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DETAILED SUMMARY OF AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA ACT <br />Part B: <br />Productivity adjustments. Expands productivity adjustments to Medicare providers who receive CPI <br />updates in addition to those that receive market basket updates. These providers are: ambulatory <br />surgical centers, ambulances, clinical laboratories, and durable medical equipment not competitively <br />bid. <br />Hospital outpatient department updates. Expands productivity adjustments to hospital outpatient <br />departments. <br />Accountable Care Organization program. Establishes a new program that allows providers to share in <br />Medicare savings they help create through care coordination and quality improvement initiatives. <br />Ensures that doctors can join with hospitals and others when forming these organizations. <br />Telehealth. Expands Medicare's telehealth benefit to beneficiaries who are receiving care at <br />freestanding dialysis centers. Also establishes a Telehealth Advisory Committee to provide HHS with <br />additional expertise on the telehealth program. <br />Quality measures. Creates a timely process to allow for amulti-stakeholder group to provide the <br />Secretary with input into the selection of quality measures and provides for consultation by the <br />Secretary of aconsensus-based entity in the use of quality measures. <br />Demonstration program on shared decision making. Uses decision aids and other technologies to <br />help patients and consumers improve their understanding of the risks and benefits of treatment <br />options and make informed decisions about medical care. <br />Medical home pilot program. Creates a pilot program to reward providers who agree to provide <br />services necessary to make their practice a "medical home" by ensuring full access to patients and <br />providing for coordinated and comprehensive care. <br />Cost sharing for preventive services. Eliminates deductibles and co-payments for all preventive <br />services covered by the Medicare program. <br />Improved access to vaccines. Makes it easier for Medicare beneficiaries to get access to needed <br />vaccinations by covering all vaccines under Part B of the program rather than Part D. <br />Extend Qualified Individuals (QI) program. Extends the QI program two years to help low-income <br />beneficiaries pay their Part B premiums. <br />Extends months of coverage of immunosuppressive drugs for kidney transplant patients. Lifts the <br />current 36-month limitation on Medicare coverage of immunosuppressive drugs for kidney transplant <br />patients who would otherwise lose this coverage on or after January 1, 2012. <br />29 <br />Prepared by the Committees on Ways & Means, Energy & Commerce, and Education & Labor <br />October 29, 2009 <br />