Department of Health and Human Services August 2017 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or Agency) announces a forthcoming public advisory committee meeting of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee. The general function of the committee is to provide advice and recommendations to the Agency on FDA's regulatory issues. The meeting will be open to the public. FDA is establishing a docket for public comment on this document.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency) has determined the regulatory review period for VONVENDI and is publishing this notice of that determination as required by law. FDA has made the determination because of the submission of applications to the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Department of Commerce, for the extension of a patent which claims that human biological product.

This notice with comment period updates the prospective payment rates for Medicare inpatient hospital services provided by inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPFs), which include freestanding IPFs and psychiatric units of an acute care hospital or critical access hospital. These changes are applicable to IPF discharges occurring during the fiscal year (FY) beginning October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018 (FY 2018).

As stipulated by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service is hereby giving notice that the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA or the Council) will be holding a meeting and will discuss recommendations regarding programs, policies, and research to promote effective, prevention, treatment and cure of HIV disease and AIDS. The meeting will be open to the public.

This final rule will update the hospice wage index, payment rates, and cap amount for fiscal year (FY) 2018. Additionally, this rule includes new quality measures and provides an update on the hospice quality reporting program.

This quarterly notice lists CMS manual instructions, substantive and interpretive regulations, and other Federal Register notices that were published from April through June 2017, relating to the Medicare and Medicaid programs and other programs administered by CMS.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or Agency) is announcing the availability of a draft guidance for industry entitled ``Child- Resistant Packaging Statements in Drug Product Labeling.'' This guidance is intended to assist applicants, manufacturers, packagers, and distributors who choose to include child-resistant packaging (CRP) statements in prescription and over-the-counter human drug product labeling. The guidance discusses what information should be included to support CRP statements and to help ensure that such labeling is clear, useful, informative, and, to the extent possible, consistent in content and format.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), located within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announces the availability of the final Vaccines Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) 2.0 Form www.vaers.hhs.gov. The VAERS 2.0 Form replaces the VAERS-1 Form which had been in use since 1990.

This final rule updates the prospective payment rates for inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) for federal fiscal year (FY) 2018 as required by the statute. As required by section 1886(j)(5) of the Social Security Act (the Act), this rule includes the classification and weighting factors for the IRF prospective payment system's (IRF PPS) case-mix groups and a description of the methodologies and data used in computing the prospective payment rates for FY 2018. This final rule also revises the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD- 10-CM) diagnosis codes that are used to determine presumptive compliance under the ``60 percent rule,'' removes the 25 percent payment penalty for inpatient rehabilitation facility patient assessment instrument (IRF-PAI) late transmissions, removes the voluntary swallowing status item (Item 27) from the IRF-PAI, summarizes comments regarding the criteria used to classify facilities for payment under the IRF PPS, provides for a subregulatory process for certain annual updates to the presumptive methodology diagnosis code lists, adopts the use of height/weight items on the IRF-PAI to determine patient body mass index (BMI) greater than 50 for cases of single-joint replacement under the presumptive methodology, and revises and updates measures and reporting requirements under the IRF quality reporting program (QRP).

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing that a proposed collection of information has been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or Agency) is announcing the availability of a guidance for industry entitled ``Antibacterial Therapies for Patients With an Unmet Medical Need for the Treatment of Serious Bacterial Diseases.'' The purpose of the guidance is to assist sponsors in the development of new antibacterial drugs to treat serious bacterial diseases in patients with an unmet medical need, including patients who have a serious bacterial disease for which effective antibacterial drugs are limited or lacking. This guidance finalizes the draft guidance of the same name issued July 2, 2013.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) in collaboration with the NCI Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (MATCH) trial leadership (NCT 02465060) invites applications for Clinical Laboratory Improvements Program (CLIA) certified/accredited laboratories that test tumor specimens from patients utilizing Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) assays to participate in the NCI MATCH trial. The NCI MATCH trial has implemented a new process for identifying patients for arms with rare variant eligibility criteria. Laboratories will contact any of the approximately 1100 sites that have activated NCI MATCH if a specimen sent from one of these sites has a rare variant that would potentially make the patient eligible for one of the treatment arms open in this initiative.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing the fiscal year (FY) 2018 rates for the establishment and re-inspection fees related to entities that compound human drugs and elect to register as outsourcing facilities under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the FD&C Act). The FD&C Act authorizes FDA to assess and collect an annual establishment fee from outsourcing facilities, as well as a re-inspection fee for each re-inspection of an outsourcing facility. This document establishes the FY 2018 rates for the small business establishment fee ($5,364), the non-small business establishment fee ($17,364), and the re-inspection fee ($16,093) for outsourcing facilities; provides information on how the fees for FY 2018 were determined; and describes the payment procedures outsourcing facilities should follow. These fee rates are effective October 1, 2017, and will remain in effect through September 30, 2018.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing the fee rates and payment procedures for fiscal year (FY) 2018 generic new animal drug user fees. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the FD&C Act), as amended by the Animal Generic Drug User Fee Amendments of 2013 (AGDUFA II), authorizes FDA to collect user fees for certain abbreviated applications for generic new animal drugs, for certain generic new animal drug products, and for certain sponsors of such abbreviated applications for generic new animal drugs and/or investigational submissions for generic new animal drugs. This notice establishes the fee rates for FY 2018.

The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP), a program office in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is seeking nominations of qualified candidates to be considered for appointment as members of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP). SACHRP provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary, HHS (Secretary), through the Assistant Secretary for Health, on matters pertaining to the continuance and improvement of functions within the authority of HHS directed toward protections for human subjects in research. SACHRP was established by the Secretary on October 1, 2002. OHRP is seeking nominations of qualified candidates to fill four positions on the Committee membership that will be vacated during the 2018 calendar year.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is announcing an opportunity for the public to comment on CMS' intention to collect information from the public. Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (the PRA), federal agencies are required to publish notice in the Federal Register concerning each proposed collection of information (including each proposed extension or reinstatement of an existing collection of information) and to allow 60 days for public comment on the proposed action. Interested persons are invited to send comments regarding our burden estimates or any other aspect of this collection of information, including the necessity and utility of the proposed information collection for the proper performance of the agency's functions, the accuracy of the estimated burden, ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected, and the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology to minimize the information collection burden.