CMS https://www.cms.gov created the Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics to unify the agency’s effort to reduce regulatory and administrative burdens. CMS’s ongoing efforts have been to eliminate duplicative, unnecessary, and excessively costly requirements and regulations.
Three years ago, CMS launched their Patients over Paperwork (PoP) initiative to focus on reducing unnecessary regulatory burden to enable providers to concentrate on patient care. The PoP initiative is expected to save providers and clinicians $6.6 billion and 42 million unnecessary hours through 2021.
The new office will strengthen CMS’s efforts across Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Health Insurance Marketplace to decrease the hours and costs clinicians and providers incur for CMS-mandated compliance.
In addition, the Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics will focus on health IT by looking for improved ways on how to foster innovation through interoperability. Also, the office will leverage technology and automation to create new tools to allow patients to own and carry their personal health data with them seamlessly, privately, and securely throughout the healthcare system.
Coupled with implementation and enforcement of adopted national standards, the office will also work with the broader healthcare community to continue to make key administrative processes increasingly more efficient.
Go to https://cms.gov/about-cms/story-page/patients-over-paperwork for more information on the “Patients over Paperwork initiative.