New Omnibus HIPAA Privacy & Security Rule Seminar (Postponed until 3/13)

If you missed your workout to benefit the HeartStrings event last Saturday at the Asheville Racquet Club there is still time to support the Foundation's key fundraiser of the year benefitting Project Access® and the charitable programs of the Foundation. To date we have raised over $15,000 but we'd like to do better!  Project Access®, the WCMS Interpreter Network, and Living Healthy programs need your support. It's not too late! Click here for more information or here to donate now. 

The Cutting Edge is a WCMS healthcare innovations blog, highlighting WCMS physicians, practices and programs that are on the cutting edge of healthcare transformation. WCMS supports local physician members who are change agents by recognizing them and sharing among other WCMS members and the general community information about these local innovations

On Friday, March 1, the automatic sequestration of federal spending is scheduled to take effect. The sequester was originally set to begin on January 1, 2013, under provisions of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which charged a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the so-called "super committee") with developing a plan to achieve $1.2 trillion in federal spending cuts over 10 years to avert automatic, across-the-board cuts ... Keep reading. 

HHS on Friday released final rules on how insurers can implement individual and group insurance market reforms under the Affordable Care Act. Insurers will be allowed to vary premiums within limits based on age, tobacco use, family size and geography, but not other factors such as pre-existing conditions, health status, claims history, gender or occupation. The rules also require that insurers provide young adults with low-cost catastrophic coverage plans and create a single, statewide risk pool for all higher-cost enrollees. Officials from America's Health Insurance Plans said the rules will lead to a steep and immediate increase in premiums for young adults. (Sources: The Hill's "Healthwatch," 2/22; The Hill's "Healthwatch," 2/22; MedPage Today, 2/23; Modern Healthcare, 2/22; Reuters, 2/22) 

The Obama administration in a brief filed yesterday in a California case over reductions to physician reimbursement rates in that state's Medicaid program said it supports states' rights to reduce their Medicaid reimbursement rates to rein in costs. The brief, filed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, defends California's decision to reduce Medi-Cal payments for health care providers by 10%. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius approved the decision in October 2011 after determining that beneficiaries still would have "adequate access" to Medicaid services. Some supporters think the decision could entice GOP governors to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act because it provides a tool to control costs but opponents argue such cuts would reduce access to care for current and future beneficiaries. (Source: New York Times, 2/25)

WCMS is a thriving 900-plus member professional association of the physicians of western North Carolina and a chartered component medical society of the NC Medical Society and the AMA. The WCMS is an organization run by physicians for physicians.