A bill to reduce health care disparities and improve health care quality, to improve the collection of racial, ethnic, primary language, and socio-economic determination data for use by healthcare researchers and policymakers, to provide performance incentives for high performing hospitals and community health centers, and to expand current Federal programs seeking to eliminate health disparities.
Faircare Act - Amends the Public Health Service Act (PHSA) to require additional data collection and reporting for funded health programs.
Authorizes the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to develop a set of quality measures for each of the most common treatment settings, including hospitals and outpatient settings. Requires the Agency to rank these measures according to their potential to remedy health care disparities.
Requires the Agency to establish an Advisory Committee on Quality to recommend quality indicators for all quality data sets developed by the Agency.
Establishes the Office of National Healthcare Disparities and Quality within the Agency to administer the development and submission of the annual National Healthcare Disparities Report and the National Healthcare Quality Report.
Amends Title XVIII (Medicare) of the Social Security Act to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a program under which financial incentive payments are made to hospitals if they meet certain criteria regarding data collection, high quality care, and the treatment of health disparity populations. Amends the PHSA to require the Secretary to: (1) designate health centers that receive Federal assistance as Faircare Health Centers if they meet such criteria; and (2) make designated health centers eligible for annual bonuses.
Requires the Secretary, acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to award grants and carry out activities to expand the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health Program (REACH 2010).
Sets forth provisions for allowing tax credits and awarding grants for qualified medical malpractice insurance expenditures for eligible health care providers and eligible entities.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.
Introduced in Senate
Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR 6/25/2004 S7454-7455)
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance. (text of measure as introduced: CR 6/25/2004 S7455-7461)
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