- A case study in greed? Minute clinics saturate the healthcare marketplace.
- Minn.-based Allina hospital cited for safety violations.
A patient having heart pacemaker surgery at Abbott Northwestern Hospital was burned on her face, lips and shoulder when a fire burst out from under the sterile drapes covering her body. Doctors and nurses immediately doused the fire and completed the surgery, according to a state investigative report made public Monday.
State health investigators found that the hospital violated safety and procedural policies that contributed to the June 24 incident. The unidentified patient, who was lightly sedated, woke up when the fire ignited and “was very frightened,” according to the report. She suffered first- and second-degree burns, and was kept in the hospital for two days after the accident.
Mass. Governor Deval Patrick is fine tuning his state’s focus on the safety, accountability, and accessibility of healthcare for its citizens. Making refinements in shoring primary care numbers and incentives for producing more primary care physicians, enacting limits on the gifts Pharma gives to physicians to prescribe their medicines, and increasing funding for Massachusetts’ system of universal access are at the top of a new law’s multifaceted approach to improving healthcare quality there. | LINK
Think all of the concerns of primary care physicians regarding time management and patient visits aren’t valid? With all of the demands upon a generalist’s time, the last thing that a busy physician wants to be reminded of is the number of patients he or she could be seeing, as opposed to actually seeing daily.
This observation is highlighted by the fact that the rate of insured patients choosing emergency room care is rising. Number one reason? Lack of access to the primary care physician with no other option. With the incentive for medical school grads to enter subspecialties outside of the less lucrative primary care “market”, this situation is sure to get much worse. | LINK
Just how healthy is the healthcare marketplace? If you ask the insurance companies, business couldn’t be brisker, even if it involves fraudulent activity cloaked within the invisibility of the homeless. Just ask the CEO of a Los Angeles County hospital.
FBI agents arrested Rudra Sabaratnam, 64, the owner and top executive of a hospital, and Estill Mitts, 64, the operator of a homeless “assessment center” in the city’s Skid Row area. They enticed homeless people with the promise of payments to act as hospital patients, an indictment alleges. The homeless people are said to have received medical treatment, and the government was billed for the services. The unnecessary hospital treatments were then billed to Medicare and Medi-Cal in a scheme that began in August 2004 and lasted until about October 2007, the indictment states.
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Thought tuberculosis (TB) was an afterthought? Think again. The rates of the most difficult to eradicate strains — the so-called multi drug resistant (MDR) strains — are creating concern in the epidemiological and public health spheres. Although not a major problem in this country, the rates of MDR-TB are climbing in developing nations. The use of what is called “directly observed therapy“, a mode in which patients must take treatment under the supervision of a public health entity, is becoming increasingly challenged practically everywhere. That fact doesn’t bode well for keeping a key infectious disease as contained as it previously was just a few years ago. | LINK
In an effort to assuage the increasing antipathy of medical lobbyists and physicians against the recent GOP-led campaign to enforce Medicare reimbursement cuts to healthcare providers, Republican leaders recently held a private meeting with top healthcare thought leaders to mend a relationship which has increasingly favored Democrats as of late. The last time Republicans seemed as though they were in the good graces of the medical leadership community was in 2003, when George W. Bush held his own against those in the medical provider cohort who were being bruised by unfair tort practices nationwide. That was also the year in which bold GOP initiatives were easily passed and yielded, among other things, a complete overhaul in how the government, Pharma, and patients later obtained prescription medications — under Medicare Part D.
However, recent spikes in the number of uninsured and a general sense of healthcare management malaise on the part of legislators on both sides of the ideological divide have made a tenuous relationship even more fragile. Can the Republicans make it up to physicians this time?
In the run-up to the 2006 midterm elections, doctors and the groups that represent them gave 62 percent of their combined $52.4 million war chest to Republicans, compared with 37 percent to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That breakdown mirrors previous cycles since Bush entered the White House. But since 2006, doctors and related groups have given Democrats 53 percent of their combined $53 million in campaign contributions, according to the watchdog group. The switch is even more stark for the AMA. In the run-up to the 2006 election, the AMA’s political action committee gave Republicans 70 percent of its campaign cash, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2004, the AMA’s PAC contributed 80 percent of its total donations to Republican lawmakers and candidates. Since 2006, that PAC has directed 53 percent of its contributions to Democrats.
If the current state of re-election possibilities continues to wane for the GOP, don’t bet on it. | LINK
A sign of things to come in this already very shaky economy? Political pundicrats always say “as California goes, so does the nation”. Let’s hope that the (in)solvency of their Medicaid managed care contracts doesn’t bleed over to what the other 49 get in matching funds to provide healthcare for the poor and elderly.
State officials put the healthcare facilities on notice that starting today, payments from the Medi-Cal insurance program for the poor will be frozen until a budget is approved. An emergency pot of cash officials had set aside to pay the healthcare clinics, nursing homes and adult day care centers in the event of a delayed budget has run dry.
Many of those facilities are those whose fiscal lifeblood relies upon Medicaid and associated managed care contracts — long term care facilities and those which serve the developmentally disabled.
“It is very scary this year,” said Cheryl Loflin Wertz, who runs 18 of the group homes in Los Angeles and Orange counties. “We’ve laid people off, haven’t let other people take vacations, cut back. . . . I’ve already borrowed money from my family. There isn’t anyplace to go to borrow.” Michelle Clarke, who operates 12 group homes between Upland and Loma Linda, said she would be out of cash by mid-August. A lender will give her the $100,000 a week she needs to stay solvent, she said, but each weekly loan will cost her $5,000 in interest and fees.
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The aging of our nation has brought us more than a heightened sense of healthful well being, it has also pushed the concepts of preventive care and chronic disease management well beyond the pages of medical literature. Besides patients and doctors; healthcare organizations, third party payers, the federal government (Medicare) and disease-oriented associations are claiming a bit of the pie with respect to the constant flow of information about these issues.
Lately, the target condition is diabetes. Or, rather, pre-diabetes.
Pre-diabetes occurs when blood sugar levels or impaired glucose tolerance is elevated, but not quite to the point defined as diabetes. More than 56 million Americans currently suffer from pre-diabetes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Diabetes has become the major problem in the United States,” Dr. Harold Lebovitz, a professor of medicine at the division of endocrinology and metabolism/diabetes at the State University of New York Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn, said during a noon teleconference Wednesday. […]
“The issue is, do you wait until patients really develop these catastrophic complications?” Lebovitz said. “Last year, it cost $170 billion in direct and indirect costs to take care of people with diabetes.”
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There’s no easy money. That’s the mantra echoed in an interesting piece today in the NYT. Critics of Barack Obama’s healthcare financing plan are beginning to question the senator’s rationale for major policy points behind his pledge to “bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family”. They also contend that the presidential candidate has no essential timeline with which to carry out his audacious initiatives. Potential roadblocks:
- How does one begin to consider cost of healthcare savings if upfront costs for policy changes are daunting? For example, take his pledge to spend $50 billion over five years to speed the computerization of health records, or what about $6 billion a year on tax credits to small businesses that provide coverage to workers?
- When could one actually begin to realize the $2500 savings? Obama’s camp says by the end of the first term, but that’s not entirely a sure thing.
- Getting around the fact that Obama’s projecting that a robust overhaul consisting of 15 broad initiatives would generate savings of only 6 percent after 10 years (according to the Commonwealth Fund).
The heatlhcare debate just got a little more interesting. | LINK
- Colorado veterans oppose VA hospital plan to partner with an existing private non-profit.
- Wisconsin Medicaid fraud unit exposes tactics of neuroleptic drug maker.
- Holy menu, Batman! NYC restaurants can be fined for not showing calorie counts on their offerings.
- House committee will investigate healthcare plan rescissions nationwide.
A congressional committee will investigate health insurers’ practice of canceling coverage when policyholders get sick, its chairman said Thursday.
The problem first came to light in California, but witnesses testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee suggested that it was more widespread. The problem affects the individual insurance market, in which 14 million Americans, including nearly 3 million Californians, purchase medical benefits on their own. In light of proposals to expand the individual market, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), said the individual market demanded more scrutiny, especially of cancellation practices.
- McCain criticizes Obama for voting against so-called “partial birth” abortion ban.
Could this really be true?
Access to health care in the United States continues to elude more and more Americans, a new survey shows. […] “Despite the best efforts of millions of talented and dedicated health-care professionals, this latest scorecard demonstrates that we are losing ground,” Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, said during a Wednesday teleconference.
Of course it is. Silly of me to even ask. | LINK | LINK 2
Michelle Hoyte, a former employer of the American Red Cross, was concerned. So much so in fact that she invited a team of auditors to visit one of the service organization’s Philadelphia operations. She then became a whistleblower and was subsequently terminated. If you believe her version of events, it is because the organization’s senior leadership was essentially neglecting strict safety standards by refusing to recall over 500 units of blood products collected by improper methods.
Blood collection is big business for the Red Cross, whose ability to steward the distribution of donated blood in this country far outstrips its logistical acumen in coordinating continental and worldwide disaster relief efforts. Apparently, the drive for revenue from its well known association with blood donation is trumping concerns over its ability to protect the public; consequently, the FDA is setting its regulatory sights on the Red Cross. | LINK
As many are expecting the fate of a recent bill blocking cuts in Medicare reimbursements to physicians to head straight to veto, pundits from the healthcare policy sphere debate what the intended goals of its passage would have brought (or, will bring) to the overall business of healthcare. Will shifting payments from physicians to payers give seniors more choice in their healthcare, as Republicans suggest; or, will this action limit access to care because of physician disenrollment — a concern of Democrats? | LINK
