03 Jan The Task Force Provides Input to CMS and ONC on the Disincentives for Health Care Providers that Have Committed Information Blocking Proposed Rule

The Health Care Transformation Task Force submitted comments on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) and Office of National Coordinator’s (ONC) Proposed Rule (RIN 0955-AA05). The Task Force’s letter focuses on the following topics:

1. Final Policy Should Focus on Disincentives Not Penalties: The 21^st Century Cures Act directs that disincentives against provider information blocking should be developed to address the determinations by the Office of Inspector General that providers have engaged in information blocking. Instead, the Proposed Rule seeks to impose onerous and unreasonable penalties for such determinations without legal support.
2. Education is Critical to Disincentivizing Provider Information Blocking: ONC and CMS should engage in an education campaign about what constitutes provider information blocking as a primary building block for disincentives. 
3. Providers Should Be Able to Contest Information Blocking Activities:  Providers should be afforded a due process right similar to other Medicare redetermination processes before disincentives/penalties are imposed or acted upon.
4. Information Blocking Disincentives Should Be Scalable, Beginning with Corrective Action Plans: Corrective action plans should be the primary disincentive tool, with more significant actions taken in response to repeated, intentional violations by the same practitioner or provider organization.
5. The Proposed Policy for ACOs Should Be Withdrawn: The proposed policy to disbar or deny Medicare Shared Savings Program participation to ACOs based on information blocking violations of individual participating practitioners or provider organizations amounts to a double penalty that is unreasonable and not authorized by the governing statute.

Read the Letter Here