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LOBBYING REPORT |
Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (Section 5) - All Filers Are Required to Complete This Page
2. Address
Address1 | 25 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 700 |
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City | WASHINGTON |
State | DC |
Zip Code | 20001 |
Country | USA |
3. Principal place of business (if different than line 2)
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5. Senate ID# 2002-12
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6. House ID# 321900000
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TYPE OF REPORT | 8. Year | 2011 |
Q1 (1/1 - 3/31) | Q2 (4/1 - 6/30) | Q3 (7/1 - 9/30) | Q4 (10/1 - 12/31) |
9. Check if this filing amends a previously filed version of this report
10. Check if this is a Termination Report | Termination Date | |
11. No Lobbying Issue Activity |
INCOME OR EXPENSES - YOU MUST complete either Line 12 or Line 13 | |||||||||
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12. Lobbying | 13. Organizations | ||||||||
INCOME relating to lobbying activities for this reporting period was: | EXPENSE relating to lobbying activities for this reporting period were: | ||||||||
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Provide a good faith estimate, rounded to the nearest $10,000, of all lobbying related income for the client (including all payments to the registrant by any other entity for lobbying activities on behalf of the client). | 14. REPORTING Check box to indicate expense accounting method. See instructions for description of options. | ||||||||
Method A.
Reporting amounts using LDA definitions only
Method B. Reporting amounts under section 6033(b)(8) of the Internal Revenue Code Method C. Reporting amounts under section 162(e) of the Internal Revenue Code |
Signature | Digitally Signed By: Robert Doherty, Senior Vice President, Governmental Affairs and Public Policy |
Date | 04/15/2011 |
LOBBYING ACTIVITY. Select as many codes as necessary to reflect the general issue areas in which the registrant engaged in lobbying on behalf of the client during the reporting period. Using a separate page for each code, provide information as requested. Add additional page(s) as needed.
15. General issue area code HCR
16. Specific lobbying issues
Preserving Access to Primary Care Services: Address the shortage of primary care physicians; designate primary care as a shortage profession; provide scholarships and loan forgiveness in exchange for primary care service commitments to practice in critical shortage areas; provide grants for medical school mentorship programs and primary care training in community health centers; increase Title VII funding for primary care health programs; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps,
provide regulatory relief for primary care physicians; H.R. 7192/S. 1174, the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act.
Support Implementation and Improvement of the Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148, P.L. 111-152) by: Expanding coverage and improving Medicare benefits; Providing needed protections to guard against insurance practices that unfairly limit, deny or rescind coverage based on health status; Ensuring access to primary care physicians; and beginning to bend the cost curve; Prohibiting insurers from excluding or charging excessive rates to children based on pre-existing conditions, which later will be expanded to all persons; Covering young adults on their parents' plans; Eliminating lifetime and annual limits on health insurance coverage; Requiring that health insurers spend more on patient care and less on administration; support enactment of S. 248, the Empowering States to Innovate Act, which amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to: (1) allow states to apply for waivers of certain health insurance coverage requirements in such Act (including requirements for the establishment of qualified health plans and health insurance exchanges) for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2014 (currently, January 1, 2017), and (2) require the waiver application process to begin not later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act; Phasing out the Medicare Part D doughnut hole; Eliminating patient cost-sharing for preventive services offered by Medicare or private insurers; Increasing Medicare and Medicaid payments to primary care physicians; Establishing a new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to help physicians and patients make care decisions based on the best available evidence; Creating a new Center on Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to fund pilots of delivery models to improve outcomes and reduce costs, including patient-centered medical homes; Training more primary care physicians through the National Health Service Corps, Title VII health professions funding, and redistributing unused graduate medical education positions to primary care specialties facing shortages; Beginning in 2014, ensuring that nearly all Americans have access to coverage either through subsidized private health insurance offered by state health exchanges or through Medicaid, if they don't already have access to coverage through an employer, Medicare, or another public program.
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS): Support the re-nomination of Don Berwick, MD, as the Administrator of CMS and urge the Finance Committee to approve his nomination in a timely manner; Support delaying the date from Apr. 1, 2011 to no earlier than July 1, 2011 at which CMS would fully enforce the so-called physician face-to-face encounter rule that is the outgrowth of section 6407 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
Medicare Physician Payment Reform: Increase Medicare Fee Schedule Payments to make primary care competitive in the market with other physician career and specialty choices; create a fast track authority to develop and implement new physician payment models that better align payment with effective, efficient, patient-centered care such as the Patient Centered Medical Home; provide a voluntary shared savings program, Accountable Care Organizations, that promotes accountability for services delivered to a defined Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) patient population with the goals of increasing the quality and efficiency of services delivered; provide separate Medicare payment for specific care coordination services provided principally by primary care physicians; revise Medicare budget neutrality rules to recognize the value of primary care in reducing Medicare baseline spending; increase the accuracy of physician work relative value units under the Medicare physician fee schedule; improve the accuracy of practice expense RVUs under the Medicare Fee Schedule; increase Medicare bonus payments for primary care services provided in designated shortage areas; provide stable, positive, predictable updates under Medicares reimbursement formula; and replacing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with a long term solution that provides for stable, predictable updates for physicians (H.R. 3961). Urged action on legislation to provide stability and predictability for the Medicare physician payments at least through 2011; The Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010, H.R. 4994, prevents the 25 percent physician payment cuts under Medicare, brought on by the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, from going into effect on Jan.1, 2011, and continues current rates through Dec. 31, 2011.
Medical Education: Provide incentives to medical schools, community health centers, or hospitals, to increase the numbers of physicians choosing primary care; authorize HHS to selectively eliminate GME caps for residency programs in primary care; restore the 20/220 loan deferment pathway (S.646 in the 111th Congress).
Healthcare in the FY2012 Budget: recommend funding of $65 billion for discretionary public health programs (Function 550) in the FY 2012 budget resolution.
Appropriations FY2011: Advocated for strong investment in Titles VII and VIII programs in FY 2011 Labor, Health & Human Services & Educations appropriations bills; these programs provide direct financial support for health care workforce development and education.
Public Health Programs and Funding: Increase funding to accomplish the core missions and activities of the major federal public health agencies, including: biomedical and behavioral research, disease prevention and health promotion, access to safety net health care services, health professions education, mental health and substance abuse, health services research, health care for American Indians and Alaska natives, food and drug safety.
Preserving the Safety Net Function of Federally-funded Health Care Programs, such as CHIP: H.R. 5268 (in the 110th Congress), to provide for a temporary increase of the Federal medical assistance percentage under the Medicaid Program; include expansion of the medical home as well as transformation grants for the medical home in CHIP re-authorizing legislation.
Improving Access to Primary Care in the Context of Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Legislation (H.R. 3962/H.R. 3590/H.R. 4872):
Ensure that all Americans will have access to affordable coverage.
Provide sliding scale subsidies based on income to buy coverage from qualified plans; Qualified plans should: provide evidence-based benefits, including preventive services; and be prohibited from excluding persons with pre-existing conditions, charging them more, cherry-picking enrollees, or cancelling or failing to renew coverage; Expand Medicaid to cover all persons below the Federal Poverty Level and ensure fair payments to participating physicians; As coverage becomes affordable, all persons should participate and coverage should be guaranteed; Responsibility for financing should be shared by individuals, employers and government.
Pilot test new Medicare payment models that re-align incentives to support effective, efficient, patient-centered, coordinated care. Priority should be given to models designed to support the value of services provided by primary care physicians as well as to models that would create incentives, across physician specialties and sites of services, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care provided. Policy criteria for selecting the most promising models for pilot testing should be developed, in consultation with outside experts; The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), which has shown great promise in meeting the policy objectives suggested above, should be among the models selected for broader testing on a national pilot basis; the establishing of a new CMS Innovation Center to pilot-test new payment models, such as the medical home; implementing a new 2-prong demonstration project consisting of an independent practice-based medical home model and a community-based medical home model, a State Medicaid health (medical) home option, an Independence at Home demonstration project that contains many medical home features, the use of the medical home model for treatment or services under private health plans, the requirement of health plans to provide incentives to promote and report on medical home services provided, the establishment of community health teams and a primary care extension program to educate and support primary care practices in the delivery of medical home services, and the establishment of a demonstration project to educate physicians and other clinicians in training in the competencies required to deliver care consistent with the medical home care model.
Improve Medicare fee for service system payments to make primary care competitive with other specialties. Replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula with a system that provides fair, predictable, and stable updates for physician services, and fully account for such changes in the Medicare baseline spending assumptions; enacting a 10% bonus payment under Medicare for primary care services.
Establish a national workforce policy to ensure sufficient numbers of primary care and other physicians. Establish a national workforce commission to recommend national goals relating to the numbers and distribution of physicians and other health care professionals, including increasing the supply of primary care physicians; Increase the number of Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions available each year in adult primary care specialties; Provide new loan repayment and medical school scholarship programs in exchange for primary care service in critical shortage health facilities, or in critical shortage areas of the country; Increase funding for scholarships and loan repayment programs under Title VII as well as increase funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC); Provide new practice-entry bonus for scholarship or loan repayment award recipients who remain in underserved communities after completion of service obligation.
Reform the medical liability system and the enormous costs associated with frivolous lawsuits and defensive medicine; Impose caps on non-economic damages; and test and fund new models--like health courts, which would have cases heard by an expert panel rather than by a lay jury; Urge enactment of H.R. 5, the HEALTH Act, which would set national standards for medical malpractice, including a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages.
Additional issues under H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3962. Requiring a study by the Institute of Medicine of geographic variations in quality and cost of care and methodologies to reduce such variation;; Improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) and ensuring that no punitive payment penalties are imposed under PQRI; Administrative simplification; Appointments to the new Workforce Commission, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), as created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
17. House(s) of Congress and Federal agencies Check if None
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, U.S. SENATE, Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Health & Human Services - Dept of (HHS), President of the U.S.
18. Name of each individual who acted as a lobbyist in this issue area
First Name | Last Name | Suffix | Covered Official Position (if applicable) | New |
Robert |
Doherty |
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Brett |
Baker |
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Neil |
Kirschner |
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Thomas |
Kuhn |
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Jack |
Ginsburg |
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Renee |
Butkus |
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Michael |
Barr |
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Debra |
Lansey |
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Ryan |
Crowley |
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Shari |
Erickson |
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19. Interest of each foreign entity in the specific issues listed on line 16 above Check if None
Information Update Page - Complete ONLY where registration information has changed.
20. Client new address
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22. New General description of client’s business or activities
LOBBYIST UPDATE
23. Name of each previously reported individual who is no longer expected to act as a lobbyist for the client
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ISSUE UPDATE
24. General lobbying issue that no longer pertains
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AFFILIATED ORGANIZATIONS
25. Add the following affiliated organization(s)
Internet Address:
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26. Name of each previously reported organization that is no longer affiliated with the registrant or client
1 | 3 | 5 |
2 | 4 | 6 |
FOREIGN ENTITIES
27. Add the following foreign entities:
Name | Address |
Principal place of business (city and state or country) |
Amount of contribution for lobbying activities | Ownership percentage in client | ||||||||||
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28. Name of each previously reported foreign entity that no longer owns, or controls, or is affiliated with the registrant, client or affiliated organization
1 | 5 | 9 |
2 | 6 | 10 |
3 | 7 | 11 |
4 | 8 | 12 |