Stimulus plan includes HIT, comparative effectiveness, NIH funds

Economic stimulus legislation signed into law by President Obama in February provides billions of dollars in extra funding for adopting electronic medical records systems, expanding comparative effectiveness research and boosting infrastructure and research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
  
The $787 billion package passed by the democratic Congress with only three Republican votes,  would spend more than $150 billion for a variety of healthcare programs, including $87 billion to help states with Medicaid, $25 billion to help people who have lost their jobs keep their employer-provided health insurance, and $19 billion to encourage adoption of health information technology (HIT). Congress and the new administration are convinced that widespread use of HIT will increase the efficiency of care and cut medical errors. Hospitals and physicians have been slow to adopt the technology, with cost and privacy issues stalling
passage of legislation.
   
Bolstered by an amendment from Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the package also includes $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health to support medical research ($5 billion) and improve university research facilities across the country ($1.5 billion). 
   
Dating back to last year, ASTRO and its partners in the cancer research community have continuously advocated for NIH funding in the stimulus package through Hill activities, letters to congressional leaders and ads. ASTRO is pleased that Congress recognized the important link between NIH funding and economic growth. There’s hope that the funding in the stimulus bill will spark Obama and congressional appropriators to build on the momentum and get NIH funding back on track.
   
Under the HIT plan, private practice physicians would be eligible for payments of $40,000 to $65,000 for showing that they are using  HIT, such as through the reporting of quality measures. Physicians would be subject to penalties if they fail to go electronic before fiscal 2016. Bill supporters said that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 90 percent of doctors and 70 percent of hospitals would adopt electronic medical records if the measure becomes law. 
   
Hospitals would be eligible for additional payments from Medicare and Medicaid of at least $2 million if they adopt electronic medical records before fiscal 2013. But payments could go as high as $11 million depending on a formula that considers their size and the amount of their Medicare payments.  But failing to adopt HIT by 2016 would result in penalties in the form of reductions in Medicare and Medicaid payments.
   
The  stimulus  legislation would provide additional funds to states for low-interest loans to help providers finance health information technology  and grants to regional health information exchanges.
   
The proposal also includes $1.1 billion for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to compare the  effectiveness  of different medical treatments. The measure would create a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness  Research.