Direct Action – Allied Partners – Coalition Building – Public Engagement
Advocacy and government relations are a vital part of AHQA’s activities and in advancing the Quality Improvement agenda. AHQA works with its membership, government officials, and outside groups to improve quality measures, regulations, and standards in regards to Medicare. We also advocate and represent the interests of our members to Congress, the administration, and the general public.
We focus our advocacy efforts to support and align with the aims of the QIO Program:
- Transforming health care delivery
- Empowering patients for better health and health care
- Ensuring quality and integrity in health care
- Making health IT work for patients and providers
To accomplish these goals, AHQA works in collaboration with allied partners, through coalitions, through public engagement, and via direct action.
Direct Action
In addition to working with our partners, AHQA also works directly with officials on Capitol Hill and in the administration to advance our advocacy agenda. These actions include preparing press releases, holding meetings with Congressional and administrative representatives, and submitting comments on relevant proposed regulations on behalf of our members.
- 2018 Policy Forum
- Comments on public Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM), Requests for Information (RFI), and other comments:
- RFI Regarding the 21st Century Cures Act Electronic Health Record Reporting Program
- CIE Medication Safety and Adverse Drug Event Prevention
- 2018 QPP NPRM Comments
- 2019 QPP NPRM Comments
- IPPS NPRM Comments
- Interoperability and Patient Access for Medicare Advantage Organization and Medicaid Managed Care Plans.
- AHQA is currently assembling a Workign Group to comment on CMS’s Request For Information (RFI) on the future of CMMI.
- AHQA leadership formed a sub committee to discuss the 12th SoW RFI that was released on September 29, 2018. To read their final comment, please click here.
- CMMI RFI
Although the Request For Information on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center (CMMI) welcomed feedback on a variety of innovative models, the AHQA membership working group decided that it only need to address those that were most closely related to the QIN-QIO work. These included:- Advanced APMs
- Behavioral Health
- Physician Specialty Models
- State-Based & Local Innovation, including Medicaid-focused ModelsCMS requested that we respond to the same 7 questions for each innovative model we address in comments, so you’ll see the draft structured in that format.Note: The format of these comments is not a formal letter because comments were submitted via Survey Monkey survey and answers were copied and pasted into the survey; a ‘polished’ final letter wasn’t necessary.
- Dear Colleague letters:
- The REACH OUT Act (H.R. 5796):
- AHQA has endorsed H.R. 5796, the REACH OUT Act, which was unanimously passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill will ill direct the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to work with eligible entities, including Quality Improvement Organizations, to engage in outreach with prescribers identified as clinical outliers to share best practices to evaluate their prescribing behavior.
Allied Partners
AHQA works closely with many industry allies to support and advance quality improvement initiatives and the organization’s advocacy agenda. AHQA actively seeks out and aligns itself with partners working towards the same goals in an effort to improve visibility, reduce duplication of effort, and improve efficiencies.
Current allied partners include:
Coalition Building
AHQA is actively engaged in several coalitions that advocate on issues or topics that are important to the Quality Improvement agenda. Through coalitions, we are able to amplify and enhance the credibility of our message and identify new opportunities for collaboration, while strengthening our relationships with other trade associations, non-profits, and advocacy organizations.
AHQA is currently involved in the following coalitions:
- Friends of the National Quality Forum
- Friends of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
- Self-Made Health Network
Public Engagement
Public dissemination of the incredible value and work of the QIO program is a critical step towards building broader public support for the program and its objectives. AHQA works to raise awareness about and promote the immense successes of the program across the Federal government, on Capitol Hill, among allied partners, and with the general public.