Crapo: Dr. Oz Undoubtedly Qualified to be CMS Administrator
Washington, D.C.—At a U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing to consider the nomination of Dr. Mehmet Oz to be Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator, Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) highlighted Dr. Oz’s wealth of firsthand experience as an accomplished physician and his clear vision for creating a healthier nation. Crapo and Dr. Oz discussed how he would address the nation’s chronic disease epidemic, as well as how he might approach reforming payment programs to improve efficiency.
Crapo concluded the hearing with, “There is no doubt you are qualified to serve as the next Administrator of [CMS], and I look forward to voting in favor of your nomination and am urging all of my colleagues to do the same.”
View Crapo’s opening statement here, and line of questioning here.
On addressing the chronic disease epidemic
Crapo: As an accomplished physician, you have firsthand experience with not only the bureaucratic nature of federal government payment programs, but also the impact of the chronic disease epidemic on patients from all walks of life. I’d be curious if you would expand on your vision for CMS, and how you would integrate nutrition and lifestyle-based interventions into our health care system?
Dr. Oz: One of the points that I mentioned at the end of my opening comment was that if we gave people, in their hands, tools and resources that are useful, not information, but tactics and support teams that could work with them to improve their wellbeing, many would take advantage of it.
One tactic that I believe will work quite effectively is that we can get real-time information from physicians and other health providers taking care of patients, and using that real-time information give feedback to people who are worried about their wellbeing. That's when they're more likely to use that advice. That tool would allow them to both call an expert if they needed that resource. We provide them tools to do that. We'd reimburse some of the healthy lifestyles that would be generated by these interactions, and we'd make them an active participant in their wellbeing. I think that dramatically changes the power dynamic. It makes the American people feel like they actually can be the world-experts on their wellbeing.
On payment program reforms
Crapo: I very strongly agree with your focus on lifestyle-based interventions that can actually help people help themselves to get healthier. I'm also interested in how you might reform our payment programs to become more efficient to save both patient lives and taxpayer dollars.
Dr. Oz: We spend about 12 percent of the CMS budget on bureaucratic processes and the administration of the program, and most of that money is taken by middlemen in ways that I don't think need to be true in the long term. I believe we have the power right now, with technology that didn't exist even three or four years ago, to automate a lot of these processes, and preauthorization is a good example.
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