On Monday, the sequestration cuts are set to touch down on Medicare and cause a 2 percent drop in reimbursement payments made to doctors, hospitals and other providers.
Dr. Paul Keckley, executive director for the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, wrote in a memo earlier this month (PDF) that providers should expect the reductions to affect their Medicare and EHR Meaningful Use payments starting mid-April.
The so-called sequester — $85 billion worth of federal spending cuts for 2013 — will impact the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, but not as much as it will other areas of the government, Keckley wrote. Medicare providers will shoulder $11 billion in cuts, but those reductions were capped at 2 percent. Medicaid, children’s health insurance programs and military benefits are not directly cut.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
Here’s a look at some of the other areas where the ACA will feel the impact:
In terms of what that means for healthcare innovation, Keckley suggested that although the medical device, biotech and pharmaceutical industries will continue to pay user fees to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, they may not receive the expected benefits such as timely product reviews and approvals.
The National Institutes of Health has said that cuts will likely trickle down to grantees who have been awarded research funding. Keckley anticipates that could, in turn, create a riskier environment for private investors. Coupled with the potential for a slower regulatory approval process, that may push medical device and drug companies even more in the direction of streamlining their R&D, refocusing on emerging markets and seeking collaborations, he wrote.
But overall, these cuts are just more of what the healthcare economy has already been experiencing. “It’s about the cumulative impact of cuts by employers, households, and the government’s health plans — Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program — that impact our system,” Keckley wrote.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
For more in-depth coverage of the sequestration, check out the links below:
Medical research, FDA and mental health programs face budget bite
Sequestration and doctors: What you need to know
FDA chief: Sequester cuts threaten drug approval
Healthcare cuts from vaccinations to research
[Charts courtesy of Deloitte]
