Government & Policy

Lygeia Ricciardi's advice for leadership, and social media, in a time of political uncertainty around the Affordable Care Act and the fate of health reform in America. 

The latest draft would phase out Medicaid expansion for low-income adults and convert to block grants for the states.

The External HIPAA Audit Readiness Toolkit, free for members, includes checklists for HIPAA audit steps, a list of potential documents OCR could request and a master policy template for the privacy and security compliance program. 

The Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act and the INSPIRE Act promise more policies concerning women in the workforce.

While the number of flaws has decreased from year to year, HHS still needs to work on identity and access management, security training and incident response, among other areas.

The Government Accountability Office determined in an investigation that Health and Human Services has not measured whether its efforts are working and lacks a comprehensive plan for doing so.

The American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals have already warned of "an unprecedented public health crisis" if Congress and Trump hastily repeal the Affordable Care Act.

At a pivotal moment for healthcare, it's time to reform regulatory approaches, improve access to data for care coordination and establish a national patient ID, says John Halamka, MD, who offers some perspective to CMS and ONC on the future of MACRA, interoperability and more.  

"First, we should ensure that Americans with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage, and that we have a stable transition for Americans currently enrolled in the healthcare exchanges," he said.

Results of two polls published in the past week, from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Pew Research Center, demonstrate growing support for the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.