Department of Health and Human Services November 10, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) (42 U.S.C. 300aa-26), the CDC must develop vaccine information materials that all health care providers are required to give to patients/parents prior to administration of specific vaccines. On July 28, 2005, CDC published a notice in the Federal Register (70 FR 43694) seeking public comments on proposed new vaccine information materials for trivalent influenza vaccines and hepatitis A vaccines. The 60 day comment period ended on September 26, 2005. Following review of the comments submitted and consultation as required under the law, CDC has finalized the influenza vaccine information materials. The final influenza materials, and revised instructions for their use and for use of materials for other covered vaccines, are contained in this notice. The final hepatitis A vaccine information materials will be published later.

This final rule with comment period revises the Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system to implement applicable statutory requirements and changes arising from our continuing experience with this system and to implement certain related provisions of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003. In addition, the final rule with comment period describes changes to the amounts and factors used to determine the payment rates for Medicare hospital outpatient services paid under the prospective payment system. This final rule with comment period also changes the requirement for physician oversight of mid-level practitioners in critical access hospitals (CAHs). In this final rule with comment period, we also are responding to public comments received on the November 15, 2004, final rule with comment period pertaining to the ambulatory payment classification (APC) group assignment of Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes identified in Addendum B of that rule with the new interim (NI) comment indicator. These changes are applicable to services furnished on or after January 1, 2006.