Easing clinician burden under the payment tracks implemented as part of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) will be a priority for CMS in this year’s rulemaking, according to Kate Goodrich, MD, the agency’s chief medical officer. What won’t be changing, however, is requiring providers to meet the 2015 edition of certified electronic health record technology (CHERT) standards.

The new push for easier patient access to their health data from CMS will require some work on the part of the Office of National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), with the agency’s leaders not being shy about supporting its patient-centric goals in a briefing with reporters at HIMSS18 in Las Vegas.

When Indiana’s Goshen Health decided to de-affiliate from Indiana University Health in 2016, it knew its supply costs were going to increase for its 122-bed hospital, cancer center and 27 physician practice locations, according to chief financial officer Amy Floria. That meant waste in the supply chain had to be cut out—like the 80 percent of hospital supplies which had sat untouched on a shelf for two years.

Patients with disabilities or living in poverty have poorer health outcomes and higher costs. Theoretically, alternative payment models (APMs) could encourage providers to better coordinate care for vulnerable populations and improve their outcomes—but they also have the potential to harm these patients, according to Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.

The My HealthE Data initiative announced by CMS at HIMSS18 earned favorable reactions from health IT professionals at the conference. When it comes to actually allowing patients to access and share their health data, however, some companies which profit from the current “friction-filled health data sharing economy” will resist, according to former U.S. chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has released its March 2018 report for Congress, which includes its recommendation to eliminate the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) after only a one year of clinician reporting to the program.

Three years after moving from administrator of CMS to lead health insurance lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Marilyn Tavenner has announced plans to retire effective June 1, with AHIP’s chief operating officer Matt Eyles taking over her role as president and CEO.

A new study published in JAMA challenges some of the more common explanations for why the U.S. spends more on healthcare than other high-income countries, finding the U.S. isn’t an outlier on measures like utilization, share of primary care physicians or social services spending.