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The Massachusetts Legislature on Thursday reached a compromise to okay sweeping wellness care lawmaking, the Boston Globe reports (Viser, Boston Globe, 8/1). Senate President Therese Murray (D), a key author of the bill, aforesaid the bar was intentional to radical the rising health care costs that threaten the future of the state's health indemnity law (LeBlanc, AP/Boston Globe, 8/1). The bill would:
Establish a commissioning to develop uniform billing and cryptography standards for health care providers and insurers;
Require pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers to disclose to the department of State Department of Public Health all payments and subsidies worth more than $50 made to health concern professionals. The information also would be published on a public Web site;
Establish a statewide goal of adopting electronic health records by 2015 (Boston Globe, 8/1);
Educate health care providers about the benefits of low-cost versions of marque drugs and other lower-cost medical alternatives;
Authorize MassHealth, the state's Medicaid program, to promote basal care;
Expand enrolment at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and incentives for students to go into primary forethought specialties;
Create a loan forgiveness program and other incentives for physicians and nurses to practice in underserved areas (McConville, Boston Herald, 8/1); and
Require hospitals to report all types of hospital-acquired infections and forbid hospitals from charging patients for so-called "never events" (AP/Boston Globe, 8/1).
Gov. Deval Patrick (D) is expected to sign the measure within the week (Boston Herald, 8/1).
Reprinted with kind permission from hypertext transfer protocol://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at hypertext transfer protocol://www.kaisernetwork.
