The Ohio Academy of Family Physicians (OAFP) advocacy team monitors healthcare related legislation, rule changes, and legislative updates for Ohio’s family physicians.
To access the OAFP Bill Tracker, visit the OAFP Public Policy webpage and click on the Bill Tracker icon.
Read on for this week’s updates and contact Advocacy Coordinator Kaela Springhetti with questions or for ways to get involved.
AAFP Action on Vaccine Executive Order
Source: American Academy of Family Physicians, Julie Harrison, Senior Manager, State Affairs & Member Advocacy
Recently, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) shared an updated Speak Out in response to the recent executive order on vaccines. Most of the order promotes an alternative childhood vaccine schedule; however, the AFFP also wants to flag a section directing states to adopt this alternative schedule, and another encouraging legal challenges to state laws that prohibit vaccine exemptions.
- Passing laws that align school vaccine requirements with the alternative schedule and/or allowing religious or other exemptions
- Issuing executive orders or regulations to align school vaccine requirements with the alternative schedule, or executive orders requiring exemptions.
State responses will likely depend on political control. Republican-led states are more likely to act. Democratic-led states are unlikely to respond but may face legal challenges to existing vaccine requirements.
In addition, please register and join the webinar Boosting Vaccine Access: Tools and Strategies for Advocates on Wednesday, August 26, at 3 p.m. This webinar is hosted by Vaccinate Your Family and the Infectious Disease Prevention Network, two organizations that the AAFP frequently collaborates with regarding vaccine policy.
Trump Vaccine Order Takes Aim at States That Limit Exemptions
Source: Ohio Capital Journal
A largely overlooked part of the executive order President Donald Trump issued recently scaling back the schedule for childhood vaccines threatens legal action against the four states that don’t allow personal or religious exemptions to school vaccine requirements.
Those states, California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York, are among the states with the highest immunization rates, and they are among those that have been most successful in controlling the worst measles outbreak in more than three decades.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia require students to have certain vaccines before attending public school. All allow exemptions for children who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. Forty-six states plus the District of Columbia also allow exemptions for religious and/or personal beliefs.
President Trump’s order, which he signed recently, says the attorney general will take legal action against states that do not provide “religious and medical exemptions from childhood and adolescent immunization requirements.”
Some health officials said that President Trump’s order, which has questionable legal authority, is unlikely to prompt the states without non-medical exemptions to change course. And any legal action would take years to wend its way through the courts.
Read the full article in Ohio Capital Journal.
Gov. DeWine Orders Increased Oversight of Addiction Recovery Houses
Source: Health Policy Institute of Ohio
Governor Mike DeWine recently signed an executive order tightening state oversight of Ohio’s growing number of recovery houses, which are designed to provide a sober, supportive residence for recovering addicts (Source: Ohio Steps Up Oversight Of Addiction Recovery Houses As Numbers Surge, Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 11).
Gov. DeWine said at a news conference that as the number of recovery houses has increased nearly 400% over the past four years, reports of unsafe living conditions, uncertified operators, and potential fraud have also increased.
Until now, the state of Ohio has maintained a registry of recovery houses and delegated accreditation to two outside nonprofits, Ohio Recovery Housing and Oxford House International.
The executive order creates emergency rules that put the Ohio Department of Behavioral Health in charge of certifying recovery houses, as well as inspecting homes, investigating complaints, and referring suspected fraud or other violations to the Ohio Attorney General’s office. The new rules also raise state standards for living conditions and safety protocols.
Federal Court Strikes Down No Surprises Act Payment Formula
Source: Health Policy Institute of Ohio
A federal appeals court recently struck down the methodology used to determine how much providers should be reimbursed in disputes over out-of-network bills under the No Surprises Act (Source: 5th Circuit Strikes Down No Surprises Billing Benchmark in Win for Providers, Healthcare Dive, August 13).
The 5th Circuit ruled that the government’s methodology for calculating the qualifying payment amount (QPA) — a metric representing average in-network rates for a service in a particular geographic area — is partly unlawful.
The ruling is another setback for insurers as they jockey with providers to shape the arbitration process set up by the No Surprise Act (NSA), a watershed consumer protection law passed in 2020 to shield consumers from surprise medical bills.
The NSA has largely been successful in that goal, preventing millions of Americans from being hit with unexpected out-of-network charges. But it came with an unintended consequence, creating a multibillion-dollar cottage industry around dispute resolution that’s enabled doctors to get paid significantly more than they normally would for providing care.
Trump Vaccine Order Faces Financial, Logistical Challenges
Health Policy Institute of Ohio
Public health experts have been quick to condemn an executive order from President Donald Trump aimed at upending childhood vaccinations in the U.S., but the biggest obstacles may be the unprecedented financial and logistical challenges it would impose on parents, health professionals, and drugmakers (Source: Trump’s Vaccine Plan Would Require Millions of Individual Shots Last Used Decades Ago, Associated Press, August 13).
The president’s executive order calls for separating combination shots — including the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine — into separate injections. Appointments for that and other vaccinations should be spaced out whenever possible, the order states.
To accomplish that, drugmakers would need to revive a slate of individual vaccines that have not been widely used in the U.S. for decades. They would also have to build new manufacturing plants capable of producing millions more vaccine doses than the nation currently uses.