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House Bill Targets MU Parity for Rural Health Clinics

 |  By Alexandra Wilson Pecci  
   November 30, 2011

Several months ago, I wrote about efforts to correct a glitch in the 2009 economic stimulus law that would have made rural health clinics ineligible for meaningful use incentive payments.

The calls for the correction have been heard: On the first annual National Rural Health Day earlier this month, Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) introduced legislation to correct the error.

If passed, H. R. 3458 would be a victory for rural health clinics. In fact, Aric Sharp, CEO of Quincy, IL-based Quincy Medical Group, tells HealthLeaders that it’s "the single most important achievement for RHCs in recent history."

It should also serve as a powerful reminder that rural health organizations don’t have to be voiceless or marginalized.

But that’s exactly how many of them feel. Sharp says that even as his organization rallied support for fixing the error, he often heard people suggest that nothing could be done. Throughout the process, he and his colleagues learned that rural health clinics need a much stronger voice in the national dialogue.

"Many rural health clinics we talked to just didn’t feel like their issues were getting enough attention. It has become all too common for policymakers to overlook, while certainly not intentionally, how legislation affects the 3,500 rural health clinics across our country," Sharp tells HealthLeaders via e-mail. "I believe the introduction of this legislation demonstrates that rural health clinics can have a strong voice if they are willing to put in the effort to bring awareness and offer solutions on the Hill that are palatable." 

Moreover, it shows that there are strong rural health advocates in Congress, such as Representatives Schock, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Dennis Rehberg (R-MT), and Greg Walden (R-OR), Sharp says.

According to Sharp, the legislation will implement a technical correction to allow physicians practicing in certified rural health clinics to be eligible for incentive payments for meaningful use, e-prescribing, and the physician quality reporting initiative.

The legislation also comes with no additional cost since "physicians in rural health clinics were not excluded in the original scoring cost performed by CBO [Congressional Budget Office] for the meaningful use incentive program," Sharp says. "Thus we only needed to apply the correction so that these physicians would have an equal opportunity to attain the incentive monies already made available by the program."

Although the issue has clearly gained traction, Sharp stresses that the fight’s not over yet. "H.R. 3458 has a real chance of passage, but we need providers to continue to reach out to their Congressional members conveying their support," he says.

Rural health leaders should also see that they can affect change in a big way. There’s strength in numbers, and that strength starts with building awareness and support for issues that are important to rural healthcare and the roughly 62 million Americans who live in rural and frontier areas.

"My advice would be to reach out to your peers and make your voice heard, but don’t stop there.  Take the next steps to bring awareness to your issue on the local, state, and national level," Sharp says. "I do believe there is opportunity to build a more consistent voice for rural health clinics in Washington."

Alexandra Wilson Pecci is an editor for HealthLeaders.

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