Health Law Daily Wrap Up, SENATE NEWS—Senate Finance Committee take Tavenner’s testimony on her confirmation as CMS Administrator, (Apr 10, 2013)

By Jay Nawrocki, MA

Marilyn Tavenner appeared before the Senate’s Finance Committee on April 9, 2013 to testify and answer questions regarding her potential confirmation as the Administrator of CMS. Ms. Tavenner has been the Acting Administrator of CMS since 2011. Ms. Travenner outlined her goals and recounted some of her accomplishments since she became the Acting Administrator. The Committee did not take a vote on approving her confirmation as CMS Administrator, although approval is expected.

Support. Many of those in attendance thought the hearing was more than friendly. Mary Agnes Cary for the Kaiser Health Network (KHN) said that “Orrin Hatch [R-Utah]…the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee said that he…supported her nomination.” According to Ms. Cary, it was notable that she was introduced to the Committee by Representative Eric Cantor [R-Va], the Majority Leader of the House of Representative. Ms. Travenner and Rep. Cantor have known each other since he was a delegate to the Virginia House, according to Ms. Cary. Cantor said at the end of his remarks, “look I don’t’ care for the 2010 law, I don’t support the ACA [referring to the Affordable Care Act], but I do support Marilyn Tavenner,” according to the KHN

Priorities. Ms. Tavenner in her testimony said that she has three primary focuses for moving CMS forward: (1) run it like a business and act like a business partner with beneficiaries, providers, hospitals, members of Congress, states, advocacy groups, insurance companies and employees; (2) implement key pieces of legislation to ensure that all Americans have affordable healthcare care coverage; and (3) use the tools Congress has granted the agency to reduce overall costs of care and improve the delivery of health care, such as new payment strategies connected to performance, innovative new models of care, and enhanced tools to combat fraud.

Experience. Prior to coming to CMS in 2010 as the Principal Deputy Administrator for CMS, Ms. Tavenner was Secretary of Health and Human Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia while Tim Kaine was Governor, according to her CMS biography. Prior to that she worked for the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), starting as a nurse in 1981. By 1993, she was the Chief Executive Officer of Johnson-Willis Hospital in Richmond Virginia, and by 2001 she had assumed responsibility for 20 hospitals as President of HCA’s Central Atlantic Division. Ms. Tavenner holds a bachelor of science degree in nursing and a master’s degree in health administration, both from the Virginia Commonwealth University.

Accomplishments. During her testimony, Ms. Tavenner related that CMS has implemented new strategies to reduce waste and fraud, resulting in a record high recovery of $4.2 billion during fiscal year (FY) 2012 and that the fee-for-service payment error rate has been reduced from 10.8 percent in FY 2009 to 8.5 percent in FY 2012. Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Chairman of the committee, noted that CMS spent $819 billion in FY 2012 and had administrative costs of one-half of one percent, and Ms. Tavenner pointed out that the agency pays out over $1 billion a day while processing over 4.64 million claims for reimbursement per day.

CMS. Chairman Baucus added that CMS administers health coverage to roughly one in three Americans, with 50 million enrolled in Medicare, 56 million enrolled in Medicaid, and 5.5 million enrolled in the Childrens’ Health Insurance Program. Senator Orin Hatch (R. - Utah) noted that Medicare will grow from approximately 47 million beneficiaries in 2012 to roughly 80 million beneficiaries in 2030 and that growth is something for which CMS needs to begin planning.

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