Editor: Joseph S. Bailes, MD, Chair, ASCO Government Relations Council

ASCO Members Visit Capitol Hill To Discuss Cancer Care Priorities
Members of ASCO’s Government Relations Committee visited key lawmakers on Capitol Hill to discuss ASCO’s priority issues during the health reform debate.

ASCO President-Elect Testifies before House Subcommittee on Health
ASCO President-Elect George W. Sledge, Jr., MD, addressed breast cancer awareness, treatment and prevention.

ASCO Signs on to Letter to HHS Addressing Meaningful Use of EHRs
ASCO, along with 35 physician organizations, sent a letter to the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to express concern with the definition of “meaningful use” for electronic health records.

White House Allocating Stimulus Package Funding for Medical Research
On September 30, President Obama announced the use of $5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for medical research, to support more than 12,000 grant awards.

NIH Seeks Input from Users of Health Information
NIH is posting a Request for Information to gather insight and a better understanding of the health information needs and information-seeking behaviors of NIH health consumer audiences.

FDA Issues Alert on Heparin
On October 1, FDA released a news alert highlighting a manufacturing change that may decrease the potency of heparin.

CMS Holding Provider Conference Call on 2009 PQRI
CMS’s Provider Communications Group will host a national provider conference call on the 2009 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative.

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ASCO Members Visit Capitol Hill To Discuss Cancer Care Priorities
Members of ASCO’s Government Relations Committee visited key lawmakers on Capitol Hill to discuss ASCO’s priority policy issues during the health reform debate. ASCO members highlighted the need to to prevent proposed cuts to oncology in the Medicare physician fee schedule and to.sustain and increase funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In addition, the Senate Finance Committee approved the America’s Healthy Future Act, legislation to reform the health care system introduced in mid-September by Finance Committee Chair Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), by a vote of 13 to 9. Senate Leadership will now merge this bill with S. 1679, the Affordable Health Choices Act, passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee earlier this year. The House is also working to merge its health reform legislation, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act (H.R. 3200), as passed in the Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Education and Labor committees.

ASCO also posted a short video online, highlighting ASCO CEO Allen Lichter, MD, who explains how the proposed 6 percent cut to oncology in the Medicare physician fee schedule will harm treatment and care for people with cancer. Dr. Lichter overviews some of the potentially dire effects of these cuts, noting that cuts to date are already causing oncologists to close community practices, consolidate locations, and turn away Medicare patients.

In addition, Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) has drafted a “Dear Colleague” letter urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to not implement the proposed cuts to oncology in the Medicare fee schedule. This letter is a complementary effort to the Dear Colleague letter sent last month by Reps. Charlie Gonzalez (D-TX) and Mike Rogers (R-MI). Please call your Congressman before noon tomorrow to ask him or her to sign onto the letter, before Rep. Israel sends it to CMS.

For more information about ASCO’s policy priorities, contact ASCO’s Cancer Policy & Clinical Affairs Department at 571-483-1670, email publicpolicy@asco.org, or visit www.asco.org/policypriorities.


ASCO President-Elect Testifies before House Subcommittee on Health
ASCO President-Elect George W. Sledge, Jr., MD, testified October 7 before the House Subcommittee on Health of the Energy & Commerce Committee at a hearing addressing breast cancer awareness, treatment and prevention.

In his testimony, Dr. Sledge reviewed three areas that span the continuum of cancer care: patient access to appropriate screening, patient education and public awareness, and quality measurement in cancer care. Dr. Sledge spoke about ASCO’s long history of work in developing and testing quality measures for cancer care and highlighted ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) program, which allows oncologists to systematically assess the quality of care they provide and engage in data-driven practice improvement initiatives.

Dr. Sledge also stated that efforts to educate young women on the causes and risks of breast cancer must be evidence based, in order to reduce the possibility of alarming individuals who are not at heightened risk of being diagnosed with the disease.

For more information, contact ASCO’s Cancer Policy & Clinical Affairs Department at 571-483-1670 or publicpolicy@asco.org.


ASCO Signs on to Letter to HHS Addressing Meaningful Use of EHRs
ASCO, along with 35 other physician organizations, sent a letter to the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the Department of Health and Human Services, to express concern with the definition of “meaningful use” for electronic health records (EHRs) being debated by the Health Information Technology Policy Committee.

The primary concern has to do with the reporting of quality measures, specifically the need for more measures that are targeted to specialty providers, as the vast majority of measures listed in a draft “meaningful use matrix” apply primarily to primary care.

ASCO and the other organizations are concerned that the momentum for implementing EHRs ignited through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (ARRA-HITECH) may be lost on the specialty physician community if measures included in their domain of medicine are not reflected in future versions of the meaningful use matrix.

Without quality measures for all specialties that incorporate standardized data elements and have been field tested to assure reliability and lack of unintended consequences, there is concern that the incentives provided by ARRA-HITECH will not be adequate to encourage the majority of physician specialties to adopt EHRs.

The letter states that it is important that the measurement reporting aspect of meaningful use be determined on a specialty-by-specialty basis that takes into account the clinically relevant and meaningful quality measures available for each specialty.

For more information, contact ASCO’s Cancer Policy & Clinical Affairs Department at 571-483-1670, or email publicpolicy@asco.org.


White House Allocating Stimulus Package Funding for Medical Research
On September 30, President Obama announced the use of $5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for medical research, to support more than 12,000 grant awards.

The Recovery Act-funded NIH grants cover several areas, including cancer, heart disease, autism, HIV-AIDS, and H1N1 Flu.

In addition, more than $1 billion of the grant funding is dedicated to research applying the technology produced by the Human Genome Project between 1990 and 2003. This new funding will aid researchers in the study of genomic changes linked to cancer, heart, lung, and blood disease and autism, potentially leading to new treatments and cures.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) posted additional information about its use of the ARRA funds on its web site. Fifty-nine percent of the $1.26 billion NCI received is dedicated to supplementing or awarding new grants, and 39 percent is dedicated to contracts to accomplish “task-oriented research.” This includes $175 million for The Cancer Genome Atlas to collect more than 20,000 tissue samples from more than 20 cancers, and determine in detail all of the genetic changes in thousands of these tumor samples.

Funds also were devoted to new initiatives, such as the Chemical Biology Consortium to help develop promising targeted therapies and Accelerating Clinical Trials of Novel Oncologic Pathways to fund 37 early phase clinical trials of new treatment regimens.

More information about NIH’s efforts under the Recovery Act is available online. NCI-specific information also is available online.


NIH Seeks Input from Users of Health Information
Early this year, President Obama issued a directive to all Federal agencies calling for greater transparency, public participation, and collaboration.

In response to this Directive, NIH is posting a Request for Information to gather insight and a better understanding of the health information needs and information-seeking behaviors of NIH health consumer audiences. NIH anticipates it will need to use new outreach strategies and tools, from community-level outlets to Internet-based social media, as a result of the information it expects to gather. Members of the public and organizations are invited and encouraged to participate in this public input opportunity.

Please consider providing your input to NIH and sharing this Request for Information with your interested patients as well. Complete the Request for Information online, or complete the PDF form.


FDA Issues Alert on Heparin
On October 1, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a news alert highlighting a manufacturing change that may decrease the potency of heparin. The change is based on new manufacturing controls, including a modification to the standard unit dose, adopted by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). Since manufactures in the United States label the amount of heparin included in their products based on USP standards, the standard unit dose will change. The FDA alert states that the revised USP standard and unit definition for heparin is about 10 percent less potent than the former USP unit. For more information, visit FDA’s web site.


CMS Holding Provider Conference Call on 2009 PQRI
The CMS Provider Communications Group will host a national provider conference call on the 2009 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI). The call will take place October 15 from 2:30 to 4:30 PM EDT. The 2009 PQRI consists of 153 quality measures and 7 measures groups.

The topics covered on this national provider call will include:

• The Alternative National Provider Index Feedback Report Distribution Process.
• Updates on 2008 PQRI and 2007 re-run PQRI incentive payments.
• An explanation of the paper and electronic remittance advice statement for determining incentive payments.

A PowerPoint slide presentation will be available on the PQRI web page prior to the call, and CMS PQRI experts will be available to answer questions after the presentation. To participate in the call, register online. Registration for the call closes October 14 at 2:30 PM.

The incentive payments for the 2008 PQRI program will be mailed mid-October through the end of October. The incentive payments from the re-run of the 2007 data are expected to be mailed in November.

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News and Notes
Participate in QOPI and the QOPI Certification Program
ASCO’s QOPI® Certification Program will certify oncology practices that achieve rigorous, oncologist-defined standards for high-quality cancer care. Details about the Certification Program, including a participation guide and introductory presentation, are available online. Visit http://qopi.asco.org/certification or email qopicertification@asco.org for more information.

Practical Tips for the Oncology Practice Available
Practical Tips for the Oncology Practice, 5th Edition is the premier resource for oncology practices. This publication provides guidelines on coding, billing and coverage of oncology-related services and outlines the laws and regulations that affect an oncology practice. Practical Tips contains explanations of many Medicare initiatives and provides excerpts from Medicare manuals. This resource is a must-have for oncology practices. Order yours today by visiting www.asco.org/practicaltips or by calling ASCO’s Customer Service hotline at 888-273-3508.

Join ASCO's Advocacy Network
Advocacy is most effective when Members of Congress and government agencies hear from you, their constituents. By participating in ASCO's Advocacy Network, you will develop ongoing relationships with your legislators while helping ASCO raise awareness on important cancer issues. To join the Advocacy Network, visit ASCO's Grassroots Action Center.