NCPDP Announces CMS Administrator, Seema Verma, to Deliver Opening Keynote at NCPDP's 2020 Annual Conference

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Jan. 15, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- NCPDP announced today that CMS Administrator, Seema Verma, will take the stage at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 5th to deliver the Opening Keynote Address at the NCPDP 2020 Annual Technology & Business Conference, which will be held May 4-6, 2020, at the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona. "We are thrilled to have Seema Verma kick off our conference and address the very people who are making historic and transformative change through standards and solutions developed at NCPDP," explained Lee Ann Stember, President & CEO of NCPDP.

As the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Seema Verma oversees a $1 trillion budget, representing 26% of the total federal budget, and administers health coverage programs for more than 130 million Americans. She was nominated by President Trump on November 29, 2016 – the seventh nomination by the President-elect – and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 13, 2017.

"Seema Verma's actions as Administrator show clear intent to break through a very complex industry and spur innovation and competition to improve healthcare value and empower patients," continued Stember. "The payment reforms and models that CMS has launched under her leadership are paving the road to value for patients and healthcare providers."

Under Administrator Verma's leadership, CMS has helped usher in an era of transparency with the first-ever Medicaid & CHIP Scorecard to show how well Medicaid is serving its beneficiaries; actions to bolster the ability of Medicare Advantage & Part D plans to negotiate lower drug costs for patients; the Blue Button 2.0 API, through which more than 1,800 mobile app developers have signed up to provide beneficiaries with access to their claims data and help them achieve better health; and guidelines requiring hospitals to post and update annually (at a minimum) their standard pricing information online in a machine-readable format — a first step toward giving patients the information they need to make the best decisions for themselves and their families.

"As an industry we must have the courage to step out of comfort zones – personally and professionally – to embrace new ideas and perspectives, share our knowledge, engage in problem-solving and to do the right thing for the common good," said Greg Kaupp, Vice Chair of the NCPDP Board of Trustees and Chair of the NCPDP Annual Conference Committee. "This is what we do – it is our continuing legacy. We expect that Administrator Verma's keynote will inspire the industry to double down on their volunteerism at NCPDP – in our task groups and work groups – so that we can do our part to support patients and providers by advancing interoperable industry standards and solutions that improve patient safety and health outcomes, while also decreasing costs."

Verma's skillful leadership of the agency has produced other accomplishments that will create far-reaching, meaningful and lasting change. The agency's sweeping accomplishments include: stabilizing the individual health insurance market, where average premiums decreased in 2019 for the first time ever on federally facilitated exchanges, and Medicare Advantage premiums continue to decline; restoring the state and federal partnership for Medicaid with the approval of community engagement demonstrations to promote work and financial independence; transforming the meaningful use program to focus on interoperability; creating novel access to virtual check-ins for Medicare beneficiaries and expanded support for telehealth and remote patient monitoring; updating documentation guidelines and reduced 53 million hours of administrative burden through the "Patients over Paperwork" and "Meaningful Measures" initiatives; and advancing bundled payment models to motivate healthcare providers to furnish services more efficiently, coordinate care and improve quality. These improvements are key levers in advancing the U.S. healthcare system.

NCPDP's national conference draws more than 800 attendees from across the healthcare industry, including technical, business and executive representatives from health plans, pharmacy benefit managers, retail and independent pharmacies, specialty pharmacies, long-term care providers, healthcare consultants, technology vendors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesale drug distributors, database management organizations and others.

The NCPDP Annual Conference is open to all healthcare industry stakeholders. To register for the conference visit https://ncpdp.org/ac/register.aspx.

The complimentary media registration form can be downloaded here: https://ncpdp.org/NCPDP/media/pdf/UploadLinks/Media-Registration-Form.pdf.

For a photo of CMS Administrator, Seema Verma, please visit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ncpdp/.

For real-time updates before and during the event, follow us at http://twitter.com/ncpdp or join the discussion using NCPDP's 2020 Annual Technology & Business Conference hashtag: #NCPDP20.

About NCPDP
Founded in 1977, NCPDP is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited, Standards Development Organization with more than 1,700 members representing virtually every sector of the pharmacy services industry. Our diverse membership provides leadership and healthcare business solutions through education and standards, created using the consensus building process. NCPDP has been named in federal legislation, including HIPAA, MMA, and HITECH. NCPDP members have created standards such as the Telecommunication Standard and Batch Standard, the SCRIPT Standard for ePrescribing, the Manufacturers Rebate Standard and more to improve communication within the pharmacy industry. Our data products include dataQ®, a robust database of information on more than 80,000 pharmacies, resQ™, an industry pharmacy credentialing resource, and HCIdea®, an innovative prescriber database that provides continually updated information on more than 2.5 million prescribers. NCPDP's RxReconn® is a legislative tracking product for real-time monitoring of pharmacy-related state and national legislative and regulatory activity. For more information about NCPDP Standards, Data Services, Products, Educational Programs and Work Group meetings, go online at http://www.ncpdp.org or call 480.477.1000.

SOURCE NCPDP