Payment reform is essential to state participation in federal healthcare information technology stimulus efforts, according to participants in a panel at the HIMSS 2009 Annual Conference & Exhibition this week.
Aneesh Chopra, secretary of technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Jim Geringer, former Wyoming governor and current director of Policy and Public Sector Strategy at the Environmental Systems Research Institute addressed concerns about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and its effect on healthcare IT projects in the states.
“If we don’t believe payment reform is coming, we really shouldn’t play (in the stimulus money game),” Chopra said. Chopra said the state of Virginia is pursuing federal healthcare money, even though “the pathway to payment reform” is unclear at present.
“If there is no payment reform in Washington, we will request waivers for Medicaid reform at the state level,” Chopra affirmed.
According to Geringer, states need to be certain to address privacy concerns on healthcare IT projects. If privacy does not play a prominent role, the American public will not participate in state level initiatives like personal health records or healthcare information exchange, he said.
“There is always enough funding for our highest priorities,” Geringer said. “We just have to decide what our priorities are going to be.”
Chopra argued adamantly that states must only accept healthcare IT funding to work on serious projects. He rejected the notion that funds be used simply because they are available.
“This is not free money to subsidize some lame strategy that we wanted to do in the past but weren’t willing to fund,” Chopra said.