Tag Archive for: Mary Holloway Richard

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Richard named to Mental Health Association Oklahoma’s Advisory Council

A new opportunity for Attorney Mary Holloway Richard will help her continue her work of increasing visibility of mental health issues in Oklahoma.

Richard has joined Mental Health Association Oklahoma’s Advisory Council based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Partnered with the Homeless Alliance, Mental Health Association Oklahoma has a variety of programs including youth wellness screenings, support groups and legal services. These programs focus on housing, education, advocacy, support, and recovery to those affected by mental disorders.

To learn more about Mental Health Association Oklahoma and the programs they provide, visit their website here.

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Health care industry leaders need to understand history of regulations

By Mary Holloway Richard, JD, MPH

On March 10th, the industry magazine, Modern Healthcare, posted news hot off the presses that a physician, Dr. Benjamin Chu of Kaiser, has been selected to be the CEO of Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston.

As I read this, I couldn’t help but remember my first job out of graduate school—the lowest level administrator at Hermann Hospital in Houston at the Texas Medical Center.  I was responsible for ambulatory care at a time when layoffs in the emergency department and the outpatient clinics were required.  It was quite literally a baptism by fire.

I had come to that position from graduate school where I studied about the needs of the health care system—continuity, quality, cost effectiveness.  This likely sounds familiar to you if you are involved in health care in any capacity.  During my final semesters in graduate school, I interned at the Old University Hospital in what developed into the session in which the legislature refused to, once again, bail the hospital out in meeting its payroll. That unfortunately also sounds familiar.

In the classes I teach at OCU law school, I remind my students, who are largely enthralled with the idea of a health care law practice, of the importance of understanding the language and limitations of the pervasive regulations, but also their history.  It is important to have the context within which to place the regulations, statutes and case law that impact our providers.

Similarly, I advise clients to look forward, to be proactive in their compliance efforts.  It will be interesting to observe physician leadership in the Memorial system.

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NewsOK Q&A: New health measures will require baseline screenings

From NewsOK / by Paula Burkes
Published: February 18, 2016
Click to see full story – New health measures will require baseline screenings, more data

Q: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released core quality measures for physicians on Feb. 15. What does this mean for physicians and for patients?

A: Physicians currently are required to report multiple quality measures to a variety of entities, and this has been confusing for providers and difficult to report effectively. The quality measures, spearheaded for some time now by federal health care reimbursement programs and by commercial insurers, are being used to standardize care and to establish baseline performance for providers they reimburse for services provided to their beneficiaries. These measures are seen as a cost containment initiative and a way to facilitate provision of baseline quality services. It’s also envisioned as an opportunity to empower consumers to become informed decision-makers.

Q: How were these quality measures established?

A: CMS and America’s Health Insurance Plans came together, along with consumer groups, national physician organizations and employers, to form the Core Quality Measure Collaborative. The seven sets of core measures include: accountable care organizations, patient-centered medical homes and primary care; cardiology; gastroenterology; HIV and hepatitis C; medical oncology; obstetrics and gynecology; and orthopedics. CMS currently is using measures from each of these core sets. An example of a core measure for primary care (family practice) is control of high blood pressure by first obtaining a core set of data about the patient. Another primary care example for comprehensive diabetic care is performance of an eye exam.

Q: Does CMS intend to establish core measures for other medical practice “sets”?

A: The CMS news release of the Collaboration’s Core Quality Measures appears to be a single step in a process that will result in future proposed rules in additional clinical areas. Presumably CMS has stated that it will continue to engage in a multi-stakeholder collaboration including additional notice and public comment rulemaking. CMS isn’t newly committed to applying outcome metrics to payments for physicians and other providers. In fact, it’s not unusual for hospitals and other institutional providers to include baseline quality and performance metrics as a prerequisite to salary or bonus compensation in physician employment and other agreements.

Q: Are these additional regulations a win for Medicare, commercial insurers, physicians, patients?

A: The announcement of these regulations is thought to signal successful progress by Medicare and commercial insurers toward value-based purchasing. This is an effort to make the federal and private health care dollars go farther. Part of the federal health care agenda is based upon recouping financial savings by enabling a healthier population. For physicians, although this may initially seem like another layer of regulations tied to reimbursement, the standardized core measures are likely to simplify patient data the information that must be maintained and provided. For patients, although quality improvement is entirely positive, the logical extension of the efforts of the collaboration is to standardize care that will covered by these federal and commercial insurance programs. It’s possible that it will improve services provided to some patients while limiting that available to others.

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FDA announces multi-step response plan to mitigate abuse of pain killers

By attorney Mary Holloway Richard

In response to criticism that it has been too lenient in approving addictive narcotics and reticent to take action to mitigate abuse and overuse of these painkillers, the FDA announced on Friday a multi-step responsive plan of action:

  • It plans to convene an outside advisory committee to seek advice prior to approving new opioids that don’t have abuse-deterring properties.
  • It plans to convene a separate pediatric advisory committee to examine all proposed labeling changes related to children.
  • The FDA also intends to strengthen follow-up studies to provide more insight regarding safety, effectiveness of opioid’s long-term use and to step up physician training in order to mitigate over-prescribing practices.
  • Pharmaceutical companies will be encouraged to develop more painkillers that are less subject to abuse—difficult to break, crush and dissolve—and, therefore, more difficult to ingest quickly in large quantities by snorting or injecting.
  • Finally, the agency will engage in efforts to increase access to naloxone and other treatments to counteract the effects of heroin and opioid overdoses.

Some pundits suggest that this response by the FDA is designed to ease tense relations with senators and to prepare the way for confirmation of President Obama’s appointee for agency director. In the face of industry- and society-wide recognition of the “opioid epidemic,” even action potentially based upon self-serving agency motivation, if effective, will save lives and scarce resources.

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Attorney teaches Behavioral Health Law course at OCU

Attorney Mary Holloway Richard is teaching Behavioral Health Law at the Oklahoma City University School of Law this Spring semester.

The course will cover a broad spectrum of behavior health topics including: basic mental illness diagnoses, licensure laws related to behavioral health providers of all types, reimbursement and financing issues, liability concepts related to the dangerous patient, consent and release of information, social and community responses to mental illness and substance abuse disorders and current policy and regulatory developments in the field, Richard said.

In conjunction with the American Health Lawyers Association’s Behavioral Health Task Force of which she is Vice Chair, Richard plans to bring in speakers from across the state and give the class better exposure to the subject matter, to the larger context of the healthcare industry and to people who work in the field, she said.

This class follows Richard’s Fall course which was a survey and introductory course to Health Law.

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