Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act

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; public and private health insurers should encourage preventive health care by providing full coverage, with no cost-sharing, for preventive services recommended by an expert advisory group, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; 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 (ACA) 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. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Advocated in support of H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which was enacted in April 2015 and repealed Medicares Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula and moved us to a new value-based payment and delivery system under Medicare; Praised members of Congress for the bipartisan effort in finally ending the SGR and for passing H.R. 2. Medicare Physician Fee Schedule: Commented to CMS in Sept. 2015 on the proposed rule that included numerous recommendations, including but not limited to: Urged CMS to conduct physician practice expense to validate the practice expense component of Relative Value Units; There be a standard resource-based relative value scale update committee survey to determine the work and direct practice expense of moderate sedation; CMS use the additional time from the delay in collecting data on global periods to develop a methodology to fairly re-allocate malpractice RVUs for services converting from a 90- or 10-day to a zero-day global period; CMS maintain an objective and transparent formal appeals process that is consistently applied and open to any organizations that would like to comment; CMS investigate the adequacy of payment for physician services that typically take place outside of a face-to-face patient encounter; that the Collaborative Care Model be implemented through a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Demonstration and be rapidly expanded within Medicare through the Secretarys authority based upon the results and learnings of this demonstration. 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 Graduate Medical Education (GME) caps for residency programs in primary care, advocated for S. 1627, which would increase the number of Medicare-supported training positions for medical residents by 15 percent (approximately 15,000 slots) over five years, requiring at least 50 percent of the new positions to be allocated to specialties facing a current shortage; Advocated to protect Medicare beneficiary access to health care services by preserving existing Medicare financing for Graduate Medical Education (GME). In the 114th Congress, advocated for S.1148/H.R.2124 and H.R. 1117-to strategically increase the number of GME training positions in primary care specialties (including internal medicine) and other specialties facing shortages. FY2016 Appropriations: Advocated for the highest level of funding possible for the Labor-HHS-Education bill within the discretionary cap established by the Budget Control Act (BCA); Supported funding to "improve health care quality, enhance consumer choice, advance patient safety, improve efficiency, reduce medical errors, and broaden access to essential services; Advocated for funding for AHRQ and Patient Centered Outcome Research Trust Fund, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); Title VII, Section 747, Primary Care Training and Enhancement; National Health Service Corps, Community Health Centers Fund, National Health Care Workforce Commission; Expressed concern to House and Senate leadership over the expiration, at the end of FY2015, of dedicated funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers; Urged members of Congress to replace sequestration with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that takes into account the deep cuts NDD has already incurred since 2010. 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. 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. Regarding the Essential Health Benefits Bulletin, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 16, 2011, the College advocated for striking a balance between comprehensiveness and affordability while giving States some freedom to determine a package that best serve the needs of residents. The College believes that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within and across categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. Advocated to repeal the mandate that requires a prescription for over-the-counter medications purchased through a Health Savings Account. Advocated for legislation that would provide coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans, as included in H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013; advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Medicare Advantage Participants Bill of Rights, H.R. 4998 and S. 2552, that would prevent Medicare Advantage plans from terminating physicians from Medicare Advantage plan networks without sufficient notice or cause. Under the Affordable Care Act, advocated to ensure that people residing in states with health insurance marketplaces operated by the federal government do not lose their premium subsidies in the event that the Supreme Court rules in favor of the petitioners in the King versus Burwell case. Congress should not make changes in the ACA that would result in more uninsured persons or weaken consumer protections. 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; 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. National workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians: Urged support for 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; Fully fund the commission at levels authorized in the Affordable Care Act; 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; Advocated for the Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act (H.R. 4106 in the 113th Congress), which establishes a framework for health care liability lawsuits to undergo review by independent medical review panels if health care professionals (practicing physicians or their agents or employees) allege adherence to applicable clinical practice guidelines in the provision of health care goods or services.. Workforce: Advocated for H.R. 1201 (113th Congress), The Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, S. 577 (113th Congress), the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, H.R. 487 (113th Congress), the Primary Care Workforce Access and Improvement Act of 2013 (113th Congress). Medicaid Pay Parity: Advocated for extending for at least two more years, beyond 2014, the Medicaid primary care payment increase, as enacted under the Affordable Care Act, which has only recently been implemented in a majority of states, and (2) including physicians practicing obstetrics and gynecology as qualified specialties, subject to the current eligibility requirement that at least 60 percent of their Medicaid billings are the primary care services as defined by the authorizing legislation, for the purposes of qualifying for the Medicaid primary care increases; Advocated for at least a two-year extension of the Medicaid payment parity provision beyond its 2014 expiration date, namely through the Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women & Children Act. Health Information Technology: Urged support for H.R. 3309, the Further Flexibility in Health Information Technology (HIT) Reporting and Advancing Interoperability Act (Flex-IT 2 Act); Advocated that CMS pause the implementation of Stage 3 meaningful use requirements until the new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is ready to be implemented, and shorten the reporting period for the EHR Incentive Payment Programs from twelve months each year to three months. H.R. 3309 would also provide the Secretary of HHS greater flexibility to change, suspend, or revoke meaningful use criteria if the requirements are not consistent with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) that was signed into law earlier this year. The Medicare Primary Care Incentive Program: Advocated to extend this program, which began in 2011 and expires in 2015, that pays eligible internal medicine specialists, family physicians, and geriatricians a 10 percent bonus on designated office visits and other primary care services. MACRA: Provided comments to CMS regarding implementation of Alternative Payment Models (APMs) and the Merit-Based Incentive Program (MIPs) under the Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA). Comments included: delivery system improvements, avoiding administrative and cost burdens for patients, reducing administrative burdens for physicians, improving current quality and reporting systems, and transparency. Opioid Abuse: ACP supports efforts in trying to improve access to care and treatment for those suffering from mental health and substance abuse disorders. As contained in S. 2256, Co-Prescribing Saves Lives Act of 2015, ACP supports a comprehensive national policy on prescription drug abuse containing education, monitoring, proper disposal, and enforcement elements. As contained in S. 2256, Co-Prescribing Saves Lives Act of 2015, ACP is supportive of expanding access to naloxone within the community. ACP also supports the policy proposal known as partial-fill. This would allow a patient to elect to receive a portion of a prescription, and return for either a portion of, or the remainder of the prescription, if the pain persists, up to a 30-day maximum. Site-Neutral Payments: ACP provided feedback to Congress on Section 603, Treatment of Off-Campus Outpatient Departments of a Provider, as included in the recently-enacted Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA). ACP advocated to expand Section 603 to encompass all outpatient off-campus facilities, not just those HOPDs that are built or purchased after the November 2nd enactment date. Stark Law: ACP provided feedback to Congress that the physician self-referral laws need to be revisited in light of the changes in health care delivery and payment reform. ACP is supportive of increasing payment programs that focus on safe, efficient, value-based care delivery and agree that the Stark Self-Referral Laws should not prevent innovation. Tobacco: ACP provided feedback to Congress to express support for the provision in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that gives governments the option to exclude tobacco control measures from Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) challenges. The provision will protect the rights of current and future TPP participating nations to adopt public health measures that reduce tobacco use without fear of facing lengthy and expensive trade disputes initiated by tobacco companies.

Client expense: $105,738 · 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 (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; public and private health insurers should encourage preventive health care by providing full coverage, with no cost-sharing, for preventive services recommended by an expert advisory group, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; 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 (ACA) 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. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Advocated in support of H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which was enacted in April 2015 and repealed Medicares Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula and moved us to a new value-based payment and delivery system under Medicare; Praised members of Congress for the bipartisan effort in finally ending the SGR and for passing H.R. 2. Medicare Physician Fee Schedule: Commented to CMS in Sept. 2015 on the proposed rule that included numerous recommendations, including but not limited to: Urged CMS to conduct physician practice expense to validate the practice expense component of Relative Value Units; There be a standard resource-based relative value scale update committee survey to determine the work and direct practice expense of moderate sedation; CMS use the additional time from the delay in collecting data on global periods to develop a methodology to fairly re-allocate malpractice RVUs for services converting from a 90- or 10-day to a zero-day global period; CMS maintain an objective and transparent formal appeals process that is consistently applied and open to any organizations that would like to comment; CMS investigate the adequacy of payment for physician services that typically take place outside of a face-to-face patient encounter; that the Collaborative Care Model be implemented through a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Demonstration and be rapidly expanded within Medicare through the Secretarys authority based upon the results and learnings of this demonstration. 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 Graduate Medical Education (GME) caps for residency programs in primary care, advocated for S. 1627, which would increase the number of Medicare-supported training positions for medical residents by 15 percent (approximately 15,000 slots) over five years, requiring at least 50 percent of the new positions to be allocated to specialties facing a current shortage; Advocated to protect Medicare beneficiary access to health care services by preserving existing Medicare financing for Graduate Medical Education (GME). In the 114th Congress, advocated for S.1148/H.R.2124 and H.R. 1117-to strategically increase the number of GME training positions in primary care specialties (including internal medicine) and other specialties facing shortages. FY2016 Appropriations: Advocated for the highest level of funding possible for the Labor-HHS-Education bill within the discretionary cap established by the Budget Control Act (BCA); Supported funding to "improve health care quality, enhance consumer choice, advance patient safety, improve efficiency, reduce medical errors, and broaden access to essential services; Advocated for funding for AHRQ and Patient Centered Outcome Research Trust Fund, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); Title VII, Section 747, Primary Care Training and Enhancement; National Health Service Corps, Community Health Centers Fund, National Health Care Workforce Commission; Expressed concern to House and Senate leadership over the expiration, at the end of FY2015, of dedicated funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers; Urged members of Congress to replace sequestration with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that takes into account the deep cuts NDD has already incurred since 2010. 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. 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. Regarding the Essential Health Benefits Bulletin, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 16, 2011, the College advocated for striking a balance between comprehensiveness and affordability while giving States some freedom to determine a package that best serve the needs of residents. The College believes that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within and across categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. Advocated to repeal the mandate that requires a prescription for over-the-counter medications purchased through a Health Savings Account. Advocated for legislation that would provide coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans, as included in H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013; advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Medicare Advantage Participants Bill of Rights, H.R. 4998 and S. 2552, that would prevent Medicare Advantage plans from terminating physicians from Medicare Advantage plan networks without sufficient notice or cause. Under the Affordable Care Act, advocated to ensure that people residing in states with health insurance marketplaces operated by the federal government do not lose their premium subsidies in the event that the Supreme Court rules in favor of the petitioners in the King versus Burwell case. Congress should not make changes in the ACA that would result in more uninsured persons or weaken consumer protections. 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; 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. National workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians: Urged support for 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; Fully fund the commission at levels authorized in the Affordable Care Act; 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; Advocated for the Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act (H.R. 4106 in the 113th Congress), which establishes a framework for health care liability lawsuits to undergo review by independent medical review panels if health care professionals (practicing physicians or their agents or employees) allege adherence to applicable clinical practice guidelines in the provision of health care goods or services. Workforce: Advocated for H.R. 1201 (113th Congress), The Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, S. 577 (113th Congress), the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, H.R. 487 (113th Congress), the Primary Care Workforce Access and Improvement Act of 2013 (113th Congress). Medicaid Pay Parity: Advocated for extending for at least two more years, beyond 2014, the Medicaid primary care payment increase, as enacted under the Affordable Care Act, which has only recently been implemented in a majority of states, and (2) including physicians practicing obstetrics and gynecology as qualified specialties, subject to the current eligibility requirement that at least 60 percent of their Medicaid billings are the primary care services as defined by the authorizing legislation, for the purposes of qualifying for the Medicaid primary care increases; Advocated for at least a two-year extension of the Medicaid payment parity provision beyond its 2014 expiration date, namely through the Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women & Children Act. Health Information Technology: Urged support for H.R. 3309, the Further Flexibility in Health Information Technology (HIT) Reporting and Advancing Interoperability Act (Flex-IT 2 Act); Advocated that CMS pause the implementation of Stage 3 meaningful use requirements until the new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is ready to be implemented, and shorten the reporting period for the EHR Incentive Payment Programs from twelve months each year to three months. H.R. 3309 would also provide the Secretary of HHS greater flexibility to change, suspend, or revoke meaningful use criteria if the requirements are not consistent with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) that was signed into law earlier this year. The Medicare Primary Care Incentive Program: Advocated to extend this program, which began in 2011 and expires in 2015, that pays eligible internal medicine specialists, family physicians, and geriatricians a 10 percent bonus on designated office visits and other primary care services. MACRA: Provided comments to CMS regarding implementation of Alternative Payment Models (APMs) and the Merit-Based Incentive Program (MIPs) under the Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA). Comments included: delivery system improvements, avoiding administrative and cost burdens for patients, reducing administrative burdens for physicians, improving current quality and reporting systems, and transparency. Federal Firearms Research: Advocated for lifting the ban on gun research by CDC (and adequate funding for NIH gun-related research). Clinical Labs: Commented to CMS on Medicares Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Tests Payment System. Recommendations included: Extending the timeline for implementation & allowing six months before initial reporting, retain the proposed POL low expenditure threshold exclusion, reduce data collection period from 12 months to 3 months. Affordable Care Act Benefit and Payment Parameters: Advocated to CMS that plans offered through health exchanges be required to abide by Federally-Facilitated Marketplace Standards related to data submission, network adequacy, and essential community providers; Advocated that Qualified Health Plans provide a prescription drug plan formulary exception process that provides a pathway to access clinically appropriate drugs not covered by the health plan; Advocated for more stringent quantitative network adequacy criteria. Medicares Physician Fee Schedule: Urged CMS to conduct a new Physician Practice Expense Information Survey to validate the Practice Expense (PE) of the Relative Value Units (RVUs); Advocated there be a standard Resource-Based Relative Value Scale Update Committee survey to determine the work and direct PE inputs of moderate sedation; Use the additional time from the delay in collecting data on global periods to develop a methodology to fairly reallocate malpractice RVUs for services converting from a 90 or 10-day to a zero-day global period.

Client expense: $225,757 · 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 (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; public and private health insurers should encourage preventive health care by providing full coverage, with no cost-sharing, for preventive services recommended by an expert advisory group, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; 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 (ACA) 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. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Advocated in support of H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which was enacted in April 2015 and repealed Medicares Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula and moved us to a new value-based payment and delivery system under Medicare; Praised members of Congress for the bipartisan effort in finally ending the SGR and for passing H.R. 2. Medicare Physician Fee Schedule: Commented to CMS in Sept. 2015 on the proposed rule that included numerous recommendations, including but not limited to: Urged CMS to conduct physician practice expense to validate the practice expense component of Relative Value Units; There be a standard resource-based relative value scale update committee survey to determine the work and direct practice expense of moderate sedation; CMS use the additional time from the delay in collecting data on global periods to develop a methodology to fairly re-allocate malpractice RVUs for services converting from a 90- or 10-day to a zero-day global period; CMS maintain an objective and transparent formal appeals process that is consistently applied and open to any organizations that would like to comment; CMS investigate the adequacy of payment for physician services that typically take place outside of a face-to-face patient encounter; that the Collaborative Care Model be implemented through a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Demonstration and be rapidly expanded within Medicare through the Secretarys authority based upon the results and learnings of this demonstration. 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 Graduate Medical Education (GME) caps for residency programs in primary care, advocated for S. 1627, which would increase the number of Medicare-supported training positions for medical residents by 15 percent (approximately 15,000 slots) over five years, requiring at least 50 percent of the new positions to be allocated to specialties facing a current shortage; Advocated to protect Medicare beneficiary access to health care services by preserving existing Medicare financing for Graduate Medical Education (GME). In the 114th Congress, advocated for S.1148/H.R.2124 and H.R. 1117-to strategically increase the number of GME training positions in primary care specialties (including internal medicine) and other specialties facing shortages. FY2016 Appropriations: Advocated for the highest level of funding possible for the Labor-HHS-Education bill within the discretionary cap established by the Budget Control Act (BCA); Supported funding to "improve health care quality, enhance consumer choice, advance patient safety, improve efficiency, reduce medical errors, and broaden access to essential services; Advocated for funding for AHRQ and Patient Centered Outcome Research Trust Fund, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); Title VII, Section 747, Primary Care Training and Enhancement; National Health Service Corps, Community Health Centers Fund, National Health Care Workforce Commission; Expressed concern to House and Senate leadership over the expiration, at the end of FY2015, of dedicated funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers; Urged members of Congress to replace sequestration with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that takes into account the deep cuts NDD has already incurred since 2010. 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. 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. Regarding the Essential Health Benefits Bulletin, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 16, 2011, the College advocated for striking a balance between comprehensiveness and affordability while giving States some freedom to determine a package that best serve the needs of residents. The College believes that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within and across categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. Advocated to repeal the mandate that requires a prescription for over-the-counter medications purchased through a Health Savings Account. Advocated for legislation that would provide coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans, as included in H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013; advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Medicare Advantage Participants Bill of Rights, H.R. 4998 and S. 2552, that would prevent Medicare Advantage plans from terminating physicians from Medicare Advantage plan networks without sufficient notice or cause. Under the Affordable Care Act, advocated to ensure that people residing in states with health insurance marketplaces operated by the federal government do not lose their premium subsidies in the event that the Supreme Court rules in favor of the petitioners in the King versus Burwell case. Congress should not make changes in the ACA that would result in more uninsured persons or weaken consumer protections. 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; 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. National workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians: Urged support for 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; Fully fund the commission at levels authorized in the Affordable Care Act; 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; Advocated for the Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act (H.R. 4106 in the 113th Congress), which establishes a framework for health care liability lawsuits to undergo review by independent medical review panels if health care professionals (practicing physicians or their agents or employees) allege adherence to applicable clinical practice guidelines in the provision of health care goods or services. Workforce: Advocated for H.R. 1201 (113th Congress), The Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, S. 577 (113th Congress), the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, H.R. 487 (113th Congress), the Primary Care Workforce Access and Improvement Act of 2013 (113th Congress). Medicaid Pay Parity: Advocated for extending for at least two more years, beyond 2014, the Medicaid primary care payment increase, as enacted under the Affordable Care Act, which has only recently been implemented in a majority of states, and (2) including physicians practicing obstetrics and gynecology as qualified specialties, subject to the current eligibility requirement that at least 60 percent of their Medicaid billings are the primary care services as defined by the authorizing legislation, for the purposes of qualifying for the Medicaid primary care increases; Advocated for at least a two-year extension of the Medicaid payment parity provision beyond its 2014 expiration date, namely through the Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women & Children Act. Health Information Technology: Urged support for H.R. 3309, the Further Flexibility in Health Information Technology (HIT) Reporting and Advancing Interoperability Act (Flex-IT 2 Act); Advocated that CMS pause the implementation of Stage 3 meaningful use requirements until the new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is ready to be implemented, and shorten the reporting period for the EHR Incentive Payment Programs from twelve months each year to three months. H.R. 3309 would also provide the Secretary of HHS greater flexibility to change, suspend, or revoke meaningful use criteria if the requirements are not consistent with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) that was signed into law earlier this year. The Medicare Primary Care Incentive Program: Advocated to extend this program, which began in 2011 and expires in 2015, that pays eligible internal medicine specialists, family physicians, and geriatricians a 10 percent bonus on designated office visits and other primary care services. MACRA: Provided comments to CMS regarding implementation of Alternative Payment Models (APMs) and the Merit-Based Incentive Program (MIPs) under the Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA). Comments included: delivery system improvements, avoiding administrative and cost burdens for patients, reducing administrative burdens for physicians, improving current quality and reporting systems, and transparency. Federal Firearms Research: Advocated for lifting the ban on gun research by CDC (and adequate funding for NIH gun-related research). Clinical Labs: Commented to CMS on Medicares Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Tests Payment System. Recommendations included: Extending the timeline for implementation & allowing six months before initial reporting, retain the proposed POL low expenditure threshold exclusion, reduce data collection period from 12 months to 3 months. Affordable Care Act Benefit and Payment Parameters: Advocated to CMS that plans offered through health exchanges be required to abide by Federally-Facilitated Marketplace Standards related to data submission, network adequacy, and essential community providers; Advocated that Qualified Health Plans provide a prescription drug plan formulary exception process that provides a pathway to access clinically appropriate drugs not covered by the health plan; Advocated for more stringent quantitative network adequacy criteria. Medicares Physician Fee Schedule: Urged CMS to conduct a new Physician Practice Expense Information Survey to validate the Practice Expense (PE) of the Relative Value Units (RVUs); Advocated there be a standard Resource-Based Relative Value Scale Update Committee survey to determine the work and direct PE inputs of moderate sedation; Use the additional time from the delay in collecting data on global periods to develop a methodology to fairly reallocate malpractice RVUs for services converting from a 90 or 10-day to a zero-day global period.

Client expense: $106,426 · 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

Monitor legislative activity related to health funding; graduate medical education funding; H.R. 487 - Primary Care Workforce Access Improvement Act; H.R. 1180 - Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act; H.R. 1201 Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act; S. 577 - Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act;

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

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Monitor legislative affecting Graduate Medical Education; H.R. 1201 - Training Tomorrows Doctors Today Act; S. 1822, Foreign Medical School Accountability Fairness Act;

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

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 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 (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; public and private health insurers should encourage preventive health care by providing full coverage, with no cost-sharing, for preventive services recommended by an expert advisory group, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; 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 (ACA) 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. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Advocated in support of H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which was enacted in April 2015 and repealed Medicares Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula and moved us to a new value-based payment and delivery system under Medicare; Praised members of Congress for the bipartisan effort in finally ending the SGR and for passing H.R. 2. Medicare Physician Fee Schedule: Commented to CMS in Sept. 2015 on the proposed rule that included numerous recommendations, including but not limited to: Urged CMS to conduct physician practice expense to validate the practice expense component of Relative Value Units; There be a standard resource-based relative value scale update committee survey to determine the work and direct practice expense of moderate sedation; CMS use the additional time from the delay in collecting data on global periods to develop a methodology to fairly re-allocate malpractice RVUs for services converting from a 90- or 10-day to a zero-day global period; CMS maintain an objective and transparent formal appeals process that is consistently applied and open to any organizations that would like to comment; CMS investigate the adequacy of payment for physician services that typically take place outside of a face-to-face patient encounter; that the Collaborative Care Model be implemented through a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Demonstration and be rapidly expanded within Medicare through the Secretarys authority based upon the results and learnings of this demonstration. 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 Graduate Medical Education (GME) caps for residency programs in primary care, advocated for S. 1627, which would increase the number of Medicare-supported training positions for medical residents by 15 percent (approximately 15,000 slots) over five years, requiring at least 50 percent of the new positions to be allocated to specialties facing a current shortage; Advocated to protect Medicare beneficiary access to health care services by preserving existing Medicare financing for Graduate Medical Education (GME). In the 114th Congress, advocated for S.1148/H.R.2124 and H.R. 1117-to strategically increase the number of GME training positions in primary care specialties (including internal medicine) and other specialties facing shortages. FY2016 Appropriations: Advocated for the highest level of funding possible for the Labor-HHS-Education bill within the discretionary cap established by the Budget Control Act (BCA); Supported funding to "improve health care quality, enhance consumer choice, advance patient safety, improve efficiency, reduce medical errors, and broaden access to essential services; Advocated for funding for AHRQ and Patient Centered Outcome Research Trust Fund, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); Title VII, Section 747, Primary Care Training and Enhancement; National Health Service Corps, Community Health Centers Fund, National Health Care Workforce Commission; Expressed concern to House and Senate leadership over the expiration, at the end of FY2015, of dedicated funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers; Urged members of Congress to replace sequestration with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that takes into account the deep cuts NDD has already incurred since 2010. 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. 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. Regarding the Essential Health Benefits Bulletin, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 16, 2011, the College advocated for striking a balance between comprehensiveness and affordability while giving States some freedom to determine a package that best serve the needs of residents. The College believes that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within and across categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. Advocated to repeal the mandate that requires a prescription for over-the-counter medications purchased through a Health Savings Account. Advocated for legislation that would provide coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans, as included in H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013; advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Medicare Advantage Participants Bill of Rights, H.R. 4998 and S. 2552, that would prevent Medicare Advantage plans from terminating physicians from Medicare Advantage plan networks without sufficient notice or cause. Under the Affordable Care Act, advocated to ensure that people residing in states with health insurance marketplaces operated by the federal government do not lose their premium subsidies in the event that the Supreme Court rules in favor of the petitioners in the King versus Burwell case. Congress should not make changes in the ACA that would result in more uninsured persons or weaken consumer protections. Essential Health Benefits: Commented on the proposed rule regarding essential benefits, actuarial value, and accreditation as issued by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services on November 20, 2012; Advocated that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. 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; 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. National workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians: Urged support for 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; Fully fund the commission at levels authorized in the Affordable Care Act; 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; Advocated for the Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act (H.R. 4106 in the 113th Congress), which establishes a framework for health care liability lawsuits to undergo review by independent medical review panels if health care professionals (practicing physicians or their agents or employees) allege adherence to applicable clinical practice guidelines in the provision of health care goods or services.. Workforce: Advocated for H.R. 1201 (113th Congress), The Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, S. 577 (113th Congress), the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, H.R. 487 (113th Congress), the Primary Care Workforce Access and Improvement Act of 2013 (113th Congress). Medicaid Pay Parity: Advocated for extending for at least two more years, beyond 2014, the Medicaid primary care payment increase, as enacted under the Affordable Care Act, which has only recently been implemented in a majority of states, and (2) including physicians practicing obstetrics and gynecology as qualified specialties, subject to the current eligibility requirement that at least 60 percent of their Medicaid billings are the primary care services as defined by the authorizing legislation, for the purposes of qualifying for the Medicaid primary care increases; Advocated for at least a two-year extension of the Medicaid payment parity provision beyond its 2014 expiration date, namely through the Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women & Children Act. Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System proposed rule for FY 2016: ACP commented to CMS specifically on section XV of the rule pertaining to Short Inpatient Hospital Stays; Supported the proposed modification that would broaden the exception criteria to allow determination on a case-by-case basis using supporting clinical documentation by the physician responsible for the care of the beneficiary; Supported a revision to the current medical review strategy for short term hospital stays by requiring that Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) contractors conduct the reviews rather than the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs); Expressed disappointment that the rule did not more fully address the need for increased beneficiary protections, which would negate or significantly limit adverse financial consequences to beneficiaries who experience stays under observation status, or who have their short inpatient stays denied. Health Information Technology: Urged support for H.R. 3309, the Further Flexibility in Health Information Technology (HIT) Reporting and Advancing Interoperability Act (Flex-IT 2 Act); Advocated that CMS pause the implementation of Stage 3 meaningful use requirements until the new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is ready to be implemented, and shorten the reporting period for the EHR Incentive Payment Programs from twelve months each year to three months. H.R. 3309 would also provide the Secretary of HHS greater flexibility to change, suspend, or revoke meaningful use criteria if the requirements are not consistent with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) that was signed into law earlier this year. The Medicare Primary Care Incentive Program: Advocated to extend this program, which began in 2011 and expires in 2015, that pays eligible internal medicine specialists, family physicians, and geriatricians a 10 percent bonus on designated office visits and other primary care services.

Client expense: $108,220 · 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 (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; public and private health insurers should encourage preventive health care by providing full coverage, with no cost-sharing, for preventive services recommended by an expert advisory group, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; 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 (ACA) 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. Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Advocated in support of H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which was enacted in April 2015 and repealed Medicares Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula and moved us to a new value-based payment and delivery system under Medicare; Praised members of Congress for the bipartisan effort in finally ending the SGR and for passing H.R. 2. Medicare Physician Fee Schedule: Commented to CMS in Sept. 2015 on the proposed rule that included numerous recommendations, including but not limited to: Urged CMS to conduct physician practice expense to validate the practice expense component of Relative Value Units; There be a standard resource-based relative value scale update committee survey to determine the work and direct practice expense of moderate sedation; CMS use the additional time from the delay in collecting data on global periods to develop a methodology to fairly re-allocate malpractice RVUs for services converting from a 90- or 10-day to a zero-day global period; CMS maintain an objective and transparent formal appeals process that is consistently applied and open to any organizations that would like to comment; CMS investigate the adequacy of payment for physician services that typically take place outside of a face-to-face patient encounter; that the Collaborative Care Model be implemented through a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Demonstration and be rapidly expanded within Medicare through the Secretarys authority based upon the results and learnings of this demonstration. 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 Graduate Medical Education (GME) caps for residency programs in primary care, advocated for S. 1627, which would increase the number of Medicare-supported training positions for medical residents by 15 percent (approximately 15,000 slots) over five years, requiring at least 50 percent of the new positions to be allocated to specialties facing a current shortage; Advocated to protect Medicare beneficiary access to health care services by preserving existing Medicare financing for Graduate Medical Education (GME). In the 114th Congress, advocated for S.1148/H.R.2124 and H.R. 1117-to strategically increase the number of GME training positions in primary care specialties (including internal medicine) and other specialties facing shortages. FY2016 Appropriations: Advocated for the highest level of funding possible for the Labor-HHS-Education bill within the discretionary cap established by the Budget Control Act (BCA); Supported funding to "improve health care quality, enhance consumer choice, advance patient safety, improve efficiency, reduce medical errors, and broaden access to essential services; Advocated for funding for AHRQ and Patient Centered Outcome Research Trust Fund, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); Title VII, Section 747, Primary Care Training and Enhancement; National Health Service Corps, Community Health Centers Fund, National Health Care Workforce Commission; Expressed concern to House and Senate leadership over the expiration, at the end of FY2015, of dedicated funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers; Urged members of Congress to replace sequestration with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that takes into account the deep cuts NDD has already incurred since 2010. 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. National Health Care Workforce Commission; Expressed concern to House and Senate leadership over the expiration, at the end of FY2015, of dedicated funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers; Urged members of Congress to replace sequestration with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that takes into account the deep cuts NDD has already incurred since 2010. 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. 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. Regarding the Essential Health Benefits Bulletin, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 16, 2011, the College advocated for striking a balance between comprehensiveness and affordability while giving States some freedom to determine a package that best serve the needs of residents. The College believes that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within and across categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. Advocated to repeal the mandate that requires a prescription for over-the-counter medications purchased through a Health Savings Account. Advocated for legislation that would provide coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans, as included in H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013; advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Medicare Advantage Participants Bill of Rights, H.R. 4998 and S. 2552, that would prevent Medicare Advantage plans from terminating physicians from Medicare Advantage plan networks without sufficient notice or cause. Under the Affordable Care Act, advocated to ensure that people residing in states with health insurance marketplaces operated by the federal government do not lose their premium subsidies in the event that the Supreme Court rules in favor of the petitioners in the King versus Burwell case. Congress should not make changes in the ACA that would result in more uninsured persons or weaken consumer protections. Essential Health Benefits: Commented on the proposed rule regarding essential benefits, actuarial value, and accreditation as issued by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services on November 20, 2012; Advocated that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. 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; 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. National workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians: Urged support for 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; Fully fund the commission at levels authorized in the Affordable Care Act; 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; Advocated for the Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act (H.R. 4106 in the 113th Congress), which establishes a framework for health care liability lawsuits to undergo review by independent medical review panels if health care professionals (practicing physicians or their agents or employees) allege adherence to applicable clinical practice guidelines in the provision of health care goods or services.. Workforce: Advocated for H.R. 1201 (113th Congress), The Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, S. 577 (113th Congress), the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, H.R. 487 (113th Congress), the Primary Care Workforce Access and Improvement Act of 2013 (113th Congress). Medicaid Pay Parity: Advocated for extending for at least two more years, beyond 2014, the Medicaid primary care payment increase, as enacted under the Affordable Care Act, which has only recently been implemented in a majority of states, and (2) including physicians practicing obstetrics and gynecology as qualified specialties, subject to the current eligibility requirement that at least 60 percent of their Medicaid billings are the primary care services as defined by the authorizing legislation, for the purposes of qualifying for the Medicaid primary care increases; Advocated for at least a two-year extension of the Medicaid payment parity provision beyond its 2014 expiration date, namely through the Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women & Children Act. Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System proposed rule for FY 2016: ACP commented to CMS specifically on section XV of the rule pertaining to Short Inpatient Hospital Stays; Supported the proposed modification that would broaden the exception criteria to allow determination on a case-by-case basis using supporting clinical documentation by the physician responsible for the care of the beneficiary; Supported a revision to the current medical review strategy for short term hospital stays by requiring that Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) contractors conduct the reviews rather than the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs); Expressed disappointment that the rule did not more fully address the need for increased beneficiary protections, which would negate or significantly limit adverse financial consequences to beneficiaries who experience stays under observation status, or who have their short inpatient stays denied. Health Information Technology: Urged support for H.R. 3309, the Further Flexibility in Health Information Technology (HIT) Reporting and Advancing Interoperability Act (Flex-IT 2 Act); Advocated that CMS pause the implementation of Stage 3 meaningful use requirements until the new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is ready to be implemented, and shorten the reporting period for the EHR Incentive Payment Programs from twelve months each year to three months. H.R. 3309 would also provide the Secretary of HHS greater flexibility to change, suspend, or revoke meaningful use criteria if the requirements are not consistent with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) that was signed into law earlier this year. The Medicare Primary Care Incentive Program: Advocated to extend this program, which began in 2011 and expires in 2015, that pays eligible internal medicine specialists, family physicians, and geriatricians a 10 percent bonus on designated office visits and other primary care services.

Client expense: $246,630 · 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

- Responded to a request from U.S. Senate committee staff for the Missouri Hospital Associations assessment of a proposed CMS regulation - Responded to a request from U.S House of Representatives staff for the Missouri Hospital Associations analysis of H.R. 1201 of the 113th Congress and its implications for Missouri hospitals - Sent information to a staff of the U.S. House of Representatives regarding projections of the future supply of and demand for physicians - Sent a letter of endorsement of H.R 1784, the Making Education for Nurses Dependable for Schools Act, to the bills sponsor and the members of the Missouri congressional delegation - Responded to a request from U.S. House of Representatives staff for an analysis of H.R. 3288, the Strengthening DSH and Medicare Through Subsidy Recapture and Payment Reform Act of 2015 - Provided information to member hospitals for use in congressional advocacy on medical education projections, H.R. 876 of the 114th Congress, H.R. 1479 of the 114th Congress, H.R. 169/S.258 of the 114th Congress, H.R. 1611/S. 257 of the 114th Congress, H.R. 688/H.R. 1343 of the 114th Congress - Responded to a request from U.S. Senate staff for data and analysis regarding the implications for Missouri hospitals of increases in the price of specific drugs used in medical treatment procedures.

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

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 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 (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; public and private health insurers should encourage preventive health care by providing full coverage, with no cost-sharing, for preventive services recommended by an expert advisory group, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; 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 (ACA) 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. 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 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. Advocated in support of H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which would repeal the SGR formula and move to a new value-based payment and delivery system under Medicare. Urged enactment of the Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act (H.R. 574), as introduced in Feb. 2013 by Representatives Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) and Joe Heck (R-NV). This legislation would eliminate the SGR once and for all and transition to better payment and delivery systems that are aligned with value. Specifically, H.R. 574 would repeal the SGR formula, provide more than 5 years of stable physician payments, with positive increases for all physician services, and higher payments for primary care, preventive and care coordination services, and establishes a process for practices to transition to new, more effective, models of care by 2018. Advocated for the Patient-Centered Medical Home model should be scaled up for broad Medicare adoption, recognized, through the medical neighborhood concept, that specialty and subspecialty practices, hospitals, and other healthcare professionals and entities that provide treatment to the patient need to be recognized and provided with incentives-both non-financial and financial-for engaging in patient-centered practices that complement and support the efforts of the PCMH to provide high quality, efficient, coordinated care; advocated for ACPs High Value, Cost-Conscious Care Initiative, which includes clinical, public policy, and educational components, designed to help physicians and patients understand the benefits, harms, and costs of an intervention and whether it provides good value, as well as to slow the unsustainable rate of health care cost increases while preserving high-value, high-quality care. Advocated for H.R. 4015/S.2000, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014, legislation introduced on Feb. 6, 2014 to repeal the SGR and transition to a new value-based payment and delivery system; Advocated for extending the Medicare Primary Care Incentive Program beyond its 2015 sunset date. This program, which began in 2011, pays eligible internal medicine specialists, family physicians, and geriatricians a 10 percent bonus on designated office visits and other primary care services. 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 Graduate Medical Education (GME) caps for residency programs in primary care, advocated for S. 1627, which would increase the number of Medicare-supported training positions for medical residents by 15 percent (approximately 15,000 slots) over five years, requiring at least 50 percent of the new positions to be allocated to specialties facing a current shortage; Advocated to protect Medicare beneficiary access to health care services by preserving existing Medicare financing for Graduate Medical Education (GME). In the 114th Congress, advocated for S.1148/H.R.2124 and H.R. 1117-to strategically increase the number of GME training positions in primary care specialties (including internal medicine) and other specialties facing shortages. FY2016 Appropriations: Advocated for the highest level of funding possible for the Labor-HHS-Education bill within the discretionary cap established by the Budget Control Act (BCA); Supported funding to "improve health care quality, enhance consumer choice, advance patient safety, improve efficiency, reduce medical errors, and broaden access to essential services; Advocated for funding for AHRQ and Patient Centered Outcome Research Trust Fund, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); Title VII, Section 747, Primary Care Training and Enhancement; National Health Service Corps, Community Health Centers Fund, National Health Care Workforce Commission; Expressed concern to House and Senate leadership over the expiration, at the end of FY2015, of dedicated funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers. 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. 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. Regarding the Essential Health Benefits Bulletin, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 16, 2011, the College advocated for striking a balance between comprehensiveness and affordability while giving States some freedom to determine a package that best serve the needs of residents. The College believes that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within and across categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. Advocated to repeal the mandate that requires a prescription for over-the-counter medications purchased through a Health Savings Account. Advocated for legislation that would provide coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans, as included in H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013; advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Medicare Advantage Participants Bill of Rights, H.R. 4998 and S. 2552, that would prevent Medicare Advantage plans from terminating physicians from Medicare Advantage plan networks without sufficient notice or cause. Under the Affordable Care Act, advocated to ensure that people residing in states with health insurance marketplaces operated by the federal government do not lose their premium subsidies in the event that the Supreme Court rules in favor of the petitioners in the King versus Burwell case. Congress should not make changes in the ACA that would result in more uninsured persons or weaken consumer protections. Essential Health Benefits: Commented on the proposed rule regarding essential benefits, actuarial value, and accreditation as issued by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services on November 20, 2012; Advocated that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. 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; 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. National workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians: Urged support for 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; Fully fund the commission at levels authorized in the Affordable Care Act; 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; Advocated for the Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act (H.R. 4106 in the 113th Congress), which establishes a framework for health care liability lawsuits to undergo review by independent medical review panels if health care professionals (practicing physicians or their agents or employees) allege adherence to applicable clinical practice guidelines in the provision of health care goods or services.. Workforce: Advocated for H.R. 1201 (113th Congress), The Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, S. 577 (113th Congress), the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, H.R. 487 (113th Congress), the Primary Care Workforce Access and Improvement Act of 2013 (113th Congress). Medicaid Pay Parity: Advocated for extending for at least two more years, beyond 2014, the Medicaid primary care payment increase, as enacted under the Affordable Care Act, which has only recently been implemented in a majority of states, and (2) including physicians practicing obstetrics and gynecology as qualified specialties, subject to the current eligibility requirement that at least 60 percent of their Medicaid billings are the primary care services as defined by the authorizing legislation, for the purposes of qualifying for the Medicaid primary care increases; Advocated for at least a two-year extension of the Medicaid payment parity provision beyond its 2014 expiration date, namely through the Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women & Children Act. 21st Century Cures: Commented on H.R. 6, the 21st Century Cures Act, which provides broad reforms to help incentive innovation and cures for disease; addresses FDA oversight, increased funding for the National Institutes of Health, immunization, the prescription drug approval process, and reforms to Health Information Technology and Electronic Health Records.

Client expense: $293,841 · 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 (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; public and private health insurers should encourage preventive health care by providing full coverage, with no cost-sharing, for preventive services recommended by an expert advisory group, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; 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 (ACA) 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. 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 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. Advocated in support of H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which would repeal the SGR formula and move to a new value-based payment and delivery system under Medicare. Urged enactment of the Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act (H.R. 574), as introduced in Feb. 2013 by Representatives Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) and Joe Heck (R-NV). This legislation would eliminate the SGR once and for all and transition to better payment and delivery systems that are aligned with value. Specifically, H.R. 574 would repeal the SGR formula, provide more than 5 years of stable physician payments, with positive increases for all physician services, and higher payments for primary care, preventive and care coordination services, and establishes a process for practices to transition to new, more effective, models of care by 2018. Advocated for the Patient-Centered Medical Home model should be scaled up for broad Medicare adoption, recognized, through the medical neighborhood concept, that specialty and subspecialty practices, hospitals, and other healthcare professionals and entities that provide treatment to the patient need to be recognized and provided with incentives-both non-financial and financial-for engaging in patient-centered practices that complement and support the efforts of the PCMH to provide high quality, efficient, coordinated care; advocated for ACPs High Value, Cost-Conscious Care Initiative, which includes clinical, public policy, and educational components, designed to help physicians and patients understand the benefits, harms, and costs of an intervention and whether it provides good value, as well as to slow the unsustainable rate of health care cost increases while preserving high-value, high-quality care. Advocated for H.R. 4015/S.2000, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014, legislation introduced on Feb. 6, 2014 to repeal the SGR and transition to a new value-based payment and delivery system; Advocated for extending the Medicare Primary Care Incentive Program beyond its 2015 sunset date. This program, which began in 2011, pays eligible internal medicine specialists, family physicians, and geriatricians a 10 percent bonus on designated office visits and other primary care services. 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 Graduate Medical Education (GME) caps for residency programs in primary care, advocated for S. 1627, which would increase the number of Medicare-supported training positions for medical residents by 15 percent (approximately 15,000 slots) over five years, requiring at least 50 percent of the new positions to be allocated to specialties facing a current shortage; Advocated to protect Medicare beneficiary access to health care services by preserving existing Medicare financing for Graduate Medical Education (GME). In the 114th Congress, advocated for S.1148/H.R.2124 and H.R. 1117-to strategically increase the number of GME training positions in primary care specialties (including internal medicine) and other specialties facing shortages. FY2016 Appropriations: Advocated for the highest level of funding possible for the Labor-HHS-Education bill within the discretionary cap established by the Budget Control Act (BCA); Supported funding to "improve health care quality, enhance consumer choice, advance patient safety, improve efficiency, reduce medical errors, and broaden access to essential services; Advocated for funding for AHRQ and Patient Centered Outcome Research Trust Fund, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); Title VII, Section 747, Primary Care Training and Enhancement; National Health Service Corps, Community Health Centers Fund, National Health Care Workforce Commission; Expressed concern to House and Senate leadership over the expiration, at the end of FY2015, of dedicated funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers. 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. 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. Regarding the Essential Health Benefits Bulletin, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 16, 2011, the College advocated for striking a balance between comprehensiveness and affordability while giving States some freedom to determine a package that best serve the needs of residents. The College believes that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within and across categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. Advocated to repeal the mandate that requires a prescription for over-the-counter medications purchased through a Health Savings Account. Advocated for legislation that would provide coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans, as included in H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013; advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Medicare Advantage Participants Bill of Rights, H.R. 4998 and S. 2552, that would prevent Medicare Advantage plans from terminating physicians from Medicare Advantage plan networks without sufficient notice or cause. Under the Affordable Care Act, advocated to ensure that people residing in states with health insurance marketplaces operated by the federal government do not lose their premium subsidies in the event that the Supreme Court rules in favor of the petitioners in the King versus Burwell case. Congress should not make changes in the ACA that would result in more uninsured persons or weaken consumer protections. Essential Health Benefits: Commented on the proposed rule regarding essential benefits, actuarial value, and accreditation as issued by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services on November 20, 2012; Advocated that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. 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; 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. National workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians: Urged support for 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; Fully fund the commission at levels authorized in the Affordable Care Act; 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; Advocated for the Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act (H.R. 4106 in the 113th Congress), which establishes a framework for health care liability lawsuits to undergo review by independent medical review panels if health care professionals (practicing physicians or their agents or employees) allege adherence to applicable clinical practice guidelines in the provision of health care goods or services.. Workforce: Advocated for H.R. 1201 (113th Congress), The Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, S. 577 (113th Congress), the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, H.R. 487 (113th Congress), the Primary Care Workforce Access and Improvement Act of 2013 (113th Congress). Medicaid Pay Parity: Advocated for extending for at least two more years, beyond 2014, the Medicaid primary care payment increase, as enacted under the Affordable Care Act, which has only recently been implemented in a majority of states, and (2) including physicians practicing obstetrics and gynecology as qualified specialties, subject to the current eligibility requirement that at least 60 percent of their Medicaid billings are the primary care services as defined by the authorizing legislation, for the purposes of qualifying for the Medicaid primary care increases; Advocated for at least a two-year extension of the Medicaid payment parity provision beyond its 2014 expiration date, namely through the Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women & Children Act. 21st Century Cures: Commented on H.R. 6, the 21st Century Cures Act, which provides broad reforms to help incentive innovation and cures for disease; addresses FDA oversight, increased funding for the National Institutes of Health, immunization, the prescription drug approval process, and reforms to Health Information Technology and Electronic Health Records.

Client expense: $96,858 · 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 (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; public and private health insurers should encourage preventive health care by providing full coverage, with no cost-sharing, for preventive services recommended by an expert advisory group, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; 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 (ACA) 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. 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 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. Advocated in support of H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which would repeal the SGR formula and move to a new value-based payment and delivery system under Medicare. Urged enactment of the Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act (H.R. 574), as introduced in Feb. 2013 by Representatives Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) and Joe Heck (R-NV). This legislation would eliminate the SGR once and for all and transition to better payment and delivery systems that are aligned with value. Specifically, H.R. 574 would repeal the SGR formula, provide more than 5 years of stable physician payments, with positive increases for all physician services, and higher payments for primary care, preventive and care coordination services, and establishes a process for practices to transition to new, more effective, models of care by 2018. Advocated for the Patient-Centered Medical Home model should be scaled up for broad Medicare adoption, recognized, through the medical neighborhood concept, that specialty and subspecialty practices, hospitals, and other healthcare professionals and entities that provide treatment to the patient need to be recognized and provided with incentives-both non-financial and financial-for engaging in patient-centered practices that complement and support the efforts of the PCMH to provide high quality, efficient, coordinated care; advocated for ACPs High Value, Cost-Conscious Care Initiative, which includes clinical, public policy, and educational components, designed to help physicians and patients understand the benefits, harms, and costs of an intervention and whether it provides good value, as well as to slow the unsustainable rate of health care cost increases while preserving high-value, high-quality care. Advocated for halting the nearly 25 percent cut in physician payments resulting from the flawed SGR formula, which was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2014; Advocated for H.R. 2810, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Act of 2013, which would repeal the SGR and transition to a new value-based payment and delivery system; Advocated for H.R. 4015/S.2000, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014, legislation introduced on Feb. 6, 2014 to repeal the SGR and transition to a new value-based payment and delivery system. 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 Graduate Medical Education (GME) caps for residency programs in primary care, advocated for S. 1627, which would increase the number of Medicare-supported training positions for medical residents by 15 percent (approximately 15,000 slots) over five years, requiring at least 50 percent of the new positions to be allocated to specialties facing a current shortage; Advocated to protect Medicare beneficiary access to health care services by preserving existing Medicare financing for Graduate Medical Education (GME). FY2016 Appropriations: Advocated for the highest level of funding possible for the Labor-HHS-Education bill within the discretionary cap established by the Budget Control Act (BCA); Supported funding to "improve health care quality, enhance consumer choice, advance patient safety, improve efficiency, reduce medical errors, and broaden access to essential services; Advocated for funding for AHRQ, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); Title VII, Section 747, Primary Care Training and Enhancement; National Health Service Corps, Community Health Centers Fund, National Health Care Workforce Commission; Expressed concern to House and Senate leadership over the expiration, at the end of FY2015, of dedicated funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers. 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. Advocated to federal health agencies that wellness programs must not be used as a means to discriminate against the sick and vulnerable. Wellness programs must be developed to encourage prevention and improve health rather than penalize those who are medically unable to meet wellness program goals; Advocated that employers and health plans should fund programs proven to be effective in reducing obesity, stopping smoking, deterring alcohol abuse, and promoting wellness and providing coverage or subsidies for individuals to participate in such programs. 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. Regarding the Essential Health Benefits Bulletin, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 16, 2011, the College advocated for striking a balance between comprehensiveness and affordability while giving States some freedom to determine a package that best serve the needs of residents. The College believes that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within and across categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. Advocated to repeal the mandate that requires a prescription for over-the-counter medications purchased through a Health Savings Account. Advocated for legislation that would provide coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans, as included in H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013; advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Medicare Advantage Participants Bill of Rights, H.R. 4998 and S. 2552, that would prevent Medicare Advantage plans from terminating physicians from Medicare Advantage plan networks without sufficient notice or cause. Essential Health Benefits: Commented on the proposed rule regarding essential benefits, actuarial value, and accreditation as issued by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services on November 20, 2012; Advocated that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. 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; 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. National workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians: Urged support for 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; Fully fund the commission at levels authorized in the Affordable Care Act; 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; Advocated for the Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act (H.R. 4106 in the 113th Congress), which establishes a framework for health care liability lawsuits to undergo review by independent medical review panels if health care professionals (practicing physicians or their agents or employees) allege adherence to applicable clinical practice guidelines in the provision of health care goods or services.. Workforce: Advocated for H.R. 1201 (113th Congress), The Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, S. 577 (113th Congress), the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, H.R. 487 (113th Congress), the Primary Care Workforce Access and Improvement Act of 2013 (113th Congress) Medicaid Pay Parity: Advocated for extending for at least two more years, beyond 2014, the Medicaid primary care payment increase, as enacted under the Affordable Care Act, which has only recently been implemented in a majority of states, and (2) including physicians practicing obstetrics and gynecology as qualified specialties, subject to the current eligibility requirement that at least 60 percent of their Medicaid billings are the primary care services as defined by the authorizing legislation, for the purposes of qualifying for the Medicaid primary care increases; Advocated for at least a two-year extension of the Medicaid payment parity provision beyond its 2014 expiration date, namely through the Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women & Children Act. Tobacco Regulation: Expressed strong opposition to House appropriators to any amendment that would exempt any type of cigar from regulation under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, P.L. 111-31, or would impede the rulemaking process the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has initiated to determine the appropriate level of oversight for tobacco products not currently regulated by the agency; the FDA should retain the authority to regulate all tobacco products, including cigars, and should be permitted to use a science-based process for determining those regulations; Advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act of 2014, which gives the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission the authority to require the use of child-proof packaging on liquid nicotine containers sold to consumers.

Client expense: $98,691 · 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 (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; public and private health insurers should encourage preventive health care by providing full coverage, with no cost-sharing, for preventive services recommended by an expert advisory group, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; 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 (ACA) 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. 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 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. Advocated in support of H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which would repeal the SGR formula and move to a new value-based payment and delivery system under Medicare. Urged enactment of the Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act (H.R. 574), as introduced in Feb. 2013 by Representatives Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) and Joe Heck (R-NV). This legislation would eliminate the SGR once and for all and transition to better payment and delivery systems that are aligned with value. Specifically, H.R. 574 would repeal the SGR formula, provide more than 5 years of stable physician payments, with positive increases for all physician services, and higher payments for primary care, preventive and care coordination services, and establishes a process for practices to transition to new, more effective, models of care by 2018. Advocated for the Patient-Centered Medical Home model should be scaled up for broad Medicare adoption, recognized, through the medical neighborhood concept, that specialty and subspecialty practices, hospitals, and other healthcare professionals and entities that provide treatment to the patient need to be recognized and provided with incentives-both non-financial and financial-for engaging in patient-centered practices that complement and support the efforts of the PCMH to provide high quality, efficient, coordinated care; advocated for ACPs High Value, Cost-Conscious Care Initiative, which includes clinical, public policy, and educational components, designed to help physicians and patients understand the benefits, harms, and costs of an intervention and whether it provides good value, as well as to slow the unsustainable rate of health care cost increases while preserving high-value, high-quality care. Advocated for halting the nearly 25 percent cut in physician payments resulting from the flawed SGR formula, which was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2014; Advocated for H.R. 2810, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Act of 2013, which would repeal the SGR and transition to a new value-based payment and delivery system; Advocated for H.R. 4015/S.2000, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014, legislation introduced on Feb. 6, 2014 to repeal the SGR and transition to a new value-based payment and delivery system. 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 Graduate Medical Education (GME) caps for residency programs in primary care, advocated for S. 1627, which would increase the number of Medicare-supported training positions for medical residents by 15 percent (approximately 15,000 slots) over five years, requiring at least 50 percent of the new positions to be allocated to specialties facing a current shortage; Advocated to protect Medicare beneficiary access to health care services by preserving existing Medicare financing for Graduate Medical Education (GME). FY2016 Appropriations: Advocated for the highest level of funding possible for the Labor-HHS-Education bill within the discretionary cap established by the Budget Control Act (BCA); Supported funding to "improve health care quality, enhance consumer choice, advance patient safety, improve efficiency, reduce medical errors, and broaden access to essential services; Advocated for funding for AHRQ, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); Title VII, Section 747, Primary Care Training and Enhancement; National Health Service Corps, Community Health Centers Fund, National Health Care Workforce Commission; Expressed concern to House and Senate leadership over the expiration, at the end of FY2015, of dedicated funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers. 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. Advocated to federal health agencies that wellness programs must not be used as a means to discriminate against the sick and vulnerable. Wellness programs must be developed to encourage prevention and improve health rather than penalize those who are medically unable to meet wellness program goals; Advocated that employers and health plans should fund programs proven to be effective in reducing obesity, stopping smoking, deterring alcohol abuse, and promoting wellness and providing coverage or subsidies for individuals to participate in such programs. 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. Regarding the Essential Health Benefits Bulletin, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 16, 2011, the College advocated for striking a balance between comprehensiveness and affordability while giving States some freedom to determine a package that best serve the needs of residents. The College believes that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within and across categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. Advocated to repeal the mandate that requires a prescription for over-the-counter medications purchased through a Health Savings Account. Advocated for legislation that would provide coverage under Medicare for voluntary consultations between doctors and patients to discuss advance care plans, as included in H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013; advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Medicare Advantage Participants Bill of Rights, H.R. 4998 and S. 2552, that would prevent Medicare Advantage plans from terminating physicians from Medicare Advantage plan networks without sufficient notice or cause. Essential Health Benefits: Commented on the proposed rule regarding essential benefits, actuarial value, and accreditation as issued by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services on November 20, 2012; Advocated that strong oversight is needed when determining the initial benchmark plan (and whether it reflects the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act) and how the package will be updated, particularly if insurers are given the ability to substitute benefits within categories. State and the federal government must work in concert with physicians, health care providers and payers to determine and promote use of clinically effective and cost-effective services that result in improved patient health while bending the cost curve. 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; 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. National workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians: Urged support for 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; Fully fund the commission at levels authorized in the Affordable Care Act; 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; Advocated for the Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act (H.R. 4106 in the 113th Congress), which establishes a framework for health care liability lawsuits to undergo review by independent medical review panels if health care professionals (practicing physicians or their agents or employees) allege adherence to applicable clinical practice guidelines in the provision of health care goods or services.. Workforce: Advocated for H.R. 1201 (113th Congress), The Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, S. 577 (113th Congress), the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, H.R. 487 (113th Congress), the Primary Care Workforce Access and Improvement Act of 2013 (113th Congress) Medicaid Pay Parity: Advocated for extending for at least two more years, beyond 2014, the Medicaid primary care payment increase, as enacted under the Affordable Care Act, which has only recently been implemented in a majority of states, and (2) including physicians practicing obstetrics and gynecology as qualified specialties, subject to the current eligibility requirement that at least 60 percent of their Medicaid billings are the primary care services as defined by the authorizing legislation, for the purposes of qualifying for the Medicaid primary care increases; Advocated for at least a two-year extension of the Medicaid payment parity provision beyond its 2014 expiration date, namely through the Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women & Children Act. Tobacco Regulation: Expressed strong opposition to House appropriators to any amendment that would exempt any type of cigar from regulation under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, P.L. 111-31, or would impede the rulemaking process the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has initiated to determine the appropriate level of oversight for tobacco products not currently regulated by the agency; the FDA should retain the authority to regulate all tobacco products, including cigars, and should be permitted to use a science-based process for determining those regulations; Advocated in Aug. 2014 for the Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act of 2014, which gives the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission the authority to require the use of child-proof packaging on liquid nicotine containers sold to consumers.

Client expense: $205,772 · 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 3698/ S. 2082: The Two Midnight Rule Coordination & Improvement Act HR 3993/ S. 2037: Critical Access Hospital Relief Act HR 1250/ S. 1012: Medicare Audit Improvement Act - Legislation to improve the system of hospital payment audits conducted by Medicare Recovery Audit contractors. HR 1920/ S. 1555: DSH Reduction Relief Act - Legislation to delay the Medicare & Medicaid disproportionate share hospital (DSH) cuts contained in the Affordable Care Act for two years until fiscal year 2016. HR 2801/S. 842: Protecting Access to Rural Therapy Services Act - Legislation to protect access to outpatient therapeutic services in small & rural and critical access hospitals. HR 4302: Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 - Sustainable growth rate - doc. fix. HR 1201: Training Tomorrow's Doctors Act - Legislation to revise the distribution of resident positions and the calculation of payments for direct medical education costs. HR 2810/ S. 2000: Permant Sustainable Growth Rate for Medicare Physicians HR 1787/ S. 842: Rural Hospital Access Act HR 5481: Continue 3 - month quarter reporting in 2015 under Medicare & Medicaid EHR Site Neutral Payments Medicaid & Medicare Funding in the Federal Budget Medicare Payment Penalties for Hospital Aquired Conditions (HACs)

Client expense: $190,000 · Firm income: Not reported

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

S. 264, H.R. 1263, the Excellence in Mental Health Act H.R. 794, To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for treatment of clinical psychologists as physicians for purposes of furnishing clinical psychologist services under the Medicare Program. H.R. 574, the Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act of 2013 S. 577, H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrows Doctors Today Act S. 236, H.R. 1310, the Medicare Patient Empowerment Act of 2013 H.R. 1331, the Electronic Health Records Improvement Act S. 351, H.R. 351, the Protecting Seniors Access to Medicare Act of 2013 H.R. 297, the Childrens Hospital GME Support Reauthorization Act of 2013 H.R. 2545, the Accuracy in Medicare Physician Payment Act of 2013 S. 1064, Medicare Mental Health Access Act H.R. 2810, the Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013 H.R. 3128, the Protect Patients Act of 2013 H.R. 3717, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2013 H.R. 3662, the Mental Health Access Improvement Act of 2013 H.R. 4302, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 H.R. 4015, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014 S. 2110, the Medicare SGR Repeal and Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2014 S. 2122, the Responsible Medicare SGR Repeal and Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2014 H.R. 4762, the Medicare Transitional Care Act of 2014 H.R. 5353, the Medicaid Parity Act of 2014 H.R. 5136, the Breaking Addiction Act of 2014 H.R. 5339, the Expanding Opportunities for Recovery Act of 2014 H.R. 5587, the Opioid Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2014 Revisions to Payment Policies under the Physician Fee Schedule, Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule, Access to Identifiable Data for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Models & Other Revisions to Part B for CY 2015 (CMS-2014-0094-2364)

Client expense: $72,153 · Firm income: Not reported

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

S. 153, H.R. 274, the Mental Health First Aid Act of 2013 S. 195, H.R. 628, the Mental Health in Schools Act of 2013 H.R. 1100, the Mental Health on Campus Improvement Act S. 264, H.R. 1263, the Excellence in Mental Health Act H.R. 794, To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for treatment of clinical psychologists as physicians for purposes of furnishing clinical psychologist services under the Medicare Program. H.R. 574, the Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act of 2013 S. 577, H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrows Doctors Today Act S. 236, H.R. 1310, the Medicare Patient Empowerment Act of 2013 H.R. 1331, the Electronic Health Records Improvement Act H.R. 1427, the Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act of 2013 S. 351, H.R. 351, the Protecting Seniors Access to Medicare Act of 2013 S. 265, Community-Based Mental Health Improvements Act S. 648, Helping Educators Support All Students Act S.162, Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Act of 2013; S. 649, Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013 S. 2461: The CHIP Extension Act of 2014 S. 2728: The Community Based Medical Education Act H.R. 1615, A bill to provide for a study by the Institute of Medicine on gaps in mental health services and how these gaps can increase the risk of violent acts. H.R. 2037, the Native American Psychiatric and Mental Health Care Improvement Act H.R. 2545, the Accuracy in Medicare Physician Payment Act of 2013 S. 1064, Medicare Mental Health Access Act H.R. 2775, No Subsidies Without Verification Act H.R. 2810, the Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013 H.R. 3128, the Protect Patients Act of 2013 H.R. 2817, the Protect Patient Access to Quality Health Professionals Act of 2013 H.R. 2734, the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act Reauthorization of 2013 H.R. 2910, the Gun Violence Prevention and Reduction Act H.R. 3717, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2013 H Con Res 69, the Stop Harming Our Kids Resolution of 2013 H.R. 4302, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 H.R. 4015, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014 S. 2110, the Medicare SGR Repeal and Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2014 S. 2122, the Responsible Medicare SGR Repeal and Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2014 H.R. 4762, the Medicare Transitional Care Act of 2014 H.R. 4574, the Strengthening Mental Health in Our Communities Act H.R. 4783, the Promoting Healthy Minds for Safer Communities Act H.R. 4581, the Parental Control Act of 2014 H.R. 5353, the Medicaid Parity Act of 2014 H.R. 5136, the Breaking Addiction Act of 2014 H.R. 5587, the Opioid Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2014 H.R. 5339, the Expanding Opportunities for Recovery Act of 2014 H.R. 5364: The CHIP Extension and Improvement Act of 2014

Client expense: $72,153 · Firm income: Not reported

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

H.R. 1201- Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today; Graduate Medical Education provisions S. 577, H.R. 1180- Resident Physician Shortage Reducation Act Hospital Evaluation and Management site-neutrality payment proposal H.R. 1920- DSH Reducation Relief Act of 2013 H.R. 1787, S. 842- Rural Hospital Access Act of 2013; Critical Access Hospitals S. 1143, H.R. 2801- Protecting Access to Rural Therapy Services Act- provisions re "direct supervision" at Critical Access Hospitals S. 1871- SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Improvement Act; Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate provisions and "general supervision" provisions for rural and Critical Access Hospitals H.R. 2810- Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act; Sustainable Growth Rate Provisions H.R. 3077-Telehealth Enhancement Act of 2013 H.R. 3991- Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2014; provisions on 96-hour physician certification requirement H.R. 4302- Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 CMS-1606-P Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities Prospective Payment System-Update for Fiscal Year Beginning October 1, 2014 H.R. 5558- ACO Improvement Act H.R. 4851- FLEX-IT Act; provsions related to "Meaningful Use"

Client expense: Not reported · Firm income: $5,850

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Food & Drug Administration (FDA), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), SENATE

SGR/payment reform, graduate medical education (H.R.1201, H.R.1180, S.1152), private contracting for Medicare beneficiaries and their physicians (S.236/H.R.1301), electronic health records (H.R.1331), clinical data registry reporting.

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

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

H.R. 1201- Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today; Graduate Medical Education provisions S. 577, H.R. 1180- Resident Physician Shortage Reducation Act Hospital Evaluation and Management site-neutrality payment proposal H.R. 1920- DSH Reducation Relief Act of 2013 H.R. 1787, S. 842- Rural Hospital Access Act of 2013; Critical Access Hospitals S. 1143, H.R. 2801- Protecting Access to Rural Therapy Services Act- provisions re "direct supervision" at Critical Access Hospitals S. 1871- SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Improvement Act; Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate provisions and "general supervision" provisions for rural and Critical Access Hospitals H.R. 2810- Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act; Sustainable Growth Rate Provisions H.R. 3077-Telehealth Enhancement Act of 2013 H.R. 3991- Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2014; provisions on 96-hour physician certification requirement H.R. 4302- Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 CMS-1606-P Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities Prospective Payment System-Update for Fiscal Year Beginning October 1, 2014 H.R. 5558- ACO Improvement Act H.R. 4851- FLEX-IT Act; provsions related to "Meaningful Use"

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

Government targets: Food & Drug Administration (FDA), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Issues surrounding the enactment or repeal of the Affordable Care Act, including IPAB and ACOs. Medicare reimbursement (SGR) reform for providers. FDA issues and Issues surrounding the tissue bank industry. HR 351 and S. 351: Protecting Seniors' Access to Medicare Act (IPAB repeal). HR 2810, the Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act (SGR reform). H.R. 1984, The Breast Cancer Patient Education Act. HR 1761/S 1318, the Helping Ensure Life- and Limb-Saving Access to Podiatric Physicians (HELLPP) Act. Training Tomorrows Doctors Today Act, H.R. 1201 and The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013 (S. 577 ). The Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act (HR 1339/S.641). Issues and regulations governing the use and deployment of speech generating devices (SGDs). Issues involving Value Based Insurance Design or V-BID. Antibiotic Development to Advance Patient Treatment (ADAPT) Act. HR 3742.

Client expense: Not reported · Firm income: $20,000

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

please see addendum H.R. 1331 the Electronic Health Records Improvements Act H.R. 1201 Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act H.R. 1701 Cutting Costly Codes Act of 2013 H.R. 1827 The Pediatric Subspecialty and Mental Health Workforce Reauthorization Act of 2013 H.R.2545 Accuracy in Medicare Physician Payment Act of 2013 H.R. 2720 The Alexis Agin Identity Theft Protection Act H.R. 2810 Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act S. 744 Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act S. 577 The Resident Physician Shortage Act S. 1180 Medicare Data Access for Transparency and Accountability Act S. 1360 The Improper Payments Agency Cooperation Enhancement Act S. 1871 SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Act of 2013 Affordable Care Act implementation, health care reform, health care quality improvement, physician workforce, comparative effectiveness research, health information technology, EHR meaningful use, Sustainable Growth Rate, Medicare Physician Payment Reform, Independent Payment Advisory Board, Resident work hours, patient centered outcomes research institute, MEDCAC, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, Medicare claims data, Social Security Death Master File, lung cancer screenings, AHRQ-USPSTF, Graduate Medical Education, Medical Loss Ratio, Electronic cigarette regulation, surgical global payments

Client expense: $110,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Food & Drug Administration (FDA), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), SENATE, Social Security Administration (SSA)

H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrows Doctors Today Act H.R. 1250, the Medicare Audit Improvement Act H.R. 1180/S. 577, The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013 H.R. 1920, the DSH Reduction Relief Act S. 2728, Community-Based Medical Education Act of 2014 S. 2658, The Accelerating Biomedical Research Act S. 2501, the Hospital Readmissions Program Accuracy and Accountability Act of 2014 H.R. 4188 Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmission Program Act H.R. 4994, Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 H.R. 5339, The Expanding Opportunities for Recovery Act H.R. 5110, SAVE Medicare Home Health Act of 2014 H.R. 5458, Building a Healthcare Workforce of the Future Act H.R. 5481, The Flexibility in Health IT Reporting (Flex-IT) Act OMHA-1401-NC, Medicare Program; Administrative Law Judge Hearing Program for Medicare Claim Appeals, Request for Information CMS-3819-P, Medicare and Medicaid Program: Conditions of Participation for Home Health Agencies; Proposed Rule

Client expense: $312,120 · Firm income: Not reported

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

HR 1201 "Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act" All Provisions S 577 "Resident Physician Shortage Act of 2013" All Provisions HR 574 "Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act" All Provisions H.R. 4302 Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 All Provisions P.L. 111-148 and P.L. 111-152 Affordable Care Act. All provisions related to implementation of health care reform including the Medicare and Medicaid programs, tax and insurance policies, graduate medical education, biomedical research, public and preventative health measures, and other policies concerning hospitals, physicians, health plans, employers and individuals. H.R. 1180 The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013. All Provisions. H.R. 1920 DSH Reduction Relief Act of 2013. All Provisions. S. 1012 The Medicare Audit Improvement Act of 2013. All Provisions. H.R. 1250 The Medicare Audit Improvement Act of 2013. All Provisions. H. R. 2810 Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013. All Provisions. Senate Finance Committee: The SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2013. All Provisions. The SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Accesst Improvement Act of 2013, offered as a substitute amendment to H.R.2810 Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013. All Provisions. H.J. Res.59 Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014 Short Title: Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 and Pathway for SGR Reform Act of 2013. All Provisions related to the Medicare Physican Payment H.R. 3698 Two-Midnight Rule Relay Act, All provision Medicare Advantage 2015 Advance Notice of Methodological Changes for Calendar Year 2015 for Medicare Advantage Capitation Rates, Part C and Part D Payment Policies and 2015 Call Letter. All Provisions S.1932 Medicare Better Care Program. All provisions. H.R. 3890 Medicare Better Care Program. All provisions. H.R. 4188 Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmission Program Act. All provisions. H.R. 1920 DSH Reduction Relief Act of 2013. All provisions. S. 2082 Two-Midnight Rule Coordination and Improvement Act of 2014. All provisions. H.R. 4673 Bundling and Coordinating Post-Acute Care Act of 2014. All provisions. H.R. 4994 Impact Act of 2014 - Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014. All provisions. H.R. 4188 Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmission Program Act. All provisions. Medicare Shared Savings Program/Accountable Care Organizations: Potential Regulatory Reforms H.R. 5481 To continue the use of a 3-month quarter EHR reporting period for health care providers to demonstrate meaningful use for 2015 under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive payment programs, and for other purposes. Hospital Improvements for Payment Act of 2014 Discussion Draft - All Provisions H.R. 5771 Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014. All Provisions CMMI Demonstration Project

Client expense: $160,000 · Firm income: Not reported

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

HR 1201 "Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act" All Provisions S 577 "Resident Physician Shortage Act of 2013" All Provisions S 619 "Conrad State 30 and Physician Access Act" All Provisions H.R. 4302 Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 All Provisions PL 112-25 "Budget Control Act of 2011" Provisions related to Medicare, Medical Education and Research Sequestration P.L. 111-148 and P.L. 111-152 Affordable Care Act. All provisions related to implementation of health care reform including the Medicare and Medicaid programs, tax and insurance policies, graduate medical education, biomedical research, public and preventative health measures, and other policies concerning hospitals, physicians, health plans, employers and individuals. H.R. 1180 The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013. All Provisions. H. R. 2810 Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013. All Provisions. The SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Accesst Improvement Act of 2013, offered as a substitute amendment to H.R.2810 Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013. All Provisions. H.J. Res.59 Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014 Short Title: Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 and Pathway for SGR Reform Act of 2013. All Provisions related to the Medicare Physican Payment S. 1822 Foreign Medical School Accountability Act of 2013. All Provisions H.R. 3903 Foreign Medical School Accountability Act of 2014. All Provisions H.R. 83 Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015 - All provisions Hospital Improvements for Payment Act of 2014 Discussion Draft - All provisions H.R. 5771 Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014. All provisions CMMI Demonstration Project

Client expense: $160,000 · Firm income: Not reported

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

Preventing reductions to Medicare physician payment; Reforming the sustainable growth rate formula: "The SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014" (S 2000/HR 4015); Preventing cuts to Medicare Graduate Medical Education and Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments; Preventing reductions to Hospital Inpatient and Outpatient PPS Payments; Provider reimbursements for end of life care counseling: "Personalize Your Care Act of 2013" (HR 1173); Medicare reimbursements for molecular diagnostics; Medicare coding & reimbursement associated with Screening, Brief Invention and Referral to Treatment; Additional Medicare support for Medicare Graduate Medical Education by expanding Medicare resident limits: "Training Tomorrows Doctors Today Act" (HR 1201), "The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013" (HR 1180), "The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013" (S 577), "Community-Based Medical Education Act of 2014 (S 2728); Allowing nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives, and clinical nurse specialists to certify home health services for Medicare patients: "Home Health Care Planning Improvement Act (HR 2504, S 1332); Medicare payment for chronic care: "Better Care, Lower Cost Act of 2014" (S 1932); Medicare payment for short hospital stays: "Two- Midnight Rule Coordination and Improvement Act of 2014" (S 2082); Critical Access Hospital Relief Act (HR 3991/S. 2037); Improving the Medicare hospital readmissions program: "The Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmission Program Act" (HR 4188); Preventing reductions to the Medicaid program including the provider tax; Improvements to the Medicaid program for medically complex children, "Advancing Care for Exceptional Kids Act of 2014" (HR 4930).

Client expense: $70,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Support legislation to eliminate the Independent Payment Advisory Board (S.351, H.R. 351, Protecting Seniors' Access to Medicare Act of 2013). Support legislation to increase residency slots for Graduate Medical Education (H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act). Lobby in support of legislation to enact a permanent repeal to the Medicare sustainable growth rate (S.2000/H.R. 4015; SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014 ). Lobby in support of a cap on the amount CMS can decrease payment to physician services in a given year. (related provision included in S.2000/H.R. 4015; SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014 and H.R. 4302, Protecting Access to Medicare Act). Lobby Congress in opposition to proposed legislation to repeal in-office ancillary and physician services for anatomic pathology services (H.R. 2914, Promoting Integrity in Medicare Act of 2013, FY 15 President's Budget). Lobby Congress on impact of Health Information Technology. Lobby Congress to stop sequestration cuts to Medicare physician payments (Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013). Lobby in support of increased transparency and adequate response time from CMS when setting values for misvalued codes. Oppose legislation allowing non-physician providers direct access to Medicare patients without a referral (H.R. 5304, Audiology Patient Choice Act of 2014). Advocate on issues related to waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare. Lobby in support of legislation to extend the 90 day reporting period for demonstration meaningful use in 2015 (H.R. 5481, Flexibility in Health IT Reporting (Flex-IT) Act) Lobby Congress to rescind or delay policy in the 2015 Final Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Rule to transition 10- and 90-day global period codes to 0-day global period codes in 2017 and 2018. Advocate for adequate and accurate network coverage for dermatologic care within Medicare Advantage and health insurance exchange networks (S. 2552/H.R. 4998, Medicare Advantage Participant Bill of Rights Act of 2014). Lobby Congress on issues related to telemedicine (H.R. 5380, the Medicare Telehealth Parity Act).

Client expense: $307,164 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

H.R. 1180, S. 577, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to increasing the cap on the number of resident physicians. H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, Issues pertaining to increasing the cap on the number of resident physicians. Issues pertaining to protecting funding for direct graduate medical education and indirect medical education. S. 1871, SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to the Sustainable Growth Rate and its offsets. H.R. 2810, Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to the Sustainable Growth Rate and its offsets. H.R. 3698, S. 2082, Two-Midnight Rule Delay Act of 2013, Support for delaying the two-midnight rule from CMS and issuing a clear policy on stays for less than two midnights. H.R. 4188, Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmission Program Act, Issues relating to adjusting for patient disparities. S. 2501, Hospital Readmissions Program Accuracy and Accountability Act of 2014, Issues relating to adjusting for patient socioeconomic disparities.

Client expense: $90,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Education, Dept of, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Natl Endowment for the Arts, SENATE

H.R. 1180, S.577, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to increasing the cap on the number of resident physicians. H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, Issues pertaining to increasing the cap on the number of resident physicians. Issues pertaining to protecting funding for direct graduate medical education and indirect medical education. S.1871, SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to the Sustainable Growth Rate and its offsets. H.R.2810, Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to the Sustainable Growth Rate and its offsets. S 2728, Community-Based Medical Education Act of 2014, Issues relating to concerns about reductions to IME and other items.

Client expense: Not reported · Firm income: $30,000

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

H.R. 1180, S.577, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to increasing the cap on the number of resident physicians. H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, Issues pertaining to increasing the cap on the number of resident physicians. Issues pertaining to protecting funding for direct graduate medical education and indirect medical education. S.1871, SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to the Sustainable Growth Rate and its offsets. H.R.2810, Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to the Sustainable Growth Rate and its offsets. H.R. 3698, S. 2082, Two-Midnight Rule Delay Act of 2013, Support for delaying the two-midnight rule from CMS and issuing a clear policy on stays for less than two midnights. HR 4188, Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmission Program Act, Issues relating to adjusting for patient disparities. S 2501, Hospital Readmissions Program Accuracy and Accountability Act of 2014, Issues relating to adjusting for patient socioeconomic disparities.

Client expense: Not reported · Firm income: $70,000

Government targets: Education, Dept of, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Natl Endowment for the Arts, SENATE

S.183, Hospital Payment Fairness Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to sunsetting national budget neutrality for the hospital wage index. H.R. 2053, S. 1012, Medicare Hospital Wage Index Equity Act, Issues pertaining to changing the national budget neutrality for the hospital wage index to a state neutrality. H.R. 1180, S.577, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to increasing the cap on the number of resident physicians. H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act, Issues pertaining to increasing the cap on the number of resident physicians. H.R. 1250, S. 1012, Medicare Audit Improvement Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to RAC audits for hospitals. H.R. 1920, S. 1555, DSH Reduction Relief Act of 2013, Issues regarding delaying implementation of DSH cuts. Issues pertaining to protecting funding for direct graduate medical education and indirect medical education. S.1871, SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to the Sustainable Growth Rate and its offsets. H.R.2810, Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013, Issues pertaining to the Sustainable Growth Rate and its offsets. H.R. 3698, S. 2082, Two-Midnight Rule Delay Act of 2013, Support for delaying the two-midnight rule from CMS and issuing a clear policy on stays for less than two midnights. HR 4188, Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmission Program Act, Issues relating to adjusting for patient disparities. S 2728, Community-Based Medical Education Act of 2014, Issues relating to concerns about reductions to IME and other items. S 2501, Hospital Readmissions Program Accuracy and Accountability Act of 2014, Issues relating to adjusting for patient socioeconomic disparities.

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

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Medicare-funded graduate medical education; HRSA THCGME Program; S. 1759, The Teaching Health Center Reauthorization Act; H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act; H.R. 1180, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013; S. 577, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013; H.R. 4282, Creating Access to Residency Education Act of 2014; S. 2728, The Community-Based Medical Education Act of 2014; S. 1152/H.R. 5458, Building a Healthcare Workforce for the Future Act; S. 1978, Increasing Primary Care Access Act of 2014; S. 2229, Expanding Primary Care Access and Workforce Act.

Client expense: $50,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

H.R.36 - Health Care Safety Net Enhancement Act of 2013 H.R.235 - Veteran Emergency Medical Technician Support Act of 2013 H.R.351 - Protecting Seniors' Access to Medicare Act of 2013 H.R.574 - Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act of 2013 H.R.647 - Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act of 2014 H.R.809 - Field EMS Quality, Innovation, and Cost Effectiveness Improvements Act of 2013 H.R.1098 - Traumatic Brain Injury Reauthorization Act of 2013 H.R.1201 - Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act H.R.1263 - Excellence in Mental Health Act H.R.1179 - Improving Access to Medicare Coverage Act of 2013 H.R.1180 - Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013 H.R.1487 - Improved Health Care Lower Cost Act of 2013 H.R.1838 - Enhanced Access to Medicaid Services H.R.2186 - Verifying Authority and Legality In Drug Compounding Act of 2013 H.R.2900 - Offering Patients True Individualized Options Now (Option Act of 2013) H.R.2300 - Empowering Patients First Act of 2013 H.R.2810 - Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013 H.R.3392 - Patient Safety and Drug Abuse Prevention Act H.R.3528 - National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Reauthorization Act of 2013 H.R.3548 - Improving Trauma Care Act of 2013 H.R.3717 - Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2013 H.R.4015 - SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014 H.R.4080 - Trauma Systems and Regionalization of Emergency Care Reauthorization Act H.R.4106 - Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act H.R.4169 - Stop Overdose Stat Act H.R.4574 - Strengthening Mental Health in Our Communities Act of 2014 H.R.5460 - Medicare Ambulance Access, Fraud Prevention and Reform Act of 2014 S.44 - Medical Care Access Protection (MCAP) Act of 2013 S.264 - Excellence in Mental Health Act S.265 - Community-Based Mental Health Infrastructure Improvements Act S.313 - Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act of 2014 S.328 - Strengthening Rural Access to Emergency Services Act S.351 - Protecting Seniors' Access to Medicare Act of 2013 S.569 - Improving Access to Medicare Coverage Act of 2013 S.577 - Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013 S.755 - Enhanced Access to Medicaid Services S.961 - Health Care Safety Net Enhancement Act of 2013 S.1871 - SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access of 2013 S.2110 - Medicare SGR Repeal and Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2014 S.2157 - Commonsense Medicare SGR Repeal and Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2014 S.2240 - Medicare Choices Empowerment and Protection Act S.2400 - Field EMS Innovation Act S.2405 - Trauma Systems and Regionalization of Emergency Care Reauthorization Act S.2406 - Improving Trauma Care Act of 2014 S.2501 - Hospital Readmission Accuracy and Accountability Act S.2539 - Traumatic Brain Injury Reauthorization Act of 2014 S.2755 - Overdose Prevention Act

Client expense: $228,645 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

H.R.1180 - Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013 H.R.1201 - Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act S.577 - Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013

Client expense: $228,645 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

S. 264, H.R. 1263, the Excellence in Mental Health Act H.R. 794, To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for treatment of clinical psychologists as physicians for purposes of furnishing clinical psychologist services under the Medicare Program. H.R. 574, the Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act of 2013 S. 577, H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrows Doctors Today Act S. 236, H.R. 1310, the Medicare Patient Empowerment Act of 2013 H.R. 1331, the Electronic Health Records Improvement Act S. 351, H.R. 351, the Protecting Seniors Access to Medicare Act of 2013 H.R. 297, the Childrens Hospital GME Support Reauthorization Act of 2013 H.R. 2545, the Accuracy in Medicare Physician Payment Act of 2013 S. 1064, Medicare Mental Health Access Act H.R. 2810, the Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013 H.R. 3128, the Protect Patients Act of 2013 H.R. 3717, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2013 H.R. 3662, the Mental Health Access Improvement Act of 2013 H.R. 4302, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 H.R. 4015, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014 S. 2110, the Medicare SGR Repeal and Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2014 S. 2122, the Responsible Medicare SGR Repeal and Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2014 H.R. 4762, the Medicare Transitional Care Act of 2014 H.R. 5353, the Medicaid Parity Act of 2014 H.R. 5136, the Breaking Addiction Act of 2014 H.R. 5339, the Expanding Opportunities for Recovery Act of 2014 H.R. 5587, the Opioid Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2014 Revisions to Payment Policies under the Physician Fee Schedule, Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule, Access to Identifiable Data for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Models & Other Revisions to Part B for CY 2015 (CMS-2014-0094-2364)

Client expense: $72,153 · Firm income: Not reported

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

S. 153, H.R. 274, the Mental Health First Aid Act of 2013 S. 195, H.R. 628, the Mental Health in Schools Act of 2013 H.R. 1100, the Mental Health on Campus Improvement Act S. 264, H.R. 1263, the Excellence in Mental Health Act H.R. 794, To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for treatment of clinical psychologists as physicians for purposes of furnishing clinical psychologist services under the Medicare Program. H.R. 574, the Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act of 2013 S. 577, H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrows Doctors Today Act S. 236, H.R. 1310, the Medicare Patient Empowerment Act of 2013 H.R. 1331, the Electronic Health Records Improvement Act H.R. 1427, the Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act of 2013 S. 351, H.R. 351, the Protecting Seniors Access to Medicare Act of 2013 S. 265, Community-Based Mental Health Improvements Act S. 648, Helping Educators Support All Students Act S.162, Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Act of 2013; S. 649, Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013 S. 2461: The CHIP Extension Act of 2014 S. 2728: The Community Based Medical Education Act H.R. 1615, A bill to provide for a study by the Institute of Medicine on gaps in mental health services and how these gaps can increase the risk of violent acts. H.R. 2037, the Native American Psychiatric and Mental Health Care Improvement Act H.R. 2545, the Accuracy in Medicare Physician Payment Act of 2013 S. 1064, Medicare Mental Health Access Act H.R. 2775, No Subsidies Without Verification Act H.R. 2810, the Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act of 2013 H.R. 3128, the Protect Patients Act of 2013 H.R. 2817, the Protect Patient Access to Quality Health Professionals Act of 2013 H.R. 2734, the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act Reauthorization of 2013 H.R. 2910, the Gun Violence Prevention and Reduction Act H.R. 3717, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2013 H Con Res 69, the Stop Harming Our Kids Resolution of 2013 H.R. 4302, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 H.R. 4015, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014 S. 2110, the Medicare SGR Repeal and Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2014 S. 2122, the Responsible Medicare SGR Repeal and Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2014 H.R. 4762, the Medicare Transitional Care Act of 2014 H.R. 4574, the Strengthening Mental Health in Our Communities Act H.R. 4783, the Promoting Healthy Minds for Safer Communities Act H.R. 4581, the Parental Control Act of 2014 H.R. 5353, the Medicaid Parity Act of 2014 H.R. 5136, the Breaking Addiction Act of 2014 H.R. 5587, the Opioid Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2014 H.R. 5339, the Expanding Opportunities for Recovery Act of 2014 H.R. 5364: The CHIP Extension and Improvement Act of 2014

Client expense: $72,153 · Firm income: Not reported

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

H.R 4920- ACE Kids Act of 2014; issues related to CHIP H.R. 5364: S. 2461- Issues related to CHIP H.R. 2810 Meducare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act; Sustainable Growth Rate Provisions H.R. 3077- Telehealth Enhancement Act of 2013 H.R. 3991- Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2014; provisions on 96-hour physician certification requirement H.R. 4302- Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 CMS-1606-P Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities Prospective Payment System- Update for FY 2015 H.R. 5558- ACO Improvement Act H.R. 4851 FLEX-IT Act; provisions related to "Meaningful Use" H.R. 1180; S. 577 Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act; issues related to Graduate Medical Education slots, criteria, and funding H.R. 1201 Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today; issues related to Graduate Medical Education slots, criteria, and funding

Client expense: Not reported · Firm income: $34,400

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

H.R. 4920- ACE Kids Act of 2014; issues related to CHIP H.R. 5364; S. 2461- Issues related to CHIPH.R. 2810- Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act; Sustainable Growth Rate Provisions H.R. 3077-Telehealth Enhancement Act of 2013 H.R. 3991- Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2014; provisions on 96-hour physician certification requirement H.R. 4302- Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 CMS-1606-P Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities Prospective Payment System-Update for Fiscal Year Beginning October 1, 2014 H.R. 5558- ACO Improvement Act H.R. 4851- FLEX-IT Act; provsions related to "Meaningful Use" H.R. 1180; S. 577 Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act; issues related to Graduate Medical Education slots, criteria, and funding H.R. 1201- Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today; issues related to Graduate medical Education slots, criteria, and funding

Client expense: $60,391 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

H.R.5464 and draft Senate legislation, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015, Title II H.R. 83, P.L.113-235, Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, Division G, Title II Issues: Support funding for NIH, Title VII and Title VIII health professions and nursing education programs, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), National Health Service Corps (NHSC), Children's Hospitals Graduate Medical Education program (CHGME), HRSA, biodefense and public health preparedness programs, and CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) and the Prevention Epicenters Program. Maintain NIH salary cap at Executive Level II. Encourage the highest possible allocation for the Labor-HHS Subcommittee. Support emergency supplemental funding to prepare and respond to Ebola and to reimburse for Ebola Virus Disease treatment. H.R. 4486 and draft Senate legislation, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015, Title II H.R. 83, P.L.113-235, Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, Division I, Title II President's Budget, FY 2016 Issues: Support funding for Veterans Affairs medical research, research infrastructure, and health care. Issue: Funding for Community Health Centers and the NHSC. Debt in Health Education Loan programs (DebtHELP) bill (draft) Issues: Expand National Health Service Corps State Loan Repayment program, align Department of Education and Health Resources and Services Administration student loan programs. S. 577, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013 H.R. 1180, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013 Issue: Support lifting the cap on the number of residents Medicare will count when determining teaching hospitals' Medicare Direct Graduate Medical Education and Indirect Medical Education payments. H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act Issues: Support lifting cap on number of residents Medicare will count when determining teaching hospitals' Medicare Direct Graduate Medical Education (DGME) and Indirect Medical Education (IME) payments and increase Graduate Medical Education (GME) accountability and transparency. H.R. 487, Primary Care Workforce Access Improvement Act Issue: Residency training in community-based settings. P.L. 111-148, Affordable Care Act, Sections 5503 and 5506 Issue: Redistribution of residency positions. Issue: Implementation of and funding for Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program under section 340G of the Public Health Service Act. Issue: Development and implementation of new Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) formula required under the Affordable Care Act. H.R. 2810/S. 1871, SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2013. Issues: Support repeal of Medicare's sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula; Medicare physician payment reform. Issue: Support the use of animals in medical research. S. 2553/H.R. 4994, Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 Issue: Standardization of post-acute care assessment data for quality, payment, and discharge planning. Issue: Promote interprofessional education and training of the health care workforce. Issue: Support funding for the National Healthcare Workforce Commission. Issue: Implementation of Health Insurance Exchanges mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to recognize and not penalize the unique missions of medical schools and teaching hospitals. Issue: Oppose reduction in Medicare hospital outpatient department reimbursement. Issue: Oppose discretionary spending cuts through sequestration, including NIH, Titles VII and VIII health professions and nursing education programs, and other science programs. Issue: Support primary care workforce development S. 1759, Teaching Health Center Reauthorization Act Issue: Legislation to reauthorize the Teaching Health Center Program and payments. Issue: Draft legislation on pain education in undergraduate and graduate medical education. H.R.548/S. 1152, The Building A Health Care Workforce for the Future Act Issue: Support bill to increase scholarship opportunities for medical students and encourage primary care workforce development. H.R. 5294, Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2014 Issue: Support bill to improve health equity. Issue: Oppose inclusion of Medicare add-on payments in Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) program. H.R. 3698, Two Midnight Rule Delay Act of 2013 S. 2082, Two Midnight Rule Coordination and Improvement Act of 2014 Issue: Support delay of enforcement of new CMS inpatient criteria (e.g., "Two-Midnight" rule) in FY 2014 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule. Issue: Support Medicare GME per Resident Amount and cap trigger technical corrections and administrative relief. H.R. 4188, Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmissions Program Act. S. 2501, Hospital Readmission Accuracy and Accountability Act. Issue: Support inclusion of socioeconomic status as part of hospital readmissions program, including support for adoption of National Quality Forum (NQF) recommendations. Issue: Educating health professionals regarding prescription drug abuse and appropriate use of antibiotics. Issue: Support report language and efforts of HHS agencies to support efforts of urban-based institutions to improve health equity. Support use of holistic review in admissions. Issue: Support ACA consumer outreach and enrollment efforts. Issue: Implementation of the 340B drug discount program. Issue: Oppose Medicare payment reductions as offsets for non-Medicare spending. Issue: Support preservation of funding for the Primary Care Residency Expansion program. S. 2229, Expanding Primary Care Access and Workforce Act Issue: Offer comments on primary care workforce legislation. H.R. 5411, Trafficking Awareness Training for Health Care Act of 2014 Issue: Medical education curricula content pertaining to human trafficking. S. 2658/H.R.5580, Accelerating Biomedical Research Act Issue: To increase discretionary spending cap to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). S. 2450, Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act H.R. 4810, Veteran Access to Care Act Issue: Addressing VA backlogs by increasing care for veterans provided by non-VA facilities. S. 2115, American Cures Act H.R. 4384, America HEALS ACT Issue: Support establishment of a fund to provide an expanded and sustained investment in biomedical research. H.R. 4879, Research for All Act Issues: Support inclusion of male and female cells, tissues and animals in basic biomedical research. Support update of NIH guidelines to increase participation of women in clinical trials. Issue: FDA regulation of Laboratory Developed Tests (LDTs) S. 2728, Community Based Medical Education Act of 2014 Issue: Oppose reduction of Medicare GME/IME payments S. 2645, The Recovery Enhancement for Addiction Treatment (TREAT) Act Issue: Support legislation to increase access to care for patients addicted to opioids S. 2942, The Infectious Disease Hospitals Hubs Act Issue: Support legislation to establish a network of hospitals in preparing for and responding to infectious diseases. Issue: Support nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy as U.S. Surgeon General Draft Hospital Improvements for Payment (HIP) Act of 2014 Issues: Support repeal of CMS Two-Midnights Rule, extending RAC audit moratorium for short stays, and permanent bundle program. Issue: Oppose further delays in the implementation of the ICD-10 system Submitted comments to: U.S. Census Bureau on the American Community Survey CMS on the Hospital Acquired Conditions Reduction Program (HAC)s technical expert panel (TEP)s report regarding the scoring of hospitals in the HAC program CMS on final rule regarding definition of uninsured for purposes of Medicaid DSH limits HHS on revisions to the safe harbors under the anti-kickback statute and civil monetary penalty rules (gainsharing, etc.) FDA on strategies for increasing patient involvement in regulatory processes. White House Ebola Response Coordinator offering to work with federal and state officials to prepare and respond to Ebola cases. NIH in response to an RFI related to the development of grant program to help facilitate the transition from training to independence. NIH on the consideration of sex as a biological variable in biomedical research The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) on the proposed process for peer review and public release of its primary research finding. DEA on delaying the Disposal of Controlled Substances Final Rule.

Client expense: $1,540,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ), Agriculture, Dept of (USDA), Bureau of the Census, Centers For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Commerce, Dept of (DOC), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Reserve System, Food & Drug Administration (FDA), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), Interior, Dept of (DOI), Natl Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of Management & Budget (OMB), Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP), Patent & Trademark Office (PTO), SENATE, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Veterans Affairs, Dept of (VA), White House Office

H.R. 4486 and draft Senate legislation, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015, Title II H.R. 83, P.L.113-235, Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, Division I, Title II President's Budget FY 2016 Issue: Support funding for Veterans Affairs medical research, research infrastructure, and health care. H.R. 4942, Underserved Veterans Access to Health Care Act Issue: Increasing funding for VA GME and Medicare GME. S. 2450, Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act H.R. 4810, Veteran Access to Care Act P.L. 113-564, Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 Issues: Addressing VA backlogs by increasing care for veterans provided by non-VA facilities. Support improved contracting with academic affiliates and increased VA and Medicare GME funding. S. 577, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013 H.R. 1180, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction of 2013 H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act Issue: Support adding a priority for teaching hospitals that have residency affiliations with VA medical centers Issue: Explaining the relationship between VA GME and Medicare GME

Client expense: $1,540,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ), Agriculture, Dept of (USDA), Bureau of the Census, Centers For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Commerce, Dept of (DOC), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Reserve System, Food & Drug Administration (FDA), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), Interior, Dept of (DOI), Natl Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of Management & Budget (OMB), Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP), Patent & Trademark Office (PTO), SENATE, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Veterans Affairs, Dept of (VA), White House Office

S. 577, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2013 H.R. 1180, Resident Physician Shortage Reduction of 2013. Issue: Support lifting the cap on the number of residents Medicare will count when determining teaching hospitals' Medicare Direct Graduate Medical Education and Indirect Medical Education payments. H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act Issues: Support lifting cap on number of residents Medicare will count when determining teaching hospitals' Medicare DGME and IME payments and increase GME accountability and transparency. Issue: Implementation and funding for Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program under section 340G of the Public Health Service Act. Issue: Health Insurance Exchanges mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to recognize and not penalize the unique missions of medical schools and teaching hospitals. Issue: Support Medicare physician payment reform. Issue: Oppose reduction in Medicare hospital outpatient department reimbursement. H.R. 487, Primary Care Workforce Access Improvement Act. Issue: Residency training in community-based settings. Issue: Primary Care Workforce Development. President's Budget, FY 2015 Issue: Oppose proposed reductions in Medicare Direct Graduate Medical Education (DGME) and Indirect Medical Education (IME) payments; oppose use of Medicare GME funding for creation of new GME grant program. Issue: Oppose inclusion of Medicare add-on payments in Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) program. Issue: Oppose Medicare payment reductions as offsets for non-Medicare spending. S. 2082, Two Midnight Rule Coordination and Improvement Act of 2014 H.R. 3698, Two Midnight Rule Delay Act of 2013 Issue: Support delay of Enforcement of new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services inpatient criteria (e.g., "Two-Midnight" rule) in FY 2014 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule. Issue: Support Medicare Graduate Medical Education (GME) per resident amount technical corrections and administrative relief. H.R. 4188, Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmissions Program Act S. 2501, Hospital Readmission Accuracy and Accountability Act Issue: Support inclusion of socioeconomic status as part of hospital readmissions program. H.R. 2810/S. 1871, SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2013 Issues: Support repeal of Medicares Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula; Medicare physician payment reform. Issue: Draft legislation on educating health professionals regarding appropriate use of antibiotics. Issue: Support report language and efforts of HHS agencies to support efforts of urban-based institutions to improve health equity. Issue: Implementation of the 340B drug discount program. H.R. 4302, Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2013. Issues: Support Medicare physician payment relief and extended delay of Medicare's "two-midnights" policy for hospital admissions; support the addition of GME language related to establishing Medicare caps and PRA; support delayed implementation of Medicaid DSH cuts. H.R. 4282, Creating Access to Residency Education Act of 2014 Issue: Create CMS grant program for new residency programs. Issue: Support inclusion of socioeconomic status as part of hospital readmissions program including support for adoption of National Quality Forum (NQF) recommendations. Issue: Support Medicaid expansion advocacy efforts. Issue: Draft legislation on pain education in undergraduate and graduate medical education. S. 2229, Expanding Primary Care Access and Workforce Act Issue: Offer comments on primary care workforce legislation. H.R. 4942, Underserved Veterans Access to Health Care Act Issue: Increasing funding for VA GME and Medicare GME. S. 2553/H.R. 4994, Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014. Issue: Standardization of post-acute care assessment data for quality, payment, and discharge planning. S. 2728, Community Based Medical Education Act of 2014 Issue: Oppose reduction of Medicare GME/IME payments. Issue: Development and implementation of new Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) formula required under the ACA. Draft Hospital Improvements for Payment (HIP) Act of 2014 Issues: Support repeal of CMS Two-Midnights Rule, extending RAC audit moratorium for short stays, and permanent bundle program. Issue: Oppose further delays in the implementation of the ICD-10 system Submitted comments to: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the Hospital Acquired Conditions Reduction Program (HAC)s technical expert panel (TEP)s report regarding the scoring of hospitals in the HAC program. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on final rule regarding definition of uninsured for purposes of Medicaid DSH limits The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on revisions to the safe harbors under the anti-kickback statute and civil monetary penalty rules (gainsharing, etc.)

Client expense: $1,540,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ), Agriculture, Dept of (USDA), Bureau of the Census, Centers For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Commerce, Dept of (DOC), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Reserve System, Food & Drug Administration (FDA), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), Interior, Dept of (DOI), Natl Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of Management & Budget (OMB), Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP), Patent & Trademark Office (PTO), SENATE, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Veterans Affairs, Dept of (VA), White House Office

H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today, entire bill. S. 1822, Foreign Medical School Accountability Fairness Act, 2013, entire bill.H.R. 4879, Research for All Act, entire bill. S. 2658/H.R. 5580. Accelerating Biomedical Research Act, entire bill. S. 2115/H.R. 4384, America Cures Act, entire bill.

Client expense: $132,000 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Emergency Contraception (general; Health Care Reform Implementation. Drug Dependence (general); HIV Screening (general); Gynecological Cancer; Breast Cancer (general); Breastfeeding (general); Medical Liability Reform (general); Health IT (general); Prematurity (general)Obesity (general); Disparities (general); Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund (general); Imaging (general); Graduate Medical Education (general); Quality Improvement Measurement (general); Contraception (general); CMS Provider Penalties (general)Preeclampsia (general); National Health Service Corps (general); Abortion (general); Indian Health (general); CMS Health IT incentive program, meaningful use State 3; Immigrant Health Care Access; S. 237, Advancing FASD Research, Prevention and Services Act; S. 333/H.R. 728, Access to Birth Control Act; H.R. 1331, Electronic Health Records Improvements Act; H.R. 1201, Training Tomorrows Doctors Today Act; H.R. 896/X. 425, Quality Care for Moms and Babies Act; H.R. 1281/S. 1417, Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act; H.R. 36/S. 961, Health Care Safety Net Enhancement Act; H.R. 1975/S. 942 Pregnant Workers Fairness Act; Implementation of H.R. 3204, the Drug Quality and Security Act; H.R. 1915/S. 907 GEDI Act; H.R. 5364 CHIP Extension and Improvement ACT; S. 1009, Chemical Safety Improvement Act; H.R. 2286, Maximizing Optimal Maternity Services for the 21st Century Act; H.R. 4106, Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act; Pregnancy Discrimination (general); S. 1124, BPA in Food Packaging Right to Know Act; H.R. 4240, HEAL Immigrant Women and Families Act; H.R. 4216, Maternal Health Accountability Act; S. 1978, Increasing Primary Care Access Act; H.R. 4435/S. 2410 Carl Levin National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015; H.R. 4385, To Amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for the Designation of maternity care health professional shortage areas; H.R. 4492/S. 1994 TRICARE Moms Improvement Act of 2014; H.R. 4750/S. 1769, Standard of Care Protection Act of 2014; S. 2461, CHIP Extension Act of 2014; H.R. 4888 CRIB Act; S. 2722 Protecting our Infants Act; H.R. 5524/S. 2687 Access to contraception for Women Service Members and Dependents Act; 21st Century Cures; H.R> 5294 Health Equity and Accountability Act; H.R. 5539 Except certain transfers of value from reporting requirements under Sunshine Act; H.R. 5486 Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act.

Client expense: $394,993 · Firm income: Not reported

Government targets: Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ), Agriculture, Dept of (USDA), Centers For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Defense, Dept of (DOD), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Executive Office of the President (EOP), Food & Drug Administration (FDA), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS), Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), Natl Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of Management & Budget (OMB), SENATE, State, Dept of (DOS), White House Office

Monitor legislative activity related to health funding; graduate medical education funding; H.R. 487 - Primary Care Workforce Access Improvement Act; HR 1180 - Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act; HR 1201 Training Tomorrow's Doctors Today Act; S. 577 - Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act;

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

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Monitor legislation affecting Graduate Medical Education; H.R. 1201 - Training Tomorrows Doctors Today Act; S. 1822, Foreign Medical School Accountability Fairness Act;

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

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Legislation expanding the GME program: H.R. 1201, S. 577, H.R. 1180, H.R. 297, and H.R. 487.

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

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE

Issues pertaining to Medicaid reform, block grant proposals, per capita caps Medicare and Medicaid Graduate Medical education, Medicaid provider taxes, Medicare bad debt payments Medicare and Medicaid paymentMedicaid Waivers Extension of Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate Medicare Evaluation and Management Reimbursement Reduction Proposal Issues related to waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments H.R. 574 Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act of 2013, all provisions H.R. 1853 Medicaid Accountability and Care Act, all provisions H.R. 574 Medicare Physician Payment Act, all provisions 5.577/HR 1180 Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act , all provisions H.R. 1201 Training Tomorrow's Doctors Act, all provisions H.R. 1250/5.1012 Medicare Audit Improvement Act, all provisions H.R. 1487 Improved Healthcare at a Lower Cost Act, all provisions H.R. 1698 Stabilize Medicaid and CHIP Coverage, all provisions H.R. 1326 Health Care Price Transparency Promotion Act, all provisions H.R. 1920 DSH Reduction Relief Act, all provisions Issues related to Medicaid enrollment of newborns CMS FY2014 Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System Rule Issues related to admission and medical review criteria for inpatient services ("two midnights rule") S.1555 DSH Reduction Relief Act of 2013, all provisions S.1871 SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Act - all sections H.R. 2810 Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act - all sections H.R. 4302 Protecting Access to Medicare Act - all sections H.R. 4015 SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act S. 1980 Medicaid and CHIP Continuous Quality Act H.R. 3678 Two-Midnight Rule Delay Act - all sections H.R. 4188 Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmission Program Act S. 2082 Two-Midnight Rule Coordination and Improvement Act S. 2501 Hospitals Readmissions Program Accuracy and Accountability Act, all sections Issues related to quality measures reporting in Medicaid S. 2461 CHIP Extension act of 2014, all provisions Issues related to Medicare payment for patients in "observation status" in hospitals CMS FY 2014 Outpatient Prospective Payment System Rule Issues related to Medicare Recovery Audit Contractors S. 2941 Medicare Protection Act, all Provisions Extension of SSA 1902 (a) (b) (c) - Medicaid Primary Care payment parity Childrens Health Insurance Program Medicare Hospital Re-admissions Program Meaningful Use Stage 2 H.R. 5481 The Flexibility in Health IT Reporting Act H.R. 5364 CHIP Extension and Improvement Act, All provisions Hospital Improvements for Payment Act of 2014 (generally and specific sections) Section 101: Hospital Prospective Payment System 102: Per Diem payment rate for short lengths of stay 103: Repeal of the Two- Midnights payment reduction 104 and 105: Monitoring performance of and improvements to the RAC program 109: Hospital assessment data 110: Cost information on hospital payments 201: Repeal of the moratorium on physician owned hospitals 214: Tennessee DSH allotment for FY2015 and succeeding fiscal years 216: NOTICE Act 217: Establishing equity in the Hospital Readmissions Program Act

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

Government targets: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SENATE, White House Office