42 U.S.C. § 299c — Advisory Council for Healthcare Research and Quality

(a) Establishment This section creates an advisory group called the National Advisory Council for Healthcare Research and Quality. (b) Duties The Council advises the Secretary and the Director on what the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality should do. It must recommend: (A) which health topics to research first, especially studies on quality, outcomes, cost, and access to care; (B) training needs and how to spread information about health care quality; and (C) what role the Agency should play given what private companies are already doing, and where public-private partnerships could help. (c) Membership The Council has appointed members and ex officio (automatic) members. All members can vote except the ex officio ones. The Secretary appoints 21 qualified people. At least 17 must be private citizens who are not federal officers or employees, and at least one must be a rural health specialist in one of the listed fields. Overall, the group must represent the professions and organizations affected by this law. Of the 21 appointed members: three must know research, demonstrations, and evaluations in health care; three must know health care quality research or improvement; three must be doctors, with at least one a primary care doctor; three must be from other health professions; three must represent the private health care sector — plans, providers, purchasers — or run health care delivery systems; three must know health economics, information systems, law, ethics, business, or public policy; and three must represent patients and consumers. The Secretary also names certain federal officials as ex officio members — including the Assistant Secretary for Health, the directors of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, and the Department of Veterans Affairs' Under Secretary for Health — plus any other federal officials the Secretary considers appropriate. (d) Terms Appointed members serve three-year terms. To stagger the terms so about a third of the Council turns over each year, the Secretary can give the first members terms of 1, 2, or 3 years. A member can keep serving past their term until someone replaces them. (e) Vacancies If a member leaves before finishing their term, whoever replaces them serves only the rest of that term. (f) Chair The Director picks the chair from among the appointed members. (g) Meetings The Council must meet at least once every four months — three times a year — and can also meet whenever the Director or chair calls a meeting. (h) Compensation and reimbursement of expenses Appointed members get paid for each day they work for the Council, including travel time, unless they turn down the pay. The daily pay cannot exceed the daily rate for level IV of the Executive Schedule. Ex officio members — the federal officials — don't get extra pay for Council service beyond their regular government salary. (i) Staff The Director must give the Council the staff, information, and other help it needs to do its job. (j) Duration Even though federal advisory bodies can normally expire automatically under section 1013(a) of title 5, this Council keeps going until a law ends it.