Several federal health officials have cancelled their appearances at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Las Vegas next week. This comes as the Trump administration prioritizes addressing fraud, waste, and abuse within healthcare programs.
Government officials are currently restricted from publicly discussing initiatives designed to prevent fraud, waste, and misuse in Medicare telehealth and remote patient monitoring programs. Consequently, a panel discussion focusing on this topic, which was to feature two officials from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has been canceled.
“HHS-OIG officials will not be attending the summit in-person due to a pause on external event travel and thus have cancelled the [learning] session,” an OIG spokesperson stated to STAT via email. The HIMSS cancellations involve representatives from various federal health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Office of the Inspector General, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ARPA-H, and the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ASTP).
According to the conference agenda, at least 46 federal health officials were scheduled to participate. However, at least 28 of these individuals have either been removed from the schedule or confirmed to no longer be attending, as confirmed by STAT.
