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We are still accepting submissions for the Winter Edition of Rural Health News - VRHA's bi-annual print publication. Submissions should be forwarded to Beth O'Connor no later than January 15.

Some Blacksburg medical students are trading New Year's celebrations at home for children's smiles in Latin America. The Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (a VRHA member) has a mission trip set for El Salvador, and local elementary school students are making sure they're prepared.

Students at Kipps Elementary School in Blacksburg have been gathering goods for kids they'll never meet. The school supplies and clothing will be delivered by 28 medical students, doctors and staff from the college.  They're making the mission trip, as they have many times before, to help kids in orphanages. 

Three Montgomery County schools teamed up with the medical college to donate the supplies and teach a lesson here at home.

Read the full article.

On December 21, VRHA members and partners were sent an Action Alert regarding the Senate vote on the health care reform bill. The Action Alert should have stated that you were encouraged to contact your Senators regarding your opinion on the bill.

Neither the Virginia Rural Health Association nor the National Rural Health Association has endorsed the Senate bill as currently written. VRHA regrets the error.

Registration for the 2010 Rural Health Summit scheduled for March 16-18 at the Institute Conference Center in Danville, VA is now open! 

To register and for more detailed information: www.va-srhp.org/2010-rural-health-summit.htm. 

New Office for Rural Retreat

From the Remote Area Medical annual report:

There have been 27 RAM expeditions this year, as well as 365 days of operation in Guyana, South America, with our free air ambulance service and cervical cancer program among the remote Indian villages. This year saw our return to service among the Native Americans here in the U. S., and a drama-filled expedition to Los Angeles, California.

While Congress and the White House debate the issue of health care reform, RAM volunteers are out there delivering the care and staying out of the political argument. Despite our neutrality, the world media continues to besiege our medical events with uninvited attendance and subsequent analysis of the problems facing underserved Americans. Some of that analysis is good, and I am glad to say that one aspect of the media focus has been particularly beneficial. As many of you know, Tennessee is the only state in the country with an open door policy allowing practitioners of all healing arts to come here on a temporary volunteer basis to provide free care for the underserved. The only requirement is to hold a valid license in their medical specialty in one of the 50 United States.

The Tennessee law should be implemented nationally. If such legislation included protection for volunteers against malpractice lawsuits, it would start an avalanche of "RAM-type" events all over this country. Thousands of willing volunteers are standing by from Maine to California and millions of underserved Americans would benefit at no cost to the government or taxpayer.


Read the full report.

A message from Senator Warner regarding the health reform bill:

The U.S. Senate approved its version of legislation that aims to reform our health care system.  

I voted in support of the Senate health care bill.  While this legislation is far from perfect, I believe it will start to curb soaring health care costs for consumers and businesses, reduce our federal budget deficits over time, and extend the life of the Medicare program.

In addition, a dozen of my freshman colleagues worked together to successfully add significant cost containment measures to the Senate proposal, and we have expanded programs that deliver higher-quality care at lower cost. 
Our amendments, which encourage innovation, broaden transparency and aggressively attack inefficiency and fraud, have received bipartisan support, as well as endorsements from AARP, the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, and major businesses that make-up The Business Roundtable.

Rising medical costs are strangling the American economy, hurting American families, and killing our ability to compete globally. This legislation represents a strong start, and includes almost every approach suggested by leading experts to try to tackle medical costs that have more than doubled in the past decade.

As this bill moves to conference, the focus must remain on the goals of reducing health care costs, increasing efficiency and accountability, and incorporating private-sector solutions to our health care challenges.
For more information on my views on the Senate health reform bill, or to read the legislation, click here.  

By Pat Wechsler - Bloomberg.com

To combat a nationwide shortage of doctors, medical schools in the U.S. plan to add 3,000 first- year students by 2018. It won’t be enough.

The expansion, pushed for by the Association of American Medical Colleges, is being undercut by a U.S. health-care overhaul designed to supply medical insurance to an additional 31 million Americans and a cap on government-funded physician training programs that’s been frozen in place for 12 years, said Steven Safyer, of Montefiore Medical Center.

Last year, there were 16,721 fewer primary-care doctors than needed in inner city and rural areas, according to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. Residencies, the hospital based-training doctors undergo before they can practice medicine on their own, have been capped by Congress at about 90,000 since 1997 as a way to curb rising medical costs.

Read the full article.

Criteria for Electronic Health Records designed for long term and post acute care services are open for public comment. The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) public comment period will remain open until January 12, 2010, at 5 PM Central Time. Comments will only be accepted via web form. 

The 2011 Long Term and Post Acute Care (LTPAC) criteria include a core set of requirements that apply to products for use in any of these areas of care: Skilled Nursing facilities, Medicare-certified Home Health agencies, inpatient and home Hospice programs, Inpatient Rehabilitation facilities, and Long Term Acute Care settings.

In addition, there are two, separate add-on sets of criteria for 2011 certification, representing EHR requirements specific to Skilled Nursing Facilities and Medicare-certified Home Health Agencies. Finally, as is traditional for CCHIT, we are publishing "Roadmap" criteria to indicate expected requirements in the future, for 2013 or 2015.

Click here for additional information and instructions for submitting comments.

Mark your calendar

For more information about these and other events, visit http://www.vrha.org/events.html

January 25-27: NRHA's Policy Institute - Washington, DC
February 7 – 10: Annual Rural Health Care Leadership Conference - Phoenix, AZ
March 16: Rural Workforce Summit - Danville
March 17: Annual Rural Health Summit - Danville
March 18: Telehealth Summit - Danville

Resources

Statehealthfacts.org has recently added new and updated data on Demographics and the Economy, Medicaid & CHIP, Providers & Service Use, and Women's Health. You can also view a list of all recent updates.

Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records
As required by the HITECH Act, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published an initial set of standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria to enhance the interoperability, functionality, utility, and security of health information technology.  These criteria are outlined in the interim final rule (IFR) on Standards & Certification Criteria issued today by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).  

In a related announcement, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that outlines provisions governing the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs, including a proposed definition for the central concept of “meaningful use” of EHR technology.  In order for professionals and hospitals to be eligible to receive payments under the incentive programs, provided through the Recovery Act, they must be able to demonstrate meaningful use of a certified EHR system.  The proposed standards and certification criteria in the IFR are fundamentally linked to and specifically designed to support the 2011 meaningful use criteria.

Medicare Learning Network
The revised Understanding the Remittance Advice (RA) for Professional Providers Web-Based Training (WBT), has been made available by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare Learning Network (MLN). Available for Continuing Education credit, this course provides instructions to help fee-for-service Medicare providers and their billing staffs interpret the RA received from Medicare and reconcile it against submitted claims. It additionally provides guidance on how to read Electronic Remittance Advices (ERAs) and Standard Paper Remittance Advices (SPRs), as well as information for balancing an RA. This course also presents an overview of software that Medicare provides free to providers in order to view ERAs. This training can be accessed by visiting http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MLNgeninfo/ and scrolling to the “Related Links Inside CMS” page section. Within these links, select Web Based Training (WBT) Modules and then Understanding the Remittance Advice for Professional Providers from the list of training courses provided.

Funding Opportunities

Finding Answers: Disparities Research for Change
Application Deadline: Feb. 4, 2010
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is committed to ensuring that all Americans receive high-quality, high-value health care. In 2005 RWJF launched Finding Answers: Disparities Research for Change, a national initiative focused on discovering and evaluating innovative interventions to move the disparities field beyond the documentation of racial and ethnic differences in health care to actually implementing efforts to eliminate these gaps in care. Finding Answers focuses specifically on reducing disparities in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and depression; diseases for which the evidence of racial and ethnic disparities is strong and the recommended standards of care are clear.

Rural Health Essay Scholarship Contest
High school and college students from Virginia Farm Bureau member families who are interested in health-related careers in rural areas have until March 31 to enter Virginia Farm Bureau Federation's 2010 Rural Health Essay Scholarship Contest.