Congress

The National PACE Association is pleased the House Ways & Means Committee is taking up legislation that would direct HHS to finalize regulations from 2016 that would let providers determine who should update care plans, let PACE facilities contract with primary care providers and reduce the number of on-site audits.

The House Ways & Means Committee will mark up four Medicare-related bills Wednesday (Sept. 5), including one measure that would test using smart-card technology for beneficiaries’ Medicare cards and another that would finalize regulations for the Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly.

The House Energy & Commerce oversight subcommittee will hold a hearing Thursday (Sept. 6) to review abuse, neglect and substandard care in nursing homes, and federal efforts to make sure residents are safe.

The House Energy & Commerce health subcommittee will hold a hearing Sept. 5 on draft legislation banning so-called gag clauses in Medicare and the private market that prevent a pharmacist from telling a patient when it would be cheaper to buy a drug with cash rather than insurance.

Senate Republicans have cleared the Senate opioid package and are now awaiting for Democrats to clear it on their side, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said at a press conference Tuesday (Aug. 28).

Congress should not use a measure that extends the time kidney-failure patients can stay on private insurance to help pay for House opioid legislation, insurers, unions and employers told Senate leaders, but patient groups praised the House legislation.

The American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) and AdvaMedDx are raising concerns with a draft legislative proposal floated by FDA on Aug. 6 that would overhaul federal regulation of diagnostics, including laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) and in vitro diagnostics (IVDs). ACLA asks lawmakers to reject the proposal in its entirety, while AdvaMedDx calls for more discussion on the plan.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office says Trump administration policies that reduced navigator funding resulted in decreased ACA enrollment in 2018, and urges the administration to change its funding approach.

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL)’s amendment paving the way for mandatory price disclosures in direct-to-consumer ads cleared the Senate late Thursday, after Grassley took to the Senate floor to blame “big pharma” for trying to stop the DTC ad amendment and for successfully keeping a handful of other drug-pricing measures on ice.