Seven federal government updates from the last two weeks:
1. The House passed a $1.5 trillion federal spending package March 9 after pulling COVID-19 funding from the bill earlier that day. The package extends funding through the end of the fiscal year.
2. HHS is working with healthcare organizations to roll out a single login for patients to access their medical records across multiple systems. The department is working with 20 healthcare organizations, including CVS Health, Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente and Renton, Wash.-based Providence.
3. The CDC is proposing a regulation to resume collecting data from hospitals, according to a report from Bloomberg. The regulation would require hospitals participating in Medicare and Medicaid programs to report data to the CDC's infection tracker.
4. More than 250 organizations sent a March 8 letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra condemning its rebranding of the Global and Professional Direct Contracting model. The letter, signed by organizations representing seniors, people with disabilities, consumers and health professionals, calls for an end to the new model and a rejection of the privatization of traditional Medicare.
5. HHS challenged healthcare organizations to incorporate new cybersecurity tactics to protect their organizations from new and ongoing threats in a March 3 Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center report. Here are five recommended advisories.
6. The Biden administration released a plan March 14 to restructure the veterans healthcare system, which includes the closure of hundreds of hospitals and clinics and the construction of several new facilities.
7. After discovering calculation errors in two measures related to the March 2022 Care Compare provider preview reports, CMS corrected and re-released the reports.