Health Care Efficiency Through Flexibility Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5347) to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to ensure the availability of appropriate collection types for quality reporting under the Medicare Shared Savings Program, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Health Care Efficiency Through Flexibility Act led by Committee on Ways and Means members, the Subcommittee on Health Chairman Vern Buchanan and Representative Jimmy Panetta.

As the lead sponsor of this legislation, Congressman Buchanan has been a strong champion for ensuring that our healthcare system is focused on the right outcomes--including improved patient health through chronic disease prevention--rather than Washington paperwork mandates.

This bill ensures that complex reporting requirements do not overwhelm healthcare providers or distract them from their primary job, caring for patients.

Accountable Care Organizations, or ACOs, are groups of healthcare providers who are responsible for improving patient health and reducing spending through value-based care. More than 500 such ACOs, comprising nearly 700,000 medical providers, cared for over 12 million Medicare beneficiaries just last year. In their 14-year history, ACOs have saved taxpayers $12 billion.

ACOs are required to submit data on patient outcomes and operations, known as quality measures, to the Federal Government to track their performance and determine their shared savings.

The current system for reporting quality measures is labor intensive. Some ACOs use as many as 15 different electronic health record systems to track and report this data. One health system spent $5.6 million and 100,000 staff hours on reporting in a single year.

Digital reporting could ease this burden, while potentially saving $14 billion

in national health costs and investing resources in better care.

However, the lack of guidance disrupts operations and means digital reporting has yet to lighten the load for many medical providers.

This bipartisan bill provides stability for quality measure reporting and flexibility for smaller provider practices. It also establishes a pilot program for digital reporting to determine best practices.

This policy is particularly helpful for over 12,000 small, rural, or independent providers who are committed to lowering costs and improving patient outcomes but often lack the sophisticated software needed to comply with the digital reporting regime.

Medical providers should not waste precious resources and man-hours on reporting data to Washington bureaucrats when the need for patient care is so great. This bill ensures that ACOs can put quality patient care first.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Buchanan), the vice chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill before us today was approved with total support by Ways and Means Republicans and Democrats. The purpose of value-based care is to implement solutions to some of this Nation's most pressing health challenges, including the high cost of care.

Digital reporting of quality measures holds the promise of relieving the administrative costs associated with accountable care organizations. However, that potential does not do doctors, patients, or taxpayers any good when the rules and timeline for digital reporting of quality measures are uncertain.

Ultimately, this bill keeps medical providers at accountable care organizations focused on providing better healthcare at a lower cost. That eliminates the potential distraction of complying with new digital reporting requirements that are yet to be finalized.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5347, the Health Care Efficiency Through Flexibility Act, which was introduced by two of my good friends, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Buchanan) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Panetta).

Mr. Speaker, this is a commonsense, bipartisan bill to improve care for Medicare patients while reducing burdens on healthcare providers. The bill does this by expanding quality reporting options for accountable care organizations.

These organizations, accountable care organizations, are groups of doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare professionals who work together with the aim of providing better care to patients on Medicare. They do this by coordinating their efforts and sharing information with one another rather than working separately.

These organizations were created under the Affordable Care Act to improve healthcare quality and to lower costs. When an accountable care organization is able to improve care and reduce costs, they get to share in the savings generated.

The legislation would provide for a wider variety of quality measure reporting methods to be used in Medicare through the year 2029. It also creates a digital quality measure pilot program to ensure that any transition to digital quality measures continues to assess care quality and reduce burdens for providers.

The Health Care Efficiency Through Flexibility Act is supported by the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations, America's Physician Groups, Epic Systems, Oracle Health, Accountable for Health, and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.

Doctors in my district tell me, like many of my colleagues, all the time that they want to spend more time caring for their patients and less time with paperwork and medical records systems. Today's physicians are bogged down in insurance paperwork and are severely underpaid because Medicare reimbursement rates have not kept up with the rate of inflation.

Physicians work incredibly hard every day to care for us and our loved ones in our communities, and they deserve to be supported so that they can continue to provide quality care for patients across the country.

This bill is a step toward ensuring that physicians have the support they need to provide the best care possible for their parents. The Health Care Efficiency Through Flexibility Act received unanimous support from the members of the House Ways and Means Committee, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill on the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5347, the Health Care Efficiency Through Flexibility Act, is a commonsense, bipartisan bill to provide more flexibility when accountable care organizations report on the care they provide to their patients.

This bill ensures that the CMS provides a smooth transition as it improves these reporting requirements, thereby reducing confusion and administrative burdens for physicians who are with us at the most vulnerable times in our lives.

While Congress continues to work on other legislation to address physician payment issues and more, I urge my colleagues to support this bill that Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Panetta have worked on together in a bipartisan fashion. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Smith for his incredible leadership over the years.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of my bill, the Health Care Efficiency Through Flexibility Act, which helps minimize burdens on value-based care organizations.

We must move away from fee-for-service. As someone who has been in business for a long time, the incentives are wrong. That is part of the problem. The more you do, the more you make. The sicker you are, the more you make, and I just don't like it. Not to say that doctors take advantage of it, but the incentives are wrong, and we need to fix that.

That is why I am in strong support of accountable care organizations. Americans are served better, and the focus needs to be on quality of care, not quantity. As our health system continues shifting toward value-based care, we need to do everything we can to make healthcare more supportive, especially in ACOs.

ACOs and Medicare share a portion of it in terms of the program. They save approximately $2 billion annually. My bill ensures a smooth transition to digital reporting so physicians can be more focused on their patients themselves.

I thank Mr. Panetta for his bipartisan leadership and for helping me, working together on this. I thank Leader Scalise and the whip for letting me bring this to the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Health Care Efficiency Through Flexibility Act.