National Conference of State Legislatures ranks healthcare among top 2012 priorities

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) published its annual listing of top priorities for the coming year, and healthcare and health information technology issues were chief concerns for 2012.

NCSL lists health exchanges of both current varieties – insurance and information – as a “dominant issue for legislative sessions.” More specifically, health insurance exchanges (HIX), for participating states, will be a priority this year as states work toward the January 1, 2013 deadline to have a HIX plan in place – a particularly tricky matter as HIX’s represent the rare opportunity to upgrade state’s IT infrastructure with federal funding but the feds have yet to issue final rules.

On the health information exchange (HIE) front, the issue will be how to get healthcare providers to adopt EHRs. “Essentially, instead of having a different health record at each doctor or provider you visit, an EHR will serve as one file that all of your doctors can see,” NCSL added. In addition to serving as a single patient history, EHRs will form the foundation of HIEs. “By mid-year 2012, every state should have Medicaid EHR Incentive programs in place and will be working toward building an HIE by late 2014 or early 2015 as required by deadlines attached to federal cooperative agreements.”