Advocacy Successes
Physician Advocacy Successes
Good health policy is made with physicians in the discussion.
MSDC, working with its members, partners, and other organizations, has won major policy victories to help its members practice medicine. Below is a sampling of those victories. Do you want to be a vital part of the next policy victory helping improve the health of the District? Contact us today.
Opioid Policy
- MSDC was added to the opioid fund oversight panel by the Council in its legislation authorizing the oversight body
Scope of Practice
- MSDC supported legislation to ban the sale of flavored electronic smoking devices and restrict the sale of electronic smoking devices.
- Working with a coalition, MSDC added funding to the DC budget to support the hiring of more license specialists to help with the delay in processing medical licenses.
Women's Health
- B24-143, to regulate certified midwives, passed the Council with MSDC's support
Health Equity
- Mayor Muriel Bowser signs into law the Electronic Medical Order for Scope of Treatment Registry Amendment Act of 2019. The eMOST Registry Amendment Act permits the creation of an electronic database of advanced directive wishes for District residents that can be tied into the health information exchange.
- Mayor Bowser signs into law the School Sunscreen Safety Temporary Amendment Act of 2019. The bill permits students to bring and apply sunscreen during the 2019-2020 school year.
- MSDC comments on the importance of funding United Medical Center (UMC) and health facilities in Wards 7 and 8 in the mayor's budget. Those comments are used almost verbatim in CM Trayon White's comments advocating for funding of United Medical Center.
Scope of Practice
- DC Health publishes draft regulations removing the 3 mandatory CME hours for HIV/AIDS awareness and replaces them with a requirement to fulfill 10% of mandatory CME hours with a topic from a public health priority list. DC Health then waived the requirement for 2020.
- The Strengthening Reproductive Health Protections Act of 2020 is signed into law with MSDC support. The bill prohibits government interference in reproductive decisions between a patient and doctor, and prohibits employers from penalizing physicians for practicing reproductive medicine outside of their work hours.
- The Mayor's Commission on Healthcare Systems Transformation releases its final recommendations. One recommendation is for the District to explore options to make providing health care more affordable, including financial relief for higher malpractice insurance rates.
- The Council removes "telephone" from the list of prohibited types of telemedicine to allow physicians and other providers to be reimbursed for telephone telemedicine appointments after MSDC and health community advocacy.
- MSDC worked with the Council to modify onerous language in the Health Care Reporting Amendment Act that potentially would have penalized physicians from seeking help for substance abuse or addiction issues.
Opioid/Drug Policy
- The Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF) waives prior authorization for key medication assisted treatments (MAT) treating substance use disorder patients in Medicaid.
- The Mayor signed into law The Access to Biosimilars Amendment Act of 2019, a top MSDC priority as it would help prescribers to prescribe more cost-effective drugs for patients.
Behavioral Health
- The Behavioral Health Parity Act of 2017, a major priority for MSDC and DCPA, officially becomes law. The legislation requires all health benefit plans offered by an insurance carrier to meet the federal requirements of the Wellstone/Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.
Health Equity
- The District Council passes B22-1001, The Health Insurance Marketplace Improvement Amendment Act of 2018. The bill prohibits the sale of Short Term, Limited Duration health plans and Association Health Plans (AHPs) in the DC Health Benefits Exchange.
Scope of Practice
- DC joins 28 other states in the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact with B22-177 becoming law. The IMLC is designed to ease physician licensure in multiple states.
Women's Health
- The Maternal Mortality Review Committee is established by law. The Committee is responsible for finding solutions to maternal health crisis in the District. District physicians are an important part of this vital committee.
- B22-106, The Defending Access to Women's Health Care Services Amendment Act, becomes law. The act requires insurers to cover health care services like breast cancer screening and STI screenings without cost-sharing.
Opioid Policy
- Right before the Council adjourned for the session, it passed B21-32, the Specialty Drug Copayment Limitation Act. The bill limits cost shifting by payers for prescription drugs.
Behavioral Health
- B21-0007 passes the Council. The Behavioral Health Coordination of Care Amendment Act of 2016 permitted the disclosing of mental health information between a mental health facility and the health professional caring for the patient.
Women's Health
- MSDC was proud to have worked on B21-20. The law requires payers to cover up to 12 months of prescription contraception, advancing women's health and equality.
Mayor Announces FY21 Budget (Updated)
Updates
Department of Health / DC Health
- The Department's gross operating budget would increase by 3.2%
- The Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Administration budget would be reduced by $2.5m from the approved FY20 budget.
- The Health Regulation and Licensing Administration budget would increase by $9.2m from the approved FY20 budget.
- The Community Health Administration budget would increase by $5.4m from the approved FY20 budget although it does include a $266,000 decrease in Perinatal and Infant Health funding.
- The budget includes a one-time $5,275,000 adjustment to "support primary care and specialty providers, prenatal care to labor and delivery in Wards 7 and 8, the implementation of acute care hospitals, the treatment of substance abuse, and clinical licensing"
- The Howard Center of Excellence would receive a $4.2m increase in funding
Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF)
- In response to the public health emergency, an additional $35m is budgeted to Medicaid
- DHCF's budget includes a $1,350,000 increase for physician supplemental payments to support large physician group at UMC campus and to support fee-for-service beneficiaries.
- The overall provider payment budget increased by $6.2m and there is no reduction in the provider rate
- However, there is a 47% decrease in physician care services payment for fee-for-service; this is offset according to the budget by an increase in MCO payments as the department shifts more people to managed care from fee-for-service.
- DHCF's budget also includes $485,000 to support the exchange of electronic advance directive forms
Funding for Priorities for Mayor's Commission on Health Systems Transformation
- A total of $4.8m is proposed to implement various recommendations, including:
- Retaining primary care and specialty care providers in high-need areas
- Enhancements for SHPDA's processes
- Implementation of electronic advanced directives
- Incentives to address social determinants of health
- Resources to link prenatal care services to labor & delivery services
- Resources for implicit bias training
- And more
Original story
Today DC Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled her revised budget for fiscal year 2021, as well as announced updates to the fiscal year 2020 budget. In light of the impact of the public health emergency on the District, the budget was highly anticipated to see what and how many cuts would be need in District government operations, and if increased spending could be supported in places.
Today's announcement did not contain some of the drastic cuts other localities are expecting in their budgets. In her press conference, the Mayor attributed much of that to the District's surplus in recent years as well as conservative spending guidelines. The majority of anticipated deficits for FY20 and FY21 - estimated to be about $722m and $774m respectively - would be filled by:
- Surplus funds from FY19
- Use of reserve funds
- Planning to pay off Nationals ballpark debts on time instead of early
- Elimination of cost-of-living adjustments and raises for District government employees
The budget does invest in a few key areas of interest to the healthcare community:
- As promised, investing $365m in building the new hospital on the St. Elizabeth's campus.
- Allocating an additional $25m+ to help Howard in its hospital and healthcare upgrades
- To cover an anticipated increase in Medicaid enrollees, adding $35m in increased enrollment costs
- Budgeting $4.8m in implementing the recommendations of the Mayor's Commission on Health Systems Transformation
The final point is important to MSDC, which as part of the Commission urged the District to support a network of independent physicians practices especially in underserved areas. It will be critical in the coming years to help residents receive treatment from local physicians to keep them out of the hospital.
Information will be added to this post as more budget information becomes available,
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