Friday was the cutoff for the bills to be voted out of the House Appropriations and Senate Ways & Means committees. All the bills that are still alive now move to their full house of origin for consideration and possible amendment, and the deadline for bills to pass through their house of origin is Wednesday, March 8. In other words, in order to be alive after March 8, a bill that started in the House committees must pass a floor vote of the House and vice versa in the Senate. ... Read More >>

HB 1337, the physician licensure compact bill, passed the House with a vote of 94 to 3. SB 5436 passed the Senate 49-0. The bill makes the definition of "home" more flexible in the state's telemedicine law. ... Read More >>

House Republican leaders released on February 17 a proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The proposal — the most detailed to date of how the ACA would be replaced — outlines broad policy changes but lacks enough detail to for us to fully understand how Washington State’s patients, hospitals and health systems will be affected. However, the significant reductions in federal Medicaid funds would have a major impact on our state and erode the coverage gains achieved under the ACA.... Read More >>

The Health Care Authority (HCA) published additional guidance for providers still working toward participating in the HCA’s Link4Health Clinical Data Repository (CDR). This guidance comes after the February 1 first implementation date for providers to share electronic health record (EHR) Medicaid patient data via the CDR.... Read More >>

Friday was cutoff for bills to be voted out of their original policy committees in Olympia. To make it easy, we’ve listed all of the major bills we’ve been tracking.... Read More >>

It was an exciting week leading up to Friday’s cutoff for bills to be voted out of their original policy committee. To make it easy, we’ve listed all of the major bills we’ve been tracking. This is just a partial list; WSHA/AWPHD staff have reviewed more than 300 bills thus far.... Read More >>

Yesterday, the House Republican leaders released a proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The proposal outlines broad policy changes but lacks enough detail to for us to fully understand how Washington State’s patients, hospitals and health systems will be affected. However, the significant reductions in federal Medicaid funds would have a major impact on our state and erode the coverage gains achieved under the ACA.... Read More >>

Effective March 8, hospitals, including critical access hospitals, must notify Medicare patients when the patients are placed into outpatient observation status. Hospitals must provide oral and written notification through the use of the standard Medicare Outpatient Observation Notification (MOON) form. On February 22 from 12-1 p.m., WSHA will provide a members-only webinar to help hospitals with implementation.... Read More >>

This week in Olympia, WSHA testified on HB 1854, which would require the Medicaid managed care plans to assemble an adequate and appropriate network of covered SNFs, monitored and enforced by the Washington State Health Care Authority. It would also create an incentive to place patients at a SNF by creating new fees on the plan if it has not placed the patient in a reasonable amount of time.... Read More >>

An estimated 28.2 million U.S. residents (8.8%) lacked health insurance when surveyed during the first nine months of 2016, according to a report released February 14 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The uninsured rate for adults under age 65 was 9.3% in Medicaid expansion states (like Washington State) and 17.5% in non-expansion states. ... Read More >>