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APAPAC Events
3/9 - Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) |
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Follow APA Advocacy on Twitter!
The APA Department of Government Relations is now on Twitter! Now you can find out about APA Advocacy activities, Congressional hearings, mark-ups, and floor votes in real time.
Please click on the following link to start following APA Advocacy Twitter:
http://twitter.com/apa_
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Questions about the Twitter page or how to set up an account? Please contact Kyle Folsom at advocacy@psych.org. |
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Utah Prescribing Bill Defeated; Hawaii Bill Passes Committee; Montana Bill Update
On the evening of March 2, the Utah House Committee on Business and Labor emphatically voted down legislation to grant psychologists the authority to practice medicine. The vote on House Bill 289 was 2 Yea, 11 No. The bill is therefore dead for 2011. The Utah Psychiatric Association worked closely with the Utah Medical Association and APA to strongly oppose this legislation. APA and UMA also engaged the AMA and the Scope of Practice Partnership on the issue. APA Member Anne Lin, M.D., was among those testifying in opposition to the bill during the hearing. Also opposing the bill were UMA, NAMI Utah, the APRN Psychiatric Nurses, and the PharmD Association. H.B. 289 would have allowed a psychologist who has "specialized training" and who is in a "collaborative care model with a primary care practitioner" to prescribe psychotropic medications and to order and interpret laboratory tests.
In Hawaii, the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee passed Senate Bill 597. The bill would authorize psychologists with a psychopharmacology master's degree practicing in federally qualified health centers to prescribe after a 400-hour, one year practicum. Prescriptive authority would include prescribing controlled substances, "recognized in or customarily used in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of individuals with psychiatric, mental, cognitive, nervous, emotional, or behavioral disorders, and relevant to the practice of psychology." S.B. 597 would create a five-year pilot project that would begin July 1, 2012. During the first two years, a psychologist would be required to prescribe under the supervision of a physician. The bill now moves to the Senate, where the Hawaii Psychiatric Medical Association, assisted by APA, will continue its vigorous opposition.
Montana Senate Bill 272 passed the Senate and will now move on to the House. While it has not yet been referred to a committee, the Montana Psychiatric Association and allies continue to educate Representatives on this bill. |
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FY 2011 Funded Through March 18
Congress this week enacted a short-term budget resolution to continue funding federal government programs operations through March 18. The short-term continuing resolution (CR) comes on the heels of a budget impasse that threatened to shut down the government when the current resolution, which maintains funding at 2010 levels, expires on March 4. The new CR reduces federal spending by $4 billion, most of them to non-controversial programs slated for elimination under the Administration budget request. Last week, an alternative CR passed the House. H.R. 1 aimed to reduce spending by nearly $60 billion from 2010 levels. This House-passed CR faces an uncertain fate in the Senate where Senators have opposed drastic cuts to NIH, SAMHSA and other health programs. With the enactment of the two-week CR, the House and Senate now have two more weeks to reach an agreement on a FY11 budget bill that will continue funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, through September 30. Once the FY11 budget is resolved, Congress will have to turn almost immediately to the federal FY12 budget. President Obama released his 2012 budget proposals in mid-February. However, his 2012 proposals assume a baseline of spending at 2010 levels - meaning that any cuts below 2010 levels that Congress makes to the 2011 budget will reduce the starting point for 2012. Please see February 28 issue of Rushnotes for details. |
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Governors Urge "Flexibility" in Medicaid
On March 1, a group of governors testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce about the need for greater "flexibility" in their Medicaid programs. States are under pressure to drastically reduce spending, and some states want to find budget savings by cutting millions of individuals from Medicaid. Governors Haley Barbour (R-MS) and Gary Herbert (R-UT) proposed using a block grant model to fund Medicaid so as to allow states the maximum amount of flexibility in designing and operating their own programs. Under a block grant model, the federal government would provide a fixed amount of funding to each state for its Medicaid program, and states would be responsible for all additional costs. Barbour and Herbert suggested that a block grant model would make states' Medicaid costs more stable and predictable over time. However, any legislation to significantly modify states' responsibilities to provide Medicaid coverage would likely face an uphill battle in the Senate and the White House. Meanwhile, President Obama indicated this week that he would support allowing states to opt out of complying with the health law's requirements - if they could guarantee an alternative method of providing universal coverage. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius issued a letter to states outlining the many ways they have flexibility under the law to make changes to the Medicaid program without drastically reducing coverage. |
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APA Comments on"Meaningful Use" of Electronic Records
On February 25, APA submitted comments to the Health Information Technology Policy Committee (HITPC), an advisory committee for HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for HIT, on draft recommendations for Stage 2 measures of HIT "meaningful use". Meeting meaningful use requirements is necessary for physicians and other health professionals to be eligible for up to $64,000 in Medicare or Medicaid incentives that go towards adoption of HIT. Along with response to the individual measures of most concern to psychiatry, APA stressed in general that measures need to be flexible enough to encompass a wide range of specialties and practice settings and that measures should not have external dependencies outside the control of a physician. CMS is expected to release its proposed definition for Stage 2 meaningful use this summer.
To read the HITPC recommendations, click here:
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