 |
||||||
 |
||||||
  |
||||||
 |
||||||
|
| |
||||||
| |
||||||
|
|
||||||
| |
||||||
|
News Briefs |
Updated December 31, 2008 |
 |
|
|
 |
||
| Pennsylvania ranks 41st nationwide in amputation rate, with 1.23 lower-limb amputations per 1,000 Medicare beneficiaries. | The national average from 2003 to 2006 is 1.1 amputations per 1,000, according to the Dartmouth Atlas, which gives Pennsylvania the worst amputation rate in the Northeast – 15 percent higher than Indiana and 38 percent higher than Rhode Island and Michigan – while only 10 southern states and West Virginia have worse rates than Pennsylvania, reported the Post-Gazette. Pennsylvania's high rate of amputations reflects a large incidence of poorly controlled diabetes, while poverty and lack of health care resources and podiatrists also lead to higher rates of amputation. A diabetic patient’s life expectancy after an amputation drops to 18 months on average because of lack of mobility and added stress on the patient's already damaged heart, the Post-Gazette added. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 29, 2008) | |
| Faced with falling tax revenues and growing budget gaps, states across the country are cutting Medicaid. | Some 19 states have already lowered payments to hospitals and nursing homes, eliminated coverage, and forced some people out of the program and many are looking at deeper cuts, reported the Wall Street Journal. President-elect Obama’s stimulus plan is likely to include $100 billion in aid to the states, largely to shoulder more of the costs of Medicaid and perhaps prevent more benefit cuts or tax hikes at the state level, while some in Washington are considering using federal money to extend Medicaid to people who are unemployed and have lost their health benefits, the Journal added. (Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2008) | |
| President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics in medically underserved areas. | For those in poor urban neighborhoods and isolated rural areas, including Indian reservations, the clinics are often the only dependable providers of basic services like prenatal care, childhood immunizations, asthma treatments, cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases, reported the New York Times. Despite the clinics' unprecedented growth, wide swaths of the country remain without access to affordable primary care. In response, Democrats on Capitol Hill are proposing even more significant increases, making the centers a likely feature of any health care deal struck by Congress and the Obama administration, the Times added. (New York Times, December 26, 2008) | |
 |
||
| Pennsylvania received an overall grade of C+ and tied for 8th in the nation for its support of emergency patients in a national report card on state of emergency medicine released by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). |
The report card comes at a time when the national picture
looks bleak: job and insurance losses, a rapidly growing senior population
and a recent survey forecasting critical shortages of primary care doctors
all point to escalating emergency patient populations. The low point of Pa.’s
report card was in the category of medical liability environment where it
received a grade of D and a national ranking of 38th. The primary factors
behind the low grade revolve around high malpractice payments.
The state’s grade of C- and ranking of 23rd in access to emergency care was due specifically to the state’s need for primary care and mental health providers, high hospital occupancy rates, and low Medicaid reimbursement rates for office visits. Medicaid reimbursement for office visits are only 54.5 percent of the national average, despite a 38.1 percent increase between 2004 and 2007. On a positive note, slightly more than seven percent of children and fewer than 11 percent of adults in Pa. are uninsured compared with averages of 11.7 and 17.2 percent nationwide. Pa. also fared well in the category of public health and injury prevention with a grade of B- and a national ranking of 17th. However, negative indicators such as the state’s infant mortality rate, high smoking and binge drinking rates, lack of mandatory motorcycle helmet law, and a lower than average score on child safety seat/seat belt legislation prevented the state from receiving a higher grade and ranking. (Pennsylvania Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, December 5, 2008) |
|
|
||
 |
||
|
Pennsylvania's Senate Banking and Insurance Committee
voted 10-to-4 to recommend against the merger of health insurers Highmark
Inc. and Independence Blue Cross. |
The committee's action is nonbinding and, in case Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario decides to approve the merger, the committee outlined 11 conditions that it would like to see attached to the deal, reported the Business Journal. Among the reasons the committee opposed the merger is that it would "tend to create a monopoly" by creating the seventh-largest insurance company in the country, controlling 53 percent of the overall insurance market in Pennsylvania, the Business Journal noted. The conditions the committee would like to see attached to merger approval include prohibitions against the new company entering into exclusive provider agreements with hospitals and doctors, and against charging access fees to other Blues plans that may want to use the new company's network of doctors and hospitals; while the committee also recommended that future premiums be set without regard to the member's health, the Business Journal added. (Philadelphia Business Journal, November 20, 2008) | |
|
||
| The number of Pennsylvania adults on a waiting list for state-subsidized health insurance has reached an all-time high. | The waiting list for the adultBasic insurance program had 145,800 adults as of the beginning of December, reflecting an increase of about 15,000 since November – a record-high monthly spike, reported the Associated Press. The waiting list has been at six figures for the past several months, while the program currently serves 46,543 working Pennsylvanians who lack health insurance, but whose incomes are too high to qualify them for federal Medicaid health benefits, the Associated Press added. (Associated Press, December 24, 2008) | |
|
||
| Open enrollment for the Medicare Part D prescription plan ends Dec. 31, and up to 300,000 eligible Pennsylvania seniors may still be without coverage. |
|
|
| American College of Physicians President Jeffrey Harris sent a letter to HHS nominee Tom Daschle asking that the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package include a 10 percent pay bonus for all services provided by primary care docs under Medicare for a period of 18 months. | The letter also requests that primary care practices, especially small ones, get a piece of the funding pie for health information technology; Obama has pledged to spend billions of dollars on that endeavor, reported the Wall Street Journal. The 18 months when the bonus would be in effect would stabilize funding for primary care practices, especially smaller ones, which are an essential part of the safety net that people rely on for their care, especially in tough economic times. Primary care physicians who own small practices are struggling to survive because of inadequate access to credit, losses in their own investments, slower collections and more "bad debt" and uncompensated care as their patients are unable to pay their bills and the numbers of uninsured increase. Without funding to stabilize primary care practices, the letter said, many will go under and have to close, the Journal added. (Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2008) | |
 |
||
| West Penn Allegheny Health System reported sharp losses for the fiscal year that ended June 30, while officials said they are taking action to contend with lingering money woes. | The hospital network said the net loss of $62.8 million for fiscal year 2008 is largely attributed to a $73 million accounting mistake disclosed earlier this year. Although West Penn Allegheny leaders have anticipated the losses, they mark the first time in four years that the system has not made a profit; last year, West Penn Allegheny posted a modest $6.1 million profit, reported the Tribune-Review. In a letter to investors, CEO Christopher T. Olivia expressed confidence in steady improvements made since he took the job seven months ago, including achieved savings of $33 million in the first four months of the current fiscal year, which he expects will reach $66 million, the Tribune-Review added. (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, November 4, 2008) | |
|
||
| The newly launched Health Care Notification Network (HCNN) has begun delivering emailed drug alerts to physicians, replacing traditional mail delivery of urgent drug warning and recall letters. | The network’s first alert focused on a widely manufactured and commonly used class of antibiotics and was sent immediately via the HCNN to health care providers. Free to all licensed U.S. physicians and their staff, the HCNN is used solely for FDA-mandated Patient Safety Alerts, and is not used for advertising or marketing. Physicians and health care providers can register to receive electronic alerts at www.hcnn.net or through participating medical societies and other HCNN partners. (Health Care Notification Network, October 28, 2008) | |
|
||
| The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center plans to establish 25 cancer centers in Europe, the Middle East and Asia in the coming decade in a joint venture with GE Healthcare. | Charles Bogosta, president of UPMC's international and commercial services division, said UPMC already is in discussions with hospital companies in Turkey, Greece, Germany and South Korea, while UPMC currently operates two cancer centers in Ireland, reported the Post-Gazette. The planned UPMC centers might offer specialized treatments such as intensity-modulated radiation therapy, while staffing would be a mix of local and imported workers, including some physicians, a chief operating officer or a chief medical officer from UPMC, the Post-Gazette added. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 13, 2008) | |
|
||
|
|
||
 |
||
| The U.S. spends $650 billion a year more on health care than expected for a country with our GDP, according to a McKinsey report. | Although Americans are more obese than people in other developed countries they are younger and less likely to smoke than their counterparts in other countries, so the disease burden is actually slightly lower here, reported the Wall Street Journal. Most of the excess spending is going to outpatient care – including visits to doctors offices, emergency rooms and outpatient surgery centers and imaging facilities – accounting for a total of $850 billion out of the $2.1 trillion the U.S. spends on health care – about 41 percent of the total, and about $436 of $650 billion in excess spending, the Journal added. (Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2008) | |
|
||
| The Commonwealth Fund is wading into the hospital-ratings game. | The group’s new site, WhyNotTheBest.org, includes side-by-side comparisons of 4,500 hospitals nationwide and relies on data from Medicare’s Hospital Compare Web site and from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, a survey of patients’ experience in U.S. hospitals, reported the Wall Street Journal. Hospital-ranking programs and rating systems have proliferated in recent years, such as Leapfrog Group’s safety ratings, Healthgrades’s report cards, and Medicare’s National Voluntary Hospital Reporting Initiative, the Journal added. (Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2008) | |
| Prescription drug makers updated their voluntary standards for direct-to-consumer advertising to make the ads more informative, but the measures stop short of changes sought by government and industry critics. | The companies said they will halt advertising that includes promoting prescription drugs for uses that the Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved or using actors as physicians without saying so, while the guidelines say celebrity endorsers shouldn't say they use a drug unless they actually do, reported the Wall Street Journal. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry trade group that issued the standards, said the aim was to address the concerns of doctors, Congress and other critics while continuing to keep patients informed about valuable treatments, the Journal noted. Critics said the changes announced don't go as far as those advocated by a panel on drug safety for the Institute of Medicine, including that companies wait two years before advertising a prescription drug directly to consumers so that its effects can be better understood, while critics also said that television ads should include the phone number at the FDA for patients to call to report a side effect. Under the voluntary standards, only print ads would include the number, the Journal added. (Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2008) | |
|
||
| The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has launched its fourth annual health care provider satisfaction survey of Medicare fee-for-service contractors. | The Medicare Contractor Provider Satisfaction Survey (MCPSS) offers health care providers the opportunity to contribute directly to CMS' understanding of contractor performance, as well as aid future process improvement efforts at the contractor level. CMS is sending the 2009 survey, designed to be completed in about 20 minutes, to approximately 30,000 randomly selected providers, including physicians and other health care practitioners, suppliers and institutional facilities that serve Medicare beneficiaries across the country. Providers can submit their responses via a secure website, mail, fax or over the telephone. (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, December 18, 2008) | |
|
||
 |
||
|
Hamot Health Foundation earned $400 million treating
patients in fiscal 2008, the most in its history. |
The system includes the hospital, its Heart Institute, outpatient surgery center, physician offices and other properties. Hamot hospital itself also performed well in fiscal 2008: about 19,000 patients were admitted, helping generate revenue of about $300 million, and enabling the hospital to reinvest $138 million into capital projects over the past six years, reported the Erie Times-News. The two newest capital projects include the Bayview Centre – a $15 million office building that will house Hamot-affiliated physicians’ offices, PNC Bank and Hamot Sports Medicine; and Hamot’s Women and Babies Hospital – a $35 million facility that will accommodate the hospital’s obstetrics and neonatal units, the Times-News added. (Erie Times-News, October 30, 2008) | |
| St. Clair Hospital has launched a $13.5 million renovation and expansion project for its emergency room. | The project will increase the square footage of the emergency department from 13,000 to 31,000 and take the number of available treatment rooms from 20 to 46, reported the Post-Gazette. Among the treatment rooms will be 31 for acute adult care; six for pediatric care; six "fast track" rooms for patients with minor illnesses and injuries and three behavioral and mental health rooms, the Post-Gazette noted. Currently there are 32 treatment rooms available in the new addition to the department. Once the renovation of the older section of the department is complete sometime in February, all of the rooms will be available, the Post-Gazette added. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 18, 2008) | |
|
||
|
Southwest Regional Medical Center is planning a $3 million
renovation project. |
The project will include expanding its emergency room, expanding behavioral health care services and creating a new specialized surgical care area, reported the Associated Press. Part of the expansion will be paid for with a $1.5 million grant from the state's Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, the Associated Press added. (Associated Press, November 1, 2008) | |
|
||
| Hospital emergency departments are not as safely designed and managed as they should be and improvements in working conditions are needed, according to a study published online in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. |
Researchers surveyed 3,562 emergency medicine clinicians in
65 hospitals to examine their perceptions about their emergency department’s
safety. At all of the hospitals surveyed, respondents reported problems with
the safety of emergency care systems; for example, the majority of
respondents said that emergency departments consistently lack sufficient
space to deliver patient care.
The study also found that:
The researchers recommend the following improvements.
(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, December 9, 2008) |
|
 |
||
| Gov. Rendell has extended through June 30 his executive order enabling the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) to remain open. | Since July, PHC4 has been operating under an executive order that was due to expire Nov. 30, while reauthorization of the agency this summer became ensnared in an unrelated political fight between Rendell and Senate Republicans, reported the Inquirer. With that deadline approaching and without a bill he was willing to sign from the state legislature, the governor acted to save the agency, giving the General Assembly – where PHC4 enjoys broad bipartisan support – more time to pass a reauthorization bill after it returns to session in January, the Inquirer noted. PHC4 was forced to shut down briefly in July after its reauthorization was tied to an extension of MCARE abatement, while Rendell repeated his pledge not sign legislation to extend the abatement until the legislature acted on his proposal to make affordable health insurance available to the state's 800,000 uninsured adults, the Inquirer added. (Philadelphia Inquirer, November 20, 2008) | |
|
||
| The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued its final pay rule for the 2009 physician fee schedule. | Legislation enacted in July reversed a 10.6 percent cut that took effect at the beginning of that month, while starting in January 2009, a 1.1 percent across-the-board increase will replace an additional roughly 5 percent cut that would have gone into effect if lawmakers had not acted, reported the American Medical News. Because the rule applies payment changes related to the most recent five-year adjustment in Medicare relative values for certain services, some physician specialties might see updates slightly larger than or smaller than 1.1 percent, AMNews noted. But CMS stressed that two bonus opportunities exist to more than quadruple the raise that doctors will get for the year: physicians who successfully participate in the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative will receive a 2 percent bonus on all of their Medicare payments for the year, while the program for the first time will award a separate 2 percent bonus to physicians who successfully prescribe medications electronically for their Medicare patients. Although the sums will not be paid out until sometime in 2010, after Medicare has processed all of next year's claims, this means the maximum effective raise for 2009 will be 5.1 percent, AMNews added. (American Medical News, November 24, 2008) | |
| The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) and the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PMS) sued the state to obtain hundreds of millions in unspent dollars they say should be devoted to the MCARE Fund. | In its petition filed at Commonwealth Court, HAP said the state has violated state law and the Pa. Constitution by failing to transfer dedicated cigarette tax funds to the MCARE Fund to pay for MCARE abatement, which covers all or part of physicians' state-mandated malpractice insurance coverage, reported the Business Journal. The PMS filed its own petition with the Commonwealth Court seeking to preserve funds in a dedicated health care provider retention account earmarked for the eventual phasing-out of the MCARE Fund, which has a projected $1.8 billion unfunded liability. The PMS said the action was filed in response to remarks made on the floor of the state House in Nov. suggesting the funds could be diverted to pay for non-health care projects and to help fill a projected $500 million gap in next year's budget, the Business Journal added. (Philadelphia Business Journal, December 11, 2008) | |
|
||
|
Sen. Charles Grassley – ranking Republican on the Senate
Finance Committee – is weighing proposing legislation in early 2009 that
would hold nonprofit hospitals more accountable for the billions of dollars
in annual tax exemptions they enjoy, aides to the Iowa senator said. |
The legislation would require nonprofit hospitals to spend a minimum amount on charity care, and set curbs on executive compensation and conflicts of interest, reported the Wall Street Journal. Under the new legislation, penalties would be imposed on nonprofit hospitals that fail to meet the new requirements, while penalties could escalate from taxes and fines to stripping a hospital of its federal-tax exemption if it continues to misbehave, the Journal added. (Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2008) | |
Obtain
Medical Specialty Own-Occupation Disability Insurance On-line
© 1996-2008, Physician's News Digest, Inc. All rights reserved.
Physician's News Digest | 117 Forrest Ave |
Narberth | PA | 19072 | 800-220-6109
info@physiciansnews.com
