107th Congress

Patient Navigator, Outreach, and Chronic Disease Prevention Act of 2002

H.R. 5187

Background

H.R. 5187 was introduced by Representative Robert Menendez (D-NJ) to address the disparity in the burden of illness and death borne by minority populations and the poor and by other populations.

Provisions of the Legislation/Impact on NIH

Model Programs: This legislation would have required the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to award grants for model programs that provide prevention, early detection, treatment, and appropriate followup care services for individuals from health disparity populations with cancer or chronic diseases.

• Provision of health services for individuals in a culturally competent manner would have been required, and patient navigators would have been assigned to assist these individuals for the duration of the time they participated in the model program.
• For the NCI model program, eligible entities would have included an NCI center, academic institution, hospital, nonprofit organization, or any other public or private entity deemed appropriate by the Director of NCI.
• Grantees would have been required to provide ongoing culturally competent outreach activities to inform the public of the services. The Director of NCI would have been required to evaluate the effectiveness of the outreach activities and disseminate the findings once the evaluation was complete.
• The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) would have been required to coordinate the NCI and HRSA model programs with each other and with prevention center programs carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Patient Navigator Programs: NCI and HRSA would have been required to award grants for the development and operation of programs for patient navigators, who would assist and guide patients with cancer or chronic diseases.

• Grant recipients would have been required to develop model practices for patient navigators.
• The patient navigators would have been required to assist the individual for the duration of the receipt of health care services, provide case management and psychosocial assessment and care, and ensure that services were culturally competent.
• The Director of NCI would have been required to evaluate the effectiveness of the patient navigator services and disseminate the findings to public and private entities.
• The Secretary of HHS would have been required to coordinate the NCI and HRSA programs.

Grant recipients would have been required to charge fees consistent with locally prevailing rates or cover reasonable costs of operation for these programs. Fees would have been discounted based on the ability of the patient to pay for the services.

Not later than 3 years after the date of enactment, the Director of NCI would have been required to develop a peer-reviewed model of systems for the services provided by this legislation. The Director of NCI would have also been required to keep the model current to ensure that the best practices were being used.

Duration of the grants for both these programs would not have exceeded 5 years.

Both the Model Programs and Patient Navigator Programs would have been authorized such sums as may be necessary for each of the fiscal years 2003 through 2007. These authorizations would have been in addition to appropriations already made available.

Status and Outlook

H.R. 5187 was introduced on July 23, 2002, and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Similar language to H.R. 5187 was included in S. 2965, the Quality of Care for Individuals with Cancer Act (see the article entitled "Quality of Care for Individuals with Cancer Act"). There was no further action on this legislation during the 107th Congress.