescription Drug Savings and Choice Act (Durbin); S. 2408: Medicare Electronic Medication and Safety Protection Act (Kerry); S. 2620: Medicaid FMAP (Rockefeller); S. 2662: Medicare Funding Warning Response Act (Baucus-Gregg); S. 2795: Small Business Health Options Program Act (Durbin-Snowe); S. 2819: Economic Recovery in Health Care Act (provisions relating to Medicaid funding) (Rockefeller); S. 3101: Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (provisions relating to Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, Medigap, Medicaid, health care disparities, electronic prescribing) (Baucus); S. 3560: QI Program Supplemental Funding Act (Baucus) (provisions relating to cost sharing assistance for low-income Medicare beneficiaries); S. 3604: Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act (provisions relating to Medicaid FMAP); S. 3656: Preserving Access to Healthcare Act (Schumer) (provisions relating to Medicare and Medicaid regulation); S. 3869: Economic Stimulus (Reid) (provisions relating to Medicaid FMAP and Medicaidd MCO provider taxes); S. 3710: Medicare Early Access Act (Rockefeller) (provisions relating to Medicare "buy-in" option); and S.J.Res. 44 (provisions relating to blocking implementation of SCHIP requirements). MMM (Regulatory Issues) Ongoing implementation issues for the Medicare Advantage (MA) and Medicare Part D prescription drug programs, including risk adjustment methodology and data issues, (including audit and encounter data issues), bidding and payment issues (including MA coding intensity, Part D reinsurance, low income subsidies, application process, and audits), application process, audits to evaluate compliance with MA and Part D program rules, benefit design rules, SSA and CMS premium withhold processing issues, enrollment rules, marketing materials review and approval, marketing activities, including conduct and compensation of brokers and agents and plan sponsor marketing staff, measurement and oversight of plan performance including Special Needs Plans (SNPs); quality meaasures, grievance and appeals processes, compliance/fraud and abuse training, and Medicare/Medicaid integration issues for Special Needs Plans (SNPs); Federal premption of State authority over MA and Part D plans, Part D prescription drug event data reporting, Part D formulary rules, Part D pharmacy access standards, and other operational issues; Medicare creditable drug coverage reporting requirements; implementation issues for the Medicare Retiree Drug Subsidy program; functionality of the Medicare Personal Plan Finder and Drug Plan Finder; National Medicare Education program; ongoing implementation issues for the Medicare cost plan program including enrollment, marketing materials review and approval and other operational issues, MA and Part D systems issues affecting enrollment and disenrollment processing and payment and other operational issues; Medicare demonstration program on performance-based payments for physician groups; physician quality reporting inititiative; issues relating to Medicare coverage policy and national coverage decisions; Medicare clinical trials; Medicaid managed care regulations and policies, including the Medicaid managed care actuarial soundness standard, quality oversight, grievance and appeals processes, beneficiary information requirements, treatment of Medicaid health plan member hospital days in the upper payment limit calculation; policies affecting State Medicaid funding, including intergovernmental transfers (IGTs); coordination of benefits with state Medicaid programs; Medicaid prescription drug cost/rebate issues affecting Medicaid health plans; health plan-related State Childrens Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) issues, including eligibility and outreach issues; implementation of Medicaid changes made in Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, including documentation of citizenship requirements, state benefit flexibility options, and Medicaid managed care organization provider tax issues; standards for electronic prescribing; and health information technology standards and policies.

Client expense: $2,240,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ), Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Executive Office of the President (EOP), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Food & Drug Administration (FDA), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Labor, Dept of (DOL), Office of Personnel Management (OPM), SENATE, Social Security Administration (SSA), Treasury, Dept of

S 3689 -Economic Recovery Act of 2008 HR 6770, Economic Stimulus bill, Medicaid/FMAP increase, investments for state aid, public housing, other public services S 2819, S 3604, HR 5268, HR 7110 -Aid to the States, Medicaid Medicare Prescription Drug Program

Client expense: $410,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

S 2819, S 3604, HR 5268, HR 7110 -Economic Stimulus Job Creation and Economic Relief Act, Aid to the States, FMAP/ Medicaid, investment provisions for state aid, public housing and other public services, S 3689 -Economic Recovery Act of 2008 Economic Stimulus bill -child support enforcement restoration, Medicaid/FMAP, Social Services Block Grant HR 6770 -State and Local Economic Stimulus Act HR 1424 -Emergency Economic Stabilization Act S 803, HR 1386 -child support enforcement restoration HR 7321, HR 7005 -Auto Industry Loan Assistance HR 17, S 380 -Secure Rural Schools Act Financial Institutions Rescue

Client expense: $410,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

The Direct Support Professional Fairness and Security Act of 2007 (H.R. 1279)--supported bill Discussed with Senate staff possible introduction of a Direct Support Professional bill Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act of 2007 (S 1758 and H.R. 3001)--supported bill To provide for a temporary increase in the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, and for other purposes--supported FMAP increase (H.R. 5268) A bill to provide a temporary increase in Federal Medical Assistance Percentage and fiscal relief to states--supported FMAP increase and state fiscal relief (S. 2586) Community Choice Act of 2007: Amends title XIX (Medicaid) of the Social Security Act (SSA) to require state Medicaid plan coverage of community-based attendant services and supports for certain Medicaid-eligible individuals. (S. 799 and H.R. 1621)--supported bill Empowered at Home Act of 2008: aimed at removing existing barriers to the new Medicaid Section 1915(i) HCBS benefit, strengthening HCBS services in order to prevent or decrease the likelihood of institutionalization, provide state assistance to facilitate HCBS services, improve purchase of long term care, and improve CMS collection of state data regarding number of individuals, expenditures, types of services, and waiting lists. S. 3327 would increase income eligibility from current 150% of FPL to 300% of SSI; eliminate option to waive statewideness; expand scope of services to include "other services", and eliminate option to limit number of eligible individuals and extends time period for eligibility (S. 3327)--supported bill

Client expense: $44,500 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

S. 909/H.R. 1878- Legislation to amend Title XIX of the Social Security Act to permit States, at their option, to require certain individuals to present satisfactory documentary evidence of proof of citizenship or nationality for purposes of eligibility for Medicaid, and for other purposes- entire bill. H.R. 5268- A Bill to Provide for a Temporary Increase of the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage Under the Medicaid Program- entire bill. H.R. 6331- Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008- provisions related to FMAP and comprehensive sex education. H.R. 7219- To impose a moratorium on the implementation of a Medicaid regulation related to the outpatient clinic and hospital facility service definition and upper payment limit- provision related to CMS outpatient rule moratorium.

Client expense: $121,667 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

HR 3162, Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007, all provisions relating to comparative effectiveness research, Medicare (including Medicare Advantage), Medicaid, and SCHIP; HR 2639, Promoting Health for Future Generations Act of 2007, all provisions relating to Medicare Advantage Medical Savings Accounts; S 2499, Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007, all provisions relating to Medicare (including Medicare Advantage and Medicare Secondary Payor), Medicaid, and SCHIP; HR 5613, Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008, all provisions relating to CMS regulatory action on Medicaid; S 2620, To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes; all provisions relating to Medicaid payment; HR 5268, To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes; all provisions relating to Medicaid payment; S 1701, To provide for the extension of transitional medical assistance (TMA) and the abstinence education program through the end of fiscal year 2007, and for other purposes; provisions relating to Medicare Advantage; HR 5480, Medicare Funding Warning Response Act of 2008, all provisions relating to Medicare (including Medicare Advantage), health information technology, and health care quality measurement; S 2662, Medicare Funding Warning Response Act of 2008, all provisions relating to Medicare (including Medicare Advantage), health information technology, and health care quality measurement; HR 976, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007, all provisions relating to children's health and dental insurance coverage; HR 3963, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007, all provisions relating to children's health and dental insurance coverage; HR 2206, U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007, all provisions relating to SCHIP funding; S 334/ HR 3163, Healthy Americans Act, all provisions relating to health insurance coverage, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and employer taxes related to health insurance; Medicare Advantage Payment; Medicaid payment and state plans oversight; SCHIP reauthorization; S.3101 - Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008; HR 6331 - Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008; HR 6819 To ammend the Medicare Improvement for Patients adn Providers act, all provisions related to the Medicare Advantage program

Client expense: $80,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Executive Office of the President (EOP), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE, Treasury, Dept of

Supported all provisions unless otherwise indicated: BOTH SENATE AND HOUSE S.2620, H.R. 5268, To provide a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) under the Medicaid program and for other purposes Supported all provisions unless otherwise indicated: BOTH SENATE AND HOUSE: S. 3101, H.R. 6331, Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 S. 2102, H.R. 154, Ending the Medicare Disability Waiting Period Act of 2007 S. 3560, QI [Qualified Individuals] Program Supplemental Funding Act of 2008 H.R. 7110, Job Creation and Unemployment Relief Act of 2008 - supported provisions related to temporary FMAP increase SENATE ONLY: S. 2586, State Fiscal Relief Act of 2008, provisions relating to providing a temporary FMAP increase, freezing the Medicaid regulations and for other purposes S. 2819, Economic Recovery in Health Care Act of 2008 HOUSE ONLY: H.R. 5613, Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008 H.R. 6684, Medicare Prescription Drug Cost Equalization Act

Client expense: $7,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Legislation regarding Medicare and Medicaid Reimbursement issues which include provisions to expand access, improve services, stabilize payments to hospitals and other providers under Medicaid, Medicare, and/or SCHIP by addressing reimbursement, parity, quality, self-referral, workforce, payment issues, rehabilitation hospitals, long term care hospitals, rural hospitals and various regulations. HR 2606, 340B Drug Expansion Act of 2007, to revise and expand the drug discount program under that section to improve the provision of discounts on drug purchases for certain safety net providers. S 355, Social Security and Medicare Solvency Commission Act, to create a permanent, 15-member commission to make recommendations on how best to save the entitlement programs HR 4105; the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor Program Moratorium Act of 2007 that would enact a one-year, nationwide moratorium on the Recovery Audit Contract (RAC) program. H Con Res 312/S Con Res 70, fiscal year (FY)2009 budget resolutions, Medicare and Medicaid reductions HR 5480/S 2662, Medicare Funding Warning Response Act, various provisions S 2785, Save Medicare Act physician payment, exceptions process for therapy caps, direct billing by independent labs for pathology services, cost-based payment for rural lab services, and provisions allowing certain hospitals to be eligible for wage index reclassification. S. 3101; Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers physician payment, exceptions process for therapy caps, direct billing by independent labs for pathology services, cost-based payment for rural lab services, and provisions allowing certain hospitals to be eligible for wage index HR 6331, Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act physician payment, exceptions process for therapy caps, direct billing by independent labs for pathology services, cost-based payment for rural lab services, and provisions allowing certain hospitals to be eligible for wage index HR 6252/S3144, would delay for 18 months the Medicare competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies. Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008 (HR 2642) Sec. 7001. (a) Moratoria on Certain Medicaid Regulations HR 5268: To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program HR 7110: Job Creation and Unemployment Relief Act: Title III, temporary increase in Medicaid matching rate S 3656: Preserving Access to Healthcare (PATH) Act -- which would delay cuts to Medicare capital indirect medical education (IME) payments for six months provisions in the developing economic stimulus package to temporarily increase FMAP self-referral HR 1424; Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act provision banning the growth of physician-owned specialty hospitals workforce: HR3043/S1710; Labor, HHS Appropriations bill; nursing education, national health service corp, rural health programs, childrens hospitals GME, S 543/HR 1459, Preserving Patient Access to Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospitals Act of 2007"; to extend the 60 percent compliance threshold used to determine whether a hospital or unit of a hospital is an inpatient rehabilitation facility under the Medicare program. HR 3162, "Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act" payment: HR 2206, U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act supplemental appropriations bill (HR 2206) contained moratorium on medicaid regulations regarding capping payment to public providers and GME HR 1480/1741/S 787, to place a two-year moratorium on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services implementation of medicaid regulations regarding capping payment to public providers and GME funding from Section 1011 of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), HR 1293, Access to Medicare Imaging Act stop the reduction Medicare reimbursements for some medical imaging services HR 882, Access to Emergency Services Act that would increase by 10 percent Medicare reimbursements to physicians who provide care in emergency departments (EDs) or post-stabilization care related to emergency medical conditions in other areas of hospitals HR 552/S 329, The Pulmonary and Cardiac Rehabilitation Act of 2007 to provide for coverage of items and services under a cardiac rehabilitation program and a pulmonary rehabilitation program. HR 3533/S2460, "Public & Teaching Hospital Preservation Act" to extend a moratorium prohibiting CMS from implementing the Medicaid proposed rule that would limit Medicaid payments to public hospitals and narrow the definition of government provider and eliminate Medicaid GME HR 3668, TMA, Abstinence Education, and QI Programs Extension Act includes provision which would mitigate the impact of the behavioral offset in the FY08 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule S 2499; Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act Permanently freezes the inpatient rehabilitation services compliance threshold at 60 percent, Extends for six months the work geographic index floor, for six months the provision that allows independent laboratories to continue to bill Medicare directly for the technical component of certain physician pathology services, Provides reasonable cost reimbursement for clinical lab tests performed by certain small rural hospitals, Section 508 hospitals HR 5268: To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program the Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) final rule eliminated indirect medical education (IME) adjustments to teaching hospitals' capital payments proposed rule to implement National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002" requirement that TRICARE payment methods for outpatient hospital care be determined outpatient reimbursement rules used by Medicare S 3656: to delay cuts to Medicare capital indirect medical education (IME) payments for six months quality S 1226, Children's Health Care Quality Act would allow the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to fund evidence-based demonstrations to improve hospital care for children. HR 1666, Health Care Price Transparency Promotion Act which would build on existing state efforts to report hospital pricing data and require insurers to disclose estimated out-of-pocket costs to consumers S 465; Advance Directives Improvement and Education Act of 2007" to improve access to information about healthcare options and legal rights for care near the end of life rehabilitation hospitals, S543/HR 1459, Preserving Patient Access to Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospitals Act of 2007"; to extend the 60 percent compliance threshold used to determine whether a hospital or unit of a hospital is an inpatient rehabilitation facility under the Medicare program S 2499; Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act Permanently freezes the inpatient rehabilitation services compliance threshold at 60 percent, rural hospitals, S 1605/HR 2860, Health Care Access and Rural Equity Act (H-CARE) S 1595, Critical Access Hospital Flexibility Act CAHs would gain flexibility to respond to daily and seasonal fluctuations in patient load S 2499;; Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act Extends for six months the work geographic index floor, for six months the provision that allows independent laboratories to continue to bill Medicare directly for the technical component of certain physician pathology services, Provides reasonable cost reimbursement for clinical lab tests performed by certain small rural hospitals long term care hospitals: HR 562/S338, Medicare Long-Term Care Hospital Improvement establishing facility and patient criteria for long-term care hospitals and related improvements under the Medicare Program. S 2499; Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act Provides regulatory relief for three years to ensure continued access to current long-term care hospital services, while also imposing a limited moratorium on the development of new, long-term care facilities. Medicaid, HR 2512, Reducing Coverage Gaps for Kids Act To amend titles XIX and XXI of the Social Security Act to prohibit States from requiring eligibility determinations for children for benefits under the Medicaid Program and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) more frequently than once every year. HR 2147, Healthy Kids Act to amend titles XXI and XIX of the Social Security Act to extend the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and streamline enrollment under SCHIP and Medicaid and to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide for a healthy savings tax credit for purchase of children's health coverage. HR1111, Kids Come First Act to ensure that every uninsured child in America has health insurance coverage, HR 1878, To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to permit States, at their option, to require certain individuals to present satisfactory documentary evidence of proof of citizenship or nationality for purposes of eligibility for Medicaid HR 3533/S2460 "Public & Teaching Hospital Preservation Act" to extend a moratorium prohibiting CMS from implementing the Medicaid proposed rule that would limit Medicaid payments to public hospitals and narrow the definition of government provider and eliminate Medicaid GME HR 5613, Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act, temporary, one-year moratorium on seven Medicaid regulations S 2819, Economic Recovery in Health Care Act to implement a one-year moratorium on proposed regulatory changes to Medicaid and the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and to provide states in need with federal relief HR 2462, the supplemental funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan provision to place a temporary, one-year moratorium on seven Medicaid regulations, including the rules to limit Medicaid payments to public hospitals and to eliminate Government Medical Education (GME). SCHIP: S 1224, that would reauthorize the State Childrens Health Insurance Program and expand it to allow additional coverage to six million children within 10 years S 895/HR 1535, HR 3162, "Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act" HR 976 in the Senate, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act S. 1893, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 S 2049, The Better Health for America's Children Act," to block a new policy to limit states' ability to enroll children in the State Children's Health Insurance Program S 2152, Kids First Actalternative SCHIP bill that would restrict coverage to individuals younger than age 19 in low-income families HR 3963; Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act revised bill to extend and expand the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) S 2499 the bill extends SCHIP through March 31, 2009, and provides adequate funding to states to maintain their current enrollment through that date. HR 3533, "Public & Teaching Hospital Preservation Act" to extend a moratorium prohibiting CMS from implementing the Medicaid proposed rule that would limit Medicaid payments to public hospitals and narrow the definition of government provider and eliminate Medicaid GME regulations including, but not limited to, provisions of PL 106-554, Consolidated Appropriations Act, provisions related to critical access hospitals, inpatient hospital services Direct Graduate Medical Education, Hospital Outpatient Services, Skilled Nursing Facilities, State Children's Health Insurance Program PL 108-173, Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, provisions related to rural hospitals, inpatient hospital services, skilled nursing facilities, hospice care, hospital outpatient departments, health care quality PL 109-171; Deficit Reduction Act, provisions related to rehabilitation hospitals, medicaid DSH payment, medicare-dependent hospitals, gainsharing, Medicaid, SHCHIP the FY08 IPPS proposed rule, proposed Medicaid rule (CMS 2258-P), the Recovery Audit Contract (RAC) demonstration.

Client expense: $100,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), SENATE, White House Office

Legislation to expand health care coverage and access including provisions contained bills in which would offer Medicare, Medicaid and/or SCHIP to more children, create parity in coverage of mental health benefits, foster reform at the state level, stabilize trauma care, prevent healthcare acquired infections, ensure hospital preparedness, expand the use of health information technology, provide funding for Ryan White programs, increase and stabilize the healthcare workforce. HR 2357; MediKids Health Insurance Act of 2007"; to create a new federal healthcare program to provide comprehensive health benefits to children S 1218 /HR 2034, Medicare for All Act; expanding the Medicare program to those under age 65. S 1169; State-Based Health Care Reform Act; to create a five-year pilot program in several states to develop coverage plans for the uninsured HR 1424; Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act require group health plans to provide comparable treatment limits and beneficiary cost sharing for medical and mental health benefits. HR 1663, Medicare Mental Health Modernization Act to provide mental health parity in private health insurance and Medicare, and improves coverage for cost-effective and community-based mental health treatment services for seniors and people with disabilities S 895/HR 1535; Children's Health First Act allow states to expand children's health coverage to families up to 400 percent of the Federal poverty level HR 1308S/764, Legal Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act to permit states the option of coverage of legal immigrants under the Medicaid Program and the State Children's Health Insurance Program S 558, Mental Health Parity Act of 2007 would preserve state laws that are more comprehensive while creating parity in health plans offering mental health coverage by equating financial requirements and treatment limitations for mental health benefits with medical and surgical benefits. S 325/HR 506, Health Partnership Act would provide grants to individual states, groups of states, and portions of states to test various health reform strategies HR1111, Kids Come First Act to ensure that every uninsured child in America has health insurance coverage, HR 3162, "Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act" HR 976 in the Senate, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act S 2049, The Better Health for America's Children Act," to block a new policy to limit states' ability to enroll children in the State Children's Health Insurance Program S 2152, Kids First Actalternative SCHIP bill that would restrict coverage to individuals younger than age 19 in low-income families HR 3963; Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act revised bill to extend and expand the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) HR 2055 Improving Children's Access to Health Care Act, to improve children's access to health care coverage under the Medicaid Program and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). HR 5268: To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program HR 3221: Housing and Economic Recovery Act provision that would allow federal home loan banks to issue letters of credit for tax-exempt hospital bonds. HR 7110: Job Creation and Unemployment Relief Act: Title III, temporary increase in Medicaid matching rate Legislation to expand health care coverage and access including provisions which would stabilize medical emergency reimbursement, HR 882, Access to Emergency Services Act that would increase by 10 percent Medicare reimbursements to physicians who provide care in emergency departments (EDs) or post-stabilization care related to emergency medical conditions in other areas of hospitals S 657, A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to add requirements regarding trauma care HR 6394: Border Health Care Relief Act of 2008 Amends the MPDIMA to extend Sec. 1011 through FY2012 for federal reimbursement of emergency health services furnished to undocumented aliens Legislation to expand health care coverage and access including provisions to ensure patient safety, H.J.RES. 20, Making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2007 provision annual fit-testing of respirators for occupational exposure to tuberculosis. S 2278/HR 4214 Community and Healthcare-Associated Infections Reduction Act to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of community and healthcare-associated infections Legislation to expand health care coverage and access including provisions to ensure emergency preparedness, HR 727, Trauma Care Systems Planning and Development Act of 2007 would authorize an additional $46 million between fiscal years 2008 and 2012 in spending for rural medical centers that treat patients during times of national crisis HJ Res. 20, Making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2007, extending program to provide funds for hospital preparedness S Con Res 21/H Con Res 99, Budget resolution -- extending program to provide funds for hospital preparedness HR 3043; Labor, HHS Appropriations bill, provide funds for hospital preparedness Legislation to expand health care coverage and access including provisions to promote the use of health information technology: S 1418, Wired for Health Care Quality Act HR3043/S1710, Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), Education, and Related Agencies FY 08, funding for HIT programs HR 1467, 10,000 Trained by 2010 Act, award competitive grants for basic research on innovative approaches to improve health care information systems HR 2406, Healthcare Information Technology Enterprise Integration,guidelines and mechanisms to promote the integration of the healthcare information enterprise. S 1408, Health Information Technology Act, would provide tax incentives and resources to offset the costs of investing in new health information technology. HJ Res. 20, Making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2007, extending program to provide funds for HIT S Con Res 21/H Con Res 99, Budget resolution -- extending program to provide funds for HIT HR 3043, Labor, HHS Appropriations bill, provide funds for HIT HR 2764; omnibus appropriations bill for FY2008 provide funds for HIT HR 6357 : Protecting Records, Optimizing Treatment, and Easing Communication through Healthcare Technology Act of 2008 or the PRO(TECH)T Act, Legislation to expand health care coverage and access including provisions funding HIV/AIDS programs: HJ Res. 20, Making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2007, extending program to provide funds for Ryan White programs S Con Res 21/H Con Res 99, Budget resolution -- extending program to provide funds for Ryan White programs HR3043/S1710, FY 2008 Labor HHS Appropriations Bill, funding for Ryan White programs HR 2764; omnibus appropriations bill for FY2008, funding for Ryan White programs Legislation to expand health care coverage and access including provisions to ensure sufficient workforce within in the healthcare sector S 1604, Nursing Education and Quality of Health Care Act, increases the nurse workforce in rural areas, expands nursing school faculty, and develops initiatives to integrate patient safety practices into nursing education HR 2122, Safe Nursing and Patient Care Act of 2007", limiting the number of mandatory overtime hours a nurse may be required to work S 1639, Comprehensive Immigration Reform, the point-based system for visas, to give nurses special consideration under the point system HR800/S1041, Employee Free Choice Act, require the NLRB to certify a bargaining representative if a majority of the bargaining unit employees have authorized designation of the representative (card-check) HR 2123, Nurse Staffing Standards for Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, to establish direct care registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratio requirements in hospitals HR 378, Nurse and Patient Safety & Protection Act direct the Secretary of Labor to issue an occupational safety and health standard to reduce injuries to patients, direct-care registered nurses, and other health care providers by establishing a safe patient handling standard. HR 1644, Re-Empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradesworkers (RESPECT) Act, to amend the National Labor Relations Act to clarify the definition of "supervisor" S446, Nurse Education, Expansion, and Development (NEED) Act, grants based on the number of nursing students enrolled to hire and retain new nursing faculty S 718, The Patient-Focused Critical Care Enhancement Act, provision study the impact of differences in staffing, organization, size, and structure of intensive care units on access, quality, and efficiency of care HJ Res. 20, Making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2007, extending program to provide funds for Nursing Education programs, , national health service corp HR 677, Nursing School Capacity Act authorize IOM study to identify constraints encountered by schools of nursing in admitting and graduating sufficient number of nurses S1577, Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act screening of direct patient access employees HR3043/S1710; Labor, HHS Appropriations bill; nursing education, national health service corp. S 588/HR 1093, Resident Physician Shortage Act, to expand the number of physician training positions in 24 states with shortages HR 5924, The Emergency Nurse Supply Relief Act, which would address the retrogression backlog of visas for internationally-educated nurses who have been hired by U.S. hospitals but are not able to come here because of the unavailability of an employment-based (EB) visa.

Client expense: $100,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), SENATE, White House Office

S.458 Physician Pathology Continuity Act, S.558 The Mental Health Parity Act of 2007; S.630 Rural Health Services Preservation Act, S.860 Early Treatment for HIV Act; S.969 Oppose reversal of NLRB guidance on when charge nurses are classified as supervisors, S.1041 Employee Free Choice Act - Oppose Card Check process S.1604 Nursing Education and Quality of Health Care Act of 2007 S.1693 Health Information Exchange S.2041 The False Claims Act Correction Act of 2007 S.2460 Extend Moratorium on Medicaid Regulations affecting Intergovernmental Transfers S.2499 Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007 S.2620 Temporary increase in federal medical assistance percentages under Medicaid program S.2819 Extend and Establish Moratorium on Medicaid Rules; increase FMAP H.R.800 Employee Free Choice Act Oppose Card Check process H.R.866 Secret Ballot Protection Act H.R.976 Childrens Health Insurance Reauthorization Act of 2007 H.R.1105 Physician Pathology Services Continuity Act H.R.1177 Sole Community Hospital Preservation Act H.R.1424 Paul Wellstone Mental Health & Addiction Equity Act of 2007 H.R.1644 Oppose reversal of NLRB guidance on when charge nurses are classified as supervisors H.R.1663 Medicare Mental Health Modernization Act of 2007 H.R.2159 rural Health Services Preservation Act H.R.2406 Establishes NIST Role in Standard Setting for Health IT H.R.3162 Children Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007 H.R.3326 Early Treatment for HIV Act H.R.3533 Public and Teaching Hospital Preservation Act, H.R.4105 One-year Moratorium on the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program H.R.4854 False Claims Act Correction Act of 2007 H.R.5268 Temporary increase in federal medical assistance percentages under Medicaid program H.R.5613 Extend and Establish Moratorium on Medicaid Rules FFY 2009 Budget and Budget Resolutions/Medicare and Medicaid Cuts FFY 2009 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Pension Appropriations bill FFY 2009 Medicare Inpatient Hospital PPS Rules CY 2009 Medicare Inpatient Psychiatric Facility PPS Rules FFY 2009 Medicare Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility PPS and 75% Rule, Rules CY 2009 Medicare Outpatient PPS Rules FFY 2009 Medicare Skilled Nursing Facility PPS Rules CY 2009 Medicare Home Health Agency PPS Rules CY 2009 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Update CMS Proposed Rule to Limit Intergovernmental Transfers and Certified Public Expenditures CMS Proposed Value-Based Purchasing Program CMS Proposed Rule on Medicaid Graduate Medical Education Payments State Childrens Health Insurance Program funding IRS Form 990 Revision Stark and physician self-referral regulations Hospital pricing transparency Not-for-profit hospital tax-exempt status Medicaid regulations affecting public hospitals, GME, provider tax, outpatient coverage, targeted case management, rehabilitation and school based health Pay for Performance / value based purchasing Health information technology Hospital charity care/financial aid Coverage for undocumented immigrants Associated health plans Coverage for the uninsured Health savings accounts and high-deductible health plans Emergency preparedness Immigration Medicare wage index Community benefit reporting Mental health parity Limited service hospitals Department of Housing and Urban Developments Federal Housing Assistance mortgage program for hospitals Defined benefit pension plans National Institute of Health funding Health care workforce recruiting and training funding Hospital infection reporting Medical error reporting Hospital performance measure reporting Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor Demonstration Project/national expansion Competitive bidding for clinical laboratory services Expansion of the Medicaid 340B drug pricing program CMS August 17th directive to states establishing new requirements for increasing SCHIP coverage False claims act expansion Medicare funding warning/trigger Medicare GME residency slot distribution National Health Service Corp funding Public Health Service Act nursing and allied health professions program funding HRSAs health professions shortage areas and medically underserved areas H.R. 6357 Protecting Records, Optimizing Treatment and Easing Communications through Healthcare Technology Act of 2008 H.R. 2642 Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008 H.R. 6357 Protecting Records, Optimizing Treatment, and Easing Communication through Healthcare Technology Act of 2008 H.R. 2642 Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008

Client expense: $10,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Executive Office of the President (EOP), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Labor, Dept of (DOL), Office of Management & Budget (OMB), SENATE

S.458 Physician Pathology Services Continuity Act, S. 558 The Mental Health Parity Act of 2007, S.630 Rural Health Services Preservation Act, S.860 Early Treatment for HIV Act, S.969 Oppose Reversal of NLRB guidance on when charge nurses are classifed as supervisors, S.1041 Employee Free Choice Act-Oppose Card Check process, S.1604 Nursing Education and Quality of Health Care Act of 2007, S.1693 Health Information Exchange, S.2041 The False Claims Act Correction Act of 2007, S.2460 Extend S.2460 Extend Moratorium on Medicaid Regulations affecting Intergovernmental Transfers, S.2499 Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007, S.2620 Temporary increase in federal medical assistance percentages under Medicaid program S.2819 Extend and Establish Moratorium on Medicaid Rules; increase FMAP, S.3101 The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act S.3656 Preserving Access to Healthcare (PATH) Act of 2008 H.R.800 Employee Free Choice Act Oppose Card Check process H.R.866 Secret Ballot Protection Act H.R.976 Childrens Health Insurance Reauthorization Act of 2007 H.R.1105 Physician Pathology Services Continuity Act H.R.1177 Sole Community Hospital Preservation Act H.R.1424 Paul Wellstone Mental Health & Addiction Equity Act of 2007 H.R.1644 Oppose reversal of NLRB guidance on when charge nurses are classified as supervisors H.R.1663 Medicare Mental Health Modernization Act of 2007 H.R.2159 rural Health Services Preservation Act H.R.2406 Establishes NIST Role in Standard Setting for Health IT H.R.2638 Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009 continuing resolution 2009 H.R.2642, supplemental appropriations Act, 2008 H.R.3162 Children Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007 H.R.3326 Early Treatment for HIV Act H.R.3533 Public and Teaching Hospital Preservation Act, H.R.4105 One-year Moratorium on the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program H.R.4854 False Claims Act Correction Act of 2007 H.R.5268 Temporary increase in federal medical assistance percentages under Medicaid program H.R.5480 Medicare Funding Warning Response Act of 2008 H.R.5613 Extend and Establish Moratorium on Medicaid Rules H.R.5924 Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act H.R.6331 Physician Medicare payment relief H.R.6357 Protecting records, optimizing treatment, and easing communication through healthcare technology H.R.6898 Health-e IT Act of 2008 H.R.7067 Quality FIRST Act of 2008 H.R.7110 Job Creation and Unemployment Relief Act of 2008-FMAP Provision H.R.7219 The Protecting Hospital Outpatient and Community Clinic Services Act of 2008 H.R.7241 Preserving Access to Healthcare (PATH) Act of 2008 H.Res.1368 Relating to the House procedures contained in Section 803 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 FFY 2009 Budget and Budget Resolutions/Medicare and Medicaid Cuts FFY 2009 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Pension Appropriations bill FFY 2009 Medicare Inpatient Hospital PPS Rules CY 2009 Medicare Inpatient Psychiatric Facility PPS Rules FFY 2009 Medicare Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility PPS and 75% Rule, Rules CY 2009 Medicare Outpatient PPS Rules FFY 2009 Medicare Skilled Nursing Facility PPS Rules CY 2009 Medicare Home Health Agency PPS Rules CY 2009 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Update CMS Proposed Rule to Limit Intergovernmental Transfers and Certified Public Expenditures CMS Proposed Value-Based Purchasing Program CMS Proposed Rule on Medicaid Graduate Medical Education Payments State Childrens Health Insurance Program funding IRS Form 990 Revision Stark and physician self-referral regulations Hospital pricing transparency Not-for-profit hospital tax-exempt status Medicaid regulations affecting public hospitals, GME, provider tax, outpatient coverage, targeted case management, rehabilitation and school based health Pay for Performance / value based purchasing Health information technology Hospital charity care/financial aid Coverage for undocumented immigrants Associated health plans Coverage for the uninsured Health savings accounts and high-deductible health plans Emergency preparedness Immigration Medicare wage index Community benefit reporting Mental health parity Limited service hospitals Department of Housing and Urban Developments Federal Housing Assistance mortgage program for hospitals Defined benefit pension plans National Institute of Health funding Health care workforce recruiting and training funding Hospital infection reporting Medical error reporting Hospital performance measure reporting Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor Demonstration Project/national expansion Competitive bidding for clinical laboratory services Expansion of the Medicaid 340B drug pricing program CMS August 17th directive to states establishing new requirements for increasing SCHIP coverage False claims act expansion Medicare funding warning/trigger Medicare GME residency slot distribution National Health Service Corp funding Public Health Service Act nursing and allied health professions program funding HRSAs health professions shortage areas and medically underserved areas

Client expense: Not reported · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ), Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Executive Office of the President (EOP), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Labor, Dept of (DOL), Office of Management & Budget (OMB), SENATE

S.458 Physician Pathology Services Continuity Act; S.558 The Mental Health Parity Act of 2007; S.630 Rural Health Services Preservation Act; S.860 Early Treatment for HIV Act; S.969 Oppose reversal of NLRB guidance on when charge nurses are classified as supervisors; S.1041 Employee Free Choice Act-Oppose Card Check process; S.1604 Nursing Education and Quality of Health Care Act of 2007; S.1693 Health Information Exchange; S.2041 The False Claims Act Correction Act of 2007; S.2460 Extend Moratorium on medicaid regulations affecting intergovernmental transfers; S.2499 Medicare, medicaid, and SCHIP extension act of 2007; S.2620 Temporary increase in federal medical assistance percentages under Medicaid program; S.2819 Extend and establish moratorium on Medicaid rules; increase FMAP; S.3101 the Medicare improvements for patients and providers act; S.3656 Preserving access to healthcare (PATH) act of 2008; H.R.800 Employee free choice act (oppose card check process); H.R.866 Secret ballot protection act; H.R.976 Children's health insurance reauthoriation act of 2007; H.R.1105 Physician pathology services continuity act; H.R.1177 Sole commuunity hospital preservation act; H.R.1424 Paul Wellstone mental health and addiction equity act of 2007; H.R.1644 Oppose reversal of NLRB quidance on when charge nurses are classified as supervisors; H.R.1663 Medicare mental health modernization act of 2007; H.R.2159 Rural health services preservation act; H.R.2406 establishes NIST role in standard setting for health IT; H.R.2638 Consolidated security, disaster assistance, and continuing appropriations act, 2009; Continuing resolution 2009; H.R.2642 Supplemental appropriations act, 2008; H.R.3162 Children health and Medicare protection act of 2007; H.R.3326 Early treatment for HIV act; H.R.3533 Public and teaching hospital preservation Act; H.R.4105 One-year moratorium on the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program; H.R.4854 False Claims Act Correction Act of 2007; H.R.5268 Temporary increase in federal medical assistance percentages under Medicaid program; H.R.5480 Medicare funding warning response act of 2008; H.R.5613 Extend and establish moratorium on Medicaid rules; H.R.5924 Emergency nursing supply relief act; H.R.6331 Physician Medicare payment releif; H.R.6357 Protecting records, optimizing treatment, and easing communication through healthcare technology; H.R.6898 Health-E IT Act of 2008; H.R.7067 Quality FIRST Act of 2008; H.R.7110 Job Creation and Unemployment Relief Act of 2008-FMAP Provision; H.R.7219 the Protecting Hospital and outpatient and community clinic services act of 2008; H.R.7241 Preserving access to health care (PATH) Act of 2008; H.Res.1368 Relating to the House procedures contained in Section 803 of the Medicare prescription drug improvement and modernization act of 2003; FFY 2009 budget and budget resolutions/Medicare and Medicaid cuts; FFY 2009 Labor, health and human services, education and pension appropriations bill; FFY 2009 Medicare Inpatient hospital PPS rules; CY 2009 Medicare inpatient Psychiatric facility PPS rules; FFY 2009 Medicare inpatient rehabiltiation facility PPS and "75% rule," rules; CY 2009 Medicare otupatient PPS rules; FFY 2009 Medicare skilled nursing facility PPS rules; CY 2009 Medicare home health agency PPS rules; CY 2009 Medicare physician fee schedule update; CMS proposed rule to limit intergovernmental transfers and certified public expenditures; CMS proposed value-based purchasing program; CMS proposed rule on Medicad graduate medical education payments; State childrens health insurance program funding; IRS Form 990 revision; "Stark" and physician self-referral regulations; Hospital pricing transparency; Not-for-profit hospital tax-exempt status; Medicaid regulations affecting public hospitals, GME, provider tax, outpatient coverage, targeted case management, rehabilitation and school based health; pay for performance/value based purchasing; health information technology; hospital charity care/financial aid; Coverage for undocumented immigrants; Associated health plans; Coverage for the uninsured; Health savings accounts and high-deductibel health plans; Emergency preparedness; Immigration; Medicare wage index; Community benefit reporting; mental health parity; Limited service hospitals; Department of Housing and Urban Development's federal housing assistance mortage program for hospitals; Defiend benefit pension plans; National Institute of Health funding; Health care workforce recruting and training funding; Hospital infection reporting; Medical error reporting; Hospital performance measure reporting; Medicare Recovery Audit contractor Demonstration Project/national expansion; Competitive bidding for clinical laboratory services; Expansion of the Medicaid 340b drug pricing program; False claims act expansion; Medicare funding warning/"trigger"; Medicare GME residency slot distribution; National Health Service Corp. funding; CMS directive to states establishing new requirements for increasing SCHIP coverage; Public Health Service Act nursing and allied health professions program funding; HRSA's health professions shortage areas and medically underserved areas.

Client expense: $240,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ), Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Executive Office of the President (EOP), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Labor, Dept of (DOL), Office of Management & Budget (OMB), SENATE

Medicare hospital reimbursement issues and Medicare graduate medical education reimbursement issues (Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, H.R.6331, S.3101;CHAMP Act, H.R.3162;Preserving Access to Medicare Act of 2008,S.3118;Inpatient Medicare Prospective Payment System Rule, CMS 1390-P,F;Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor Program Moratorium Act of 2007, H.R.4105;Nursing and Allied Health Education Preservation Act of 2008;H.R.5174;Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Act of 2007, H.R.4138;42CFR413.75,H.R.1093,provisions related to Medicare graduate medical education and the counting of resident work hours, HR 615 & 616 relating to Medicare Parity; PATH Act of 2008 (S.3656, HR 7241) Medicaid reimbursement issues (Iraq War Supplemental Appropriations Bill, H.R. 2642-Provision to Place Moratoria on Medicaid Regulations CMS-2258-FC,CMS 2279-P,CMS 2213-P, and CMS-2275-F; Protecting the Medicaid safety Net Act of 2008, H.R.5613;Public and Teaching Hospital Preservation Act, H.R.3533;Medicaid Advanced Practice Nurses and Physician Assistants Access Act of 2007, H.R.2066;Temporary Increase in FMAP (HR5268,S.2586, H.R.7110, S. 3656,S.3689 ) Medicaid Outpatient Regulation (ms 2213-F)

Client expense: $360,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), SENATE

Medicare Reimbursement; Illinois Hospital Assessment Program; Sustainable Growth Rate/Physician Fee Schedule Fix; Hospital Compare Data; H.R. 1845/S. 1428, Medicare Durable Medical Equipment Access Act; H.R. 621, Home Oxygen Patient Protection Act; Medicare Moratoriums and H.R. 5613, Protecting the Medicare Safety Act of 2008; H.R. 5268/S. 2620, providing temporary increase in Federal Matching Assistance Percentage; H.R. 6331, The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Provider Act.

Client expense: $60,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

H.R. 7110, Job Creation and Unemployment Relief Act of 2008; making supplemental appropriations for job creation and preservation, infrastructure investment, and economic and energy assistance for fiscal year ending September 30, 2009 and other purposes; in support of provisions relating to a temporary increase in the federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid program; Title III Temporary increase in the Medicaid Match Rate. S. 3604, National Park Centennial Fund Act; A bill making emergency supplemental appropriations for economic recovery for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008; in support of provisions relating to a temporary increase in the federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid program; Title III State Fiscal Relief, Section 3001, Temporary Increase in Medicaid FMAP. H.R. 976/ H.R. 3963, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007; In support of all provisions. H.R. 5268/ S. 2620, To provide for a temporary increase in the federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid program, and for other purposes; In support of all provisions.

Client expense: $75,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Medicare Reimbursement; Illinois' Hospital Assessment Program; Sustainable Growth Rate/Physician Fee Schedule Fix; Hospital Compare Data; H.R. 1845/S. 1428, Medicare Durable Medical Equipment Access Act; H.R. 621, Home Oxygen Patient Protection Act; Medicare Moratoriums and H.R. 5613, Protecting the Medicare Safety Act of 2008; H.R. 5268/S. 2620, providing temporary increase of Federal Matching Assistance Percentage; H.R. 6331, The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act.

Client expense: Not reported · Firm income: $40,000

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

S 3/ HR 4 - Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007 SCHIP Reauthorization Medicaid Regulations/Moratoria Federal Medical Assistance Percentage Increase HR 3533- The Public and Teaching Hospital Preservation Act HR 4355 - To impose a moratorium on certain Medicaid payment restrictions HR 5268/S 2620- To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes

Client expense: $34,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Homeland Security, Dept of (DHS), Housing & Urban Development, Dept of (HUD), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), SENATE, State, Dept of (DOS), White House Office

Medicare Advantage program - Proposed legislation concerning this issue. Medicare/Medicaid issues - HR 4, Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007; S 3, Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007; S 1102, Part D Equity for Low-Income Seniors Act of 2007; S 1103, Helping Fill the Medicare Rx Gap Act of 2007; S 1107, Home and Community Services Copayment Equity Act of 2007; S 1108, Medicare Part D Outreach and Enrollment Enhancement Act of 2007; HR 2945, Medicare Advantage Truth in Advertising Act of 2007; S 799, Community Choice Act of 2007; S 1544, Medicare Quality Enhancement Act of 2007; S 1507, Access to Medicare Data Act of 2007; S 1827, Pharmacist Access and Recognition in Medicare (PhARM) Act of 2007; HR 3025, Medicare Prescription Drug Savings for Our Seniors (Medicare Prescription Drug SOS) Act of 2007; HR 3061, Medicare Part D Drug Class Protection Act of 2007; HR 3162, Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007; HR 976, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007; S 1893, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007; S 1954, Pharmacy Access Improvement (PhAIm) Act of 2007; HR 3963, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007; S 2219, Medicare Prescription Drug Savings and Choice Act of 2007; HR 3932, Medicare Prescription Drug Savings and Choice Act of 2007; S 2408, Medicare Electronic Medication and Safety Protection (E-MEDS) Act of 2007; HR 4296, Medicare Electronic Medication and Safety Protection (E-MEDS) Act of 2007; S 1200, Indian Health Care Improvement Act Amendments of 2008; HR 5480, Medicare Funding Warning Response Act of 2008; S 2662, Medicare Funding Warning Response Act of 2008; HR 5268, To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; HR 6388, Government Accountability Office Improvement Act of 2008; HR 5998, Fair and Justifiable Credit Card Interest Rate Act of 2008; S 2819, Economic Recovery in Health Care Act of 2008; HR 6359, Medicare Beneficiary Protection Act of 2008; HR 6365, Medicare Special Needs Plans Extension and Amendments Act of 2008; HR 5613, Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008; S 2620, To provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid program; HR 5683, Government Accountability Office Act of 2008; HR 7110, Job Creation and Unemployment Relief Act of 2008; S 3560, QI Program Supplemental Funding Act of 2008; HR 7077, QI Program Supplemental Funding Act of 2008; S 3604, Emergency Supplemental; HR 7197, To amend part C of title XVIII of the Social Security Act to limit increases in Medicare Advantage payment rates; S 3656, Preserving Access to Healthcare (PATH) Act of 2008; S 3689, Economic Stimulus; S 3710, Medicare Early Access Act of 2008; S 3101, Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008.

Client expense: Not reported · Firm income: $100,000

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

H.R. 7219, Protecting Hospital Outpatient and Community Clinic Services Act of 2008 H.R. 7110, Job Creation and Unemployment Relief Act of 2008 S. 3604, S. 3688, S. 3689, Economic Recovery Act of 2008 H.R. 7067, Quality First Act H.R. 7241 and S. 3656, Preserving Access to Healthcare (PATH) Act of 2008 H.R. 5268 and S. 2620, To Provide a Temporary FMAP Increase H.R. 676, United States Health Insurance Act H.R. 6898, Health e-information Technology Act of 2008 Baucus/Grassley Value-Based Purchasing Draft Bill

Client expense: $200,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE