A trade bill now ready for the president's signature will threaten the effectiveness of the nation's quality improvement organizations, according to the group representing those entities.
Trade bill could undermine health quality groups: AHQA
After passing trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama on Wednesday evening, the House of Representatives approved the Trade Adjustment Assistance bill, which provides benefits, services and retraining programs to U.S. workers who lost their jobs or work hours because of trade deals that shifted production outside the country.
Included in this bill—which passed in a 307-122 vote—is a funding offset that would make changes to the Medicare program's Quality Improvement Organization program that the Congressional Budget Office estimates could save about $300 million over 10 years, says Todd Ketch, executive director of the American Health Quality Association in Washington. The bill mirrors legislation that the Senate passed late last month.
According to Ketch, the provisions call for changing the current system of statewide QIOs into organizations that are regional or national in scope. “What we worry about: if you move to a regional or national contract for quality improvement, the state-level focus and the needs of those states and individual communities will be shortchanged,” Ketch said, adding that the current relationship between QIOs and providers is “very close.”
Another change would allow CMS to award separate contracts for administrative case review and quality-improvement functions in one contract area, a move that Ketch said “works contrary to the idea of managing the patient across the continuum of care.”
The group's position on the legislation has the backing of former CMS Administrator Tom Scully, who currently is the senior counsel at Alston & Bird. “If enacted, not only will these major changes turn upside down an otherwise stable program in which QIOs have benefited providers and patients alike,” Scully said in a news release, “but the changes also will eliminate hundreds of jobs across the nation.”
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