Budget woes at HHS’ civil rights office

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Mar 17, 2023 View in browser   By Ben Leonard, Ruth Reader, Carmen Paun and Erin Schumaker Presented by Guardant Health WASHINGTON WATCH HHS Office for Civil Rights Director Melanie Fontes Rainer | HHS HHS’ Office for Civil Rights is asking Congress to nearly double its budget for fiscal 2024, and its director, Melanie Fontes Rainer, is making the pitch. Her case: OCR is responsible for investigating health care data breaches as well as enforcing civil rights and conscience laws, and its workload has exploded. Fontes Rainer recently announced that she’s restructuring her team to better address data breaches. The agency helps health care organizations defend themselves from hackers and can fine those negligent in mounting defenses. She’s asking Congress, which just saw some of its members’ data breached, for $78 million in fiscal 2024. Ben caught up with Fontes Rainer to discuss her office’s budget request, the reorganization and cybersecurity writ large. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.  Why do you need a bigger budget?  Our budget has been flat for two decades. The budget 20 years ago when OCR was receiving 10,000 complaints is the same budget I have today. I had over 50,000 complaints filed to my office last year. We anticipate that number to grow. What’s your advice to health care organizations about cybersecurity?  We’re seeing hospitals where their systems have ransomware embedded in them for years. The numbers are not getting smaller — they’re getting bigger. It’s imperative that hospitals and other health care organizations be vigilant and proactive. Why did you restructure?  We’re focusing on responding to the growth in our law enforcement work. Our office used to only receive paper complaints and phone calls. With the advent of the online portal, we’ve seen that number grow. Your budget proposal said that you can’t get by on the fines you levy against firms that violate HIPAA or are negligent in their cyberdefenses. Why not? In the previous administration, our settlement authority was capped. Gone are the days where OCR had bigger settlements. That impacts our ability to drive compliance. People think, ‘Oh, OCR has settlement money so they’re fine.’ We’re waving our hands in the air to tell Congress and others that the authority is capped.   A message from Guardant Health: 49M individuals remain unscreened and are at increased risk of dying from CRC. Learn more.   WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE Killarney National Park, Ireland | Shawn Zeller This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. The “weirdest wellness thing” Gwyneth Paltrow – the movie star and founder of wellness brand GOOP – has tried? “I have used ozone therapy, rectally,” Paltrow revealed this week during a podcast interview. For the uninitiated, ozone therapy involves blowing ozone gas at or into the body, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Ozone therapy isn't proven safe or effective, according to the FDA. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at bleonard@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Alice Miranda Ollstein talks with Ben about the mistake-ridden electronic health records system at VA medical centers and Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester’s push to fix it. Listen to today’s Pulse Check podcast   A message from Guardant Health:     DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS– DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID.     DISRUPTORS Google boasted that its chatbot did better on medical exams than a rival's. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The chatbot wars are on.  Google says its artificial intelligence product, Med-PaLM 2, achieved 85.4 percent accuracy on medical licensing exams, besting ChatGPT’s 60 percent accuracy, at the search giant’s annual Check Up health event in New York this week. Even so, Google’s artificial intelligence hasn’t made the same splash as ChatGPT, a product of tech firm OpenAI. The latter, which is funded by and collaborates with Google rival Microsoft, recently released a 4th generation version of its intelligent bot. Despite Med-PaLM 2’s progress, Yossi Matias, Google’s lead of engineering and research, said the technology isn’t ready for wide deployment. “The potential here is tremendous, but it’s crucial that real-world applications are explored in a responsible and ethical manner,” he said at the event. The company is looking for partners interested in testing the latest Med-PaLM.   A message from Guardant Health: Now with the over 20,000 patient ECLIPSE clinical study, Guardant’s latest innovative test has been validated for detecting CRC. Learn More.   PANDEMIC It's all Greek from here, the WHO said about future Covid variants. | NIAID-RML via AP Photo The era of Covid variants described by a series of letters, periods and numbers is coming to an end. While a Sigma or Upsilon variant might emerge, another XBB.1.5, the main variant in the U.S. right now, won’t. The World Health Organization announced Thursday that it’s changed how it will classify future descendants of the coronavirus Omicron variant that South African scientists first discovered in fall 2021. Why it matters: The WHO won’t name new subvariants of Omicron that it doesn’t think pose a significant public health threat, while those that do will get a Greek-letter name. After the original Alpha variant gave way to Delta and then to Omicron, the virus has stabilized somewhat, and scientists have previously felt that new variants were too similar to the original Omicron, the B.1.1.529 strain, to justify a new Greek-letter name. The new policy for naming Omicron variants took effect Wednesday. What’s next: The WHO said the emergence of variants linked to strains that preceded Omicron or of new variants remains possible. It also stressed that the new classification system doesn’t imply that the circulation of Omicron strains no longer poses a public health danger. But WHO emergencies boss Mike Ryan on Friday said it’s also fair to say Covid’s not as much of a threat as it used to be. “I think we’re coming to that point where we can look at Covid-19 in the same way we look at seasonal influenza: a threat to health, a virus that will continue to kill, but a virus that is not disrupting our society or disrupting our hospital system,” he said.   LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today.       Follow us on Twitter Ben Leonard @_BenLeonard_ Ruth Reader @RuthReader Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker   Follow us

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