President Trump last week announced that he intends to nominate Stephen Hahn, CMO of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, to serve as FDA commissioner. In addition, Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at HHS, has replaced Ned Sharpless as FDA’s acting commissioner until a permanent commissioner is confirmed. (Source: Washington Post, 11/1)

CMS has released a final rule to update Medicare’s Hospital Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment Systems for calendar year (CY) 2020. CMS in the final rule said it will continue to implement site-neutral payments and payment cuts under Medicare’s 340B Drug Discount Program, despite separate court rulings striking down the policies. However, CMS did not finalize a proposal to require all hospitals to publicize their payer-negotiated rates for certain services because officials said they are working to expand the requirement to also include health insurers. (Sources: HealthLeaders Media, 11/2; Wall Street Journal, 11/1)

The Technical Assistance and Services Center (TASC), a program of the National Rural Health Resource Center, is pleased to announce a collection of resources for rural hospitals and provider-based rural health clinics to address disparities in COPD related care. This project was supported by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy via the Fiscal Year 2018 Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Supplemental Project.

Resources, Resources, Resources!

All of the resources from this project can be found on the TASC website. They include:

• The Rural Hospital Guide to Improving COPD
• The Rural COPD Podcast series
• Three webinars relating to COPD

Access the COPD section of the website by clicking here.

Health care for preventable non-communicable diseases, including heart disease and stroke, diabetes, and obesity costs the overall US healthcare system over $580 billion annually. More than 30 million Americans are now living with diabetes, 75 million are hypertensive, and nearly 40% of American adults are obese. There is need to transform chronic disease prevention in the US by identifying and scaling effective and innovative community-wide prevention strategies and increase financial investment in prevention. To help the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) better understand the barriers to effective chronic disease prevention, email your responses to preventionx@hhs.gov, with the subject line “PreventionX RFI Comment” by December 13, 2019.  Click here for more information..

As part of an ongoing effort by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) to assess the extent to which FORHP-administered grant programs align with the needs of rural communities, HRSA has published a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting public comment.  Respondents are asked to comment on whether and how the eligibility criteria governing FORHP’s community-based grant programs affect rural communities’ ability to leverage grant funding through FORHP.  RFI responses must be provided via email to RFIComments@hrsa.gov and must reference “Rural Health Grants Eligibility RFI” in the title.  Submissions are due no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on November 23, 2019. HRSA will not accept hard-copy responses or other formats. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced $2.27 billion in Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grants  were awarded to cities, counties, states, and local community-based organizations to support a comprehensive system of primary medical care, medication, and essential support services for people with HIV in the United States.  The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP), administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration’s HIV/AIDS Bureau, plays a leading role in the Administration’s new Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative.  According to most recent data, there are more than 12,000 RWHAP clients who visited only rural providers.  Of these, 85.5 percent were virally suppressed, meaning that HIV levels have an “undetectable” status following consistent use of daily antiretroviral therapy.  Access the list of grantees here.

It’s worth your time to apply. This NHSC loan repayment option has a higher acceptance rate than others because of its exclusive availability to a small cohort.

Start your application today.

The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Students to Service Loan Repayment Program (S2S LRP) application has been extended and will now close on Thursday, November 21 at 7:30 p.m. ET. Read the Application and Program Guidance (PDF-1.2 MB) carefully before you start your application.

About the Program: S2S LRP provides up to $120,000 in tax-free student loan repayment to medical (MD and DO) or dental (DDS or DMD) students in their final year of school.

• You commit to provide primary health care at an approved NHSC site in a Health Professional Shortage Area of greatest need after graduating.
• Service commitment is full-time for at least 3 years or part-time for 6 years.
• You must be a U.S. citizen or national and enrolled in an eligible medical or dental degree program at a U.S. accredited school.
• Installments are paid to you annually in a lump sum. When applied to qualified health professional student loans, these can significantly lower your overall student debt by reducing accrued interest.
• You may continue service through the NHSC Loan Repayment Program and could potentially pay off all of your educational debt.

Additional Resources

• Application and Program Guidance (PDF-1.2 MB)
• Fact Sheet (PDF-190 KB)
• Search for NHSC-approved sites on the Health Workforce Connector

Stories from the Field: Dr. Brian Freeman, Fairfax, VA