Department of Health and Human Services April 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document corrects technical errors and typographical errors in the proposed rule entitled ``Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Electronic Health Record Incentive ProgramStage 2'' which appeared in the March 7, 2012, Federal Register.

Section 3003(b)(3) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 mandates that the HIT Standards Committee develop a schedule for the assessment of policy recommendations developed by the HIT Policy Committee and publish it in the Federal Register. This notice fulfills the requirements of Section 3003(b)(3) and updates the schedule posted in the Federal Register on May 4, 2011. In anticipation of receiving recommendations originally developed by the HIT Policy Committee, the HIT Standards Committee has created four (4) workgroups to analyze the areas of clinical quality, clinical operations, implementation, and privacy and security. Other groups are convened to address specific issues as needed, such as the Nationwide Health Information Network Power Team, the Consumer/Patient Engagement Power Team, and the Vocabulary Task Force. HIT Standards Committee's Schedule for the Assessment of HIT Policy Committee Recommendations is as follows: The National Coordinator will establish priority areas based in part on recommendations received from the HIT Policy Committee regarding health information technology standards, implementation specifications, and/or certification criteria. Once the HIT Standards Committee is informed of those priority areas, it will: (A) Direct the appropriate workgroup or other special group to develop a report for the HIT Standards Committee, to the extent possible, within 90 days, which will include, among other items, the following: (1) An assessment of what standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria are currently available to meet the priority area; (2) an assessment of where gaps exist (i.e., no standard is available or harmonization is required because more than one standard exists) and identify potential organizations that have the capability to address those gaps; and (3) a timeline, which may also account for NIST testing, where appropriate, and include dates when the HIT Standards Committee is expected to issue recommendation(s) to the National Coordinator. (B) Upon receipt of a report from a workgroup or other special group, the HIT Standards Committee will: (1) Accept the timeline provided by the subcommittee, and, if necessary, revise it; and (2) Assign subcommittee(s) to conduct research and solicit testimony, where appropriate, and issue recommendations to the full committee in a timely manner. (C) Advise the National Coordinator, consistent with the accepted timeline in (B)(1) and after NIST testing, where appropriate, on standards, implementation specifications, and/or certification criteria, for the National Coordinator's review and determination whether or not to endorse the recommendations, and possible adoption of the proposed recommendations by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The standards and related topics which the HIT Standards Committee is expected to address over the coming year include, but may not be limited to: Quality measurement; the extended portfolio of standards for the nationwide health information network; distributed queries and results; radiology; consumer-mediated information exchange; public health; data portability; and a process for the maintenance of standards. For a listing of upcoming HIT Standards Committee meetings, please visit the ONC web site at https://healthit.hhs.gov. Notice of this schedule is given under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. L. 111-5), section 3003.

The Department of Health and Human Services establishes the Administration for Community Living in order to achieve several important objectives: reduce the fragmentation that currently exists in Federal programs addressing the community living service and support needs of both the aging and disability populations; enhance access to quality health care and long-term services and supports for all individuals; promote consistency in community living policy across other areas of the Federal government; and complement the community infrastructure, as supported by both Medicaid and other Federal programs, in order to better respond to the full spectrum of needs of seniors and persons with disabilities.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is amending the animal drug regulations to reflect the withdrawal of approval of those parts of a new animal drug application (NADA) for a tiamulin Type A medicated article that pertain to the production indications for use of increased rate of weight gain and improved feed efficiency in swine.

This proposed rule would implement section 1104 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (hereinafter referred to as the Affordable Care Act) by establishing new requirements for administrative transactions that would improve the utility of the existing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) transactions and reduce administrative burden and costs. It proposes the adoption of the standard for a national unique health plan identifier (HPID) and requirements or provisions for the implementation of the HPID. This rule also proposes the adoption of a data element that will serve as an other entity identifier (OEID), an identifier for entities that are not health plans, health care providers, or ``individuals,'' that need to be identified in standard transactions. This proposed rule would also specify the circumstances under which an organization covered health care provider must require certain noncovered individual health care providers who are prescribers to obtain and disclose an NPI. Finally, this rule proposes to change the compliance date for the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) for diagnosis coding, including the Official ICD-10-CM Guidelines for Coding and Reporting, and the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Procedure Coding System (ICD-10-PCS) for inpatient hospital procedure coding, including the Official ICD-10-PCS Guidelines for Coding and Reporting, from October 1, 2013 to October 1, 2014.

Under the provisions of Section 3507(a)(1)(D) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a request to review and approve the information collection listed below. This proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register on February 9, 2012 (Vol. 77, No. 27, p. 6808) and allowed 60-days for public comment. A single public comment was received. The purpose of this notice is to allow an additional 30 days for public comment. The National Institutes of Health may not conduct or sponsor, and the respondent is not required to respond to, an information collection that has been extended, revised, or implemented on or after October 1, 1995, unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.