There were two notable Affordable Care Act rules this week. A final rule for “Covered Outpatient Drugs,” which has been planned since the fall of 2010, contains $330 million in new annual costs, in addition to 3.1 million hours of paperwork. The 189-page rule regulates drug pricing, confidentiality, rebate payments, and requirements for states.
The administration also finalized “face-to-face” provisions under the ACA. The rule would require health care providers to document face-to-face encounters with Medicaid recipients when delivering health services. The rule imposes $23 million in annual costs and 190,000 paperwork burden hours.
Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the ACA has imposed costs of $50.1 billion in state and private-sector burdens and 177.9 million annual paperwork hours (167 million from final rules).
