Washington Thomas Scully, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has outlined his regulatory agenda in a letter to Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's subcommittee on health, and Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif.

The letter is in response to Johnson's and Stark's June letter to Tommy Thompson, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which made recommendations for alleviating some of the regulatory burdens and issues concerning health care providers.

Among the items Scully outlined in his response are the following:

• A systematic regulatory process, where CMS works more closely with Congress, providers, beneficiaries and other interested parties;

• Expanding outreach for provider education, including an aggressive education program designed to support physicians and other providers in caring for Medicare beneficiaries;

• Standardizing local medical review policies to fuse the inconsistencies between carrier and intermediary local review policies;

• Improving access to new technology, allowing CMS to improve its coding systems and seeking health care industry input on how it should do so.

“Mr. Scully has outlined some important initiatives,” said Thomas Connaughton, president of the American Association for Homecare, adding the association hoped to work with Scully on the reforms.

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