Changing News Archive - October, 2009

WASHINGTON – Thirty-one states are included in the new 508 compliant National State-by-State Medicaid Statistical Information System eligibility and claims tables for federal fiscal years 2005-2008, now available on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s Web site, www.cms.hhs.gov.

The standard 25 MSIS tables contain pre-defined, high-level, aggregated state level data relating to Medicaid eligibility and claims. Each table detail page now contains a link to the MSIS data marts, which allow users to perform additional analysis of the summary level information.

WASHINGTON – A group of healthcare and consumer organizations and companies has released five policy recommendations designed to promote better medication adherence, with potential savings of as much as $300 billion a year.

"Not only is poor medication adherence costly, but it also can be dangerous," said Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League. "Because patients don't take their medications for a variety of reasons, including cost such as co-pays and deductibles, side effects, misconceptions or fears and trouble with administration, we need to employ a multitude of strategies to improve adherence.

Inclusion of a public option has become one of the most contentious issues in the debate on healthcare reform.  But several polls in recent weeks show support for the option running at between 50 and 61 percent among Americans.

WASHINGTON – According to a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services, rural Americans pay for nearly half of their healthcare costs out of their own pocket, and one out of every five farmers is in medical debt.

Released Tuesday by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) the report, titled "More Choices, Better Coverage: Health Insurance Reform and Rural America," details the healthcare inequities faced by rural Americans.

It's long been hard for health-care consumers to learn how much doctor visits or hospital stays will cost them. That's now beginning to change, as a growing array of Web sites try to lift the veil on pricing.

The online resources come from insurers, government agencies, Internet companies and medical-care providers.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has declared the swine flu, or H1N1, a national emergency.

According to the White House, the president made the declaration Sunday to address the ongoing H1N1 flu pandemic by giving healthcare organizations the ability to react more rapidly to the spread of the virus.

Experts expect the H1N1 flu to move rapidly throughout the country, and a majority of states now have widespread influenza activity, the White House said.

The declaration gives authority to the Department of Health and Human Services to waive certain regulatory requirements for healthcare facilities in response the ongoing pandemic.

Hillcrest Medical Center is part of an experiment testing a new "bundled" payment system. Medicare makes a single reimbursement for all the hospital and doctor care for heart and joint procedures, rather than making separate payments to the facility and physicians.

Such combined payments are getting close attention during the health care debate as a way to encourage hospitals and doctors to work together to hold down costs and improve care.

WASHINGTON -- Top Senate Democrats are close to finalizing their health bill and could unveil a measure as soon as early this week that would include stiffer penalties on employers who fail to provide health coverage.

Senate leaders plan to submit the bill to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate as soon as Monday, and make the legislation public as soon as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

In a world where a consumer can collect encyclopedic knowledge about a car or home electronics purchase, the need for useable, measureable quality data grows every day, particularly in healthcare.

More organizations are focusing on quality data collection, said Stephanie Iorio, RN, CPHQ, CPC, during her presentation "The Impact of Quality Data on the External Environment" during September's National Association for Healthcare Quality national conference in Grapevine, TX.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. hog has tested positive for the pandemic H1N1 flu virus for the first time ever, the Agriculture Department confirmed on Monday.

USDA said the virus was found in a hog exhibited at the Minnesota State Fair where four teenagers became sick.

The discovery does not suggest infection of commercial pig herds raised for slaughter, USDA said. So far, it said, preliminary positives have been found in three hogs with tests confirming pandemic H1N1 on one of them.

L'ANSE, MI – The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will insure a $28,310,000 loan to Baraga County Memorial Hospital in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, according to U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mich.).

The loan is being provided through the Federal Housing Administration's Section 242 Hospital Mortgage Insurance Program and will be used to construct a new facility approximately three miles from the existing site in L'Anse, Mich.

WASHINGTON – The AARP and the American Medical Association are urgeing Senators to pass S. 1776, the Medicare Physician Fairness Act.

The bill is expected to lay the foundation for a new payment system to help ensure seniors' access to and choice of physicians. Physicians are facing a 21.5 percent cut in Medicare payment rates in 2010, with additional cuts in the future.

Most U.S. health care workers don't get flu shots. They never have, despite 28 years of jawboning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But that's going to change this fall in New York state. A new regulation there aims to stop health care workers from passing the flu to patients. By the end of this month, all hospital and clinic workers are supposed to get vaccinated against seasonal flu. By Nov. 30, they are required to get the swine flu vaccine.

Most Influential Doctors, created for USA TODAY by Santa Fe medical information firm Qforma, lists about 8,800 specialists in the treatment of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, breast cancer, depression, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and arthritis from more than 300 U.S. metro areas.

Unlike standard best-doctor lists compiled by opinion-based surveys, the Qforma analysis represents a national effort to track subtle differences in doctors' practice patterns that reveal, on a local level, which doctors most influence their peers. The project's goal is to offer consumers an innovative resource that they may factor into the complex decision of how to choose a doctor.

WASHINGTON – The Senate Finance Committee passed its long-awaited healthcare reform bill Tuesday afternoon by a vote of 14-9.

"America's Healthy Future Act of 2009" was passed primarily along party lines, with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) joining the Democratic majority.

PORTLAND, ME –  Nurses and doctors from nine healthcare battleground states canvassed for health reform on Saturday.

The event was sponsored by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Working America and was held in Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Ohio.

The healthcare providers, who wore scrubs as they went door-to-door, were in support of a health reform plan that "will not allow private insurance companies to come in between healthcare providers and their patients."

Based on new research, total national healthcare spending could drop by about 0.5%—or $11 billion—if tort reform was enacted by 2010, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

GRAPEVINE, TX – Healthcare organizations need to act now to get their share of $34 billion in stimulus incentives.

To be eligible for ARRA incentives for the support of healthcare IT, healthcare organizations must use certified products and show meaningful use. The glitch: The government is still defining 'meaningful use.' The estimated time of arrival is spring 2010.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today unveiled several new resources on the federal government’s one-stop resource for flu information -- www.flu.gov.  The Web site now features a new H1N1 Flu Self-Evaluation guide for adults 18 and older along with a new Flu Myths and Facts section, which provides the public with the latest and most accurate information about the flu.

“Flu.gov is a one-stop clearinghouse for the latest news about the flu,” said Secretary Sebelius.  “These new resources on flu.gov will help individuals get critical information on how to protect themselves and their families from the H1N1 virus. They will also help us to get accurate information out into the public realm so people know what the facts are about the flu.”

A new "scorecard" lists "shockingly wide variations" among the states when it comes to the health of their residents, says the president of the Commonwealth Fund, which compared such factors as access to care, insurance coverage and avoidable hospital admissions.

"The differences we see among the states translate to real lives and real dollars," Karen Davis said Wednesday at a news conference.

"Where you live matters for how long you live and how healthy you live," said study co-author Cathy Schoen, senior vice president of the Commonwealth Fund.

WASHINGTON – One hundred and fifty physicians, some of them promoting a single-payer system, met at the White House Monday to discuss healthcare reform.

Paul Hochfeld, MD, an emergency room physician and advocate for a single-payer system, said the current health reform bills on the table will not fix the healthcare crisis. "They will only perpetuate the miserable situation we presently have," he said.

The study, released Tuesday by the Commonwealth Fund, was conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School. It shows that individuals who were either continuously or intermittently uninsured between the ages of 51 and 64 cost Medicare more than those who had continuous insurance coverage in the years prior to Medicare eligibility.

On average, those who were previously uninsured cost Medicare an additional $1,000 annually per person when compared with those who had been consistently covered. These increased costs were due primarily to complications resulting from cardiovascular disease and diabetes and from apparently delayed surgeries for arthritis, the study found.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Friday wrapped up debate on a massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system and prepared to vote on the legislation next week.

"We can be proud of what we've done here," Committee Chairman Max Baucus said as the panel completed the amendment process and set a vote for next week. The panel is awaiting an official cost estimate on the roughly $900 billion measure before advancing the measure to the full Senate.

WASHINGTON – HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced 63 awards totaling more than $7.6 million to help states recruit healthcare clinicians and alleviate their debt burden.

The funds are part of the $500 million appropriated to HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration  by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to address workforce shortages and encourage diversity in the health professions.

"These funds will help place full-time primary care health professionals in shortage areas and help hundreds of thousands of Americans get primary care they might not otherwise receive," said Sebelius.