HHS Releases Regulatory Review Plan, Including Review of Conditions of Participation - June 1, 2011

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on May 26 joined other federal agencies in releasing a preliminary retrospective regulatory review plan, aimed at analyzing existing regulations and determining ways to streamline and make rules more effective. The review plan is in response to President Obama’s Executive Order 13563, which requires agencies to conduct a retrospective review of significant rules. Among other rules in the HHS plan, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will be required to conduct a review of the conditions of participation for hospitals in order to eliminate obsolete, unnecessary or burdensome provisions. In addition, CMS will conduct a review of Medicare and Medicaid regulations as part of CMS’ recently-announced Alignment Initiative, which aims to streamline the Medicare and Medicaid programs to make care more efficient for dual eligible beneficiaries. The full HHS regulatory review plan is available online.