President Obama has signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, which provides $1.012 trillion in discretionary funding for the operations of the federal government through September 30, 2014. In addition to setting overall funding levels for HHS agencies, the law specifies funding for numerous HHS policies and initiatives, such as additional funding for program integrity effort involving the 340B drug pricing program and research on the impact of health information technology on patient safety, and reduced funding for the IPAB and certain other ACA activities. The agreement also includes directives for HHS to improve fraud and abuse efforts, including using the latest technology to ensure only valid beneficiaries and valid providers receive benefits (although on the other hand, the agreement raises concerns that the Recovery Audit Contractor program includes incentives “to take overly aggressive actions”). In addition, the agreement highlights more Congressional interest in more narrow HHS policies, such as objections to the criteria CMS uses to package drug costs under the hospital outpatient prospective payment system, and concerns that rural patients maintain access to needed health services if CMS proceeds with a proposal to remove critical access hospital status from certain facilities.