Medicine & Health articles from August 2004

Medicine & Health archives from August 2004

Actuarial equivalence ...(Medicare Employer Subsidies)
August 2, 2004... To get new federal subsidies designed to encourage employers to continue providing retiree drug coverage, companies will have to pay for the benefits themselves. They won't be able to make retirees pay for their own coverage through premiums...

Will history repeat itself with new set of economizing tools?(Consumer driven heal plans, department of the treasury)
August 2, 2004... This is the second part of a Perspectives series on the state of account-based consumer-directed health plans. The first appeared last week. The movement to CDHPs has only just begun, with adoption rates for even the most established plan...

... Do two prongs make a right?(Medicare, subsidies eligibility, evaluation of benefits paid by the retirees)
August 2, 2004... The Medicare chief has lots of company in his "no windfalls" stance: When the Wall Street Journal ran a January story saying that companies could get the subsidy for benefits paid for by retirees, it prompted denials from industry figures and...

In rule, CMS envisions more flexible world for health plans.(Medicare Private Health Plans)
August 2, 2004... The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wants to promote happy Medicare participation by as broad and innovative a group of private health plans as possible. That's the goal of the agency's new proposed rule under the Medicare...

Doc pay rule cuts drugs up to 89 percent.(Medicare Part B Rx Payments, new method of paying for physician-administered drugs to affect reimbursements)
August 2, 2004... The proposed physician payment rule for 2005 provides the first look at how Medicare's new method of paying for physician-administered drugs will affect reimbursements. The preliminary results of the attempt in last year's Medicare...

Map of PPO regions remains conundrum for CMS.(Medicare regional preferred provider organizations, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
August 2, 2004... To help rural Medicare beneficiaries and others in low-payment areas gain access to private health plans, last year's Medicare Modernization Act authorized preferred provider organizations to serve regions the size of a state or larger. The...

Dump CON laws, doc-dominated licensure boards, say Feds.(Health care competition)
August 2, 2004... Increasing market competition is not a panacea for health care, but it can accomplish much that's desirable. So say the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department's antitrust division in an analysis based on an extensive series of...

Drug benefit asset test to focus on finances, real estate.(Financial eligibility criteria for drug costs reimbursements, medicare and medicaid)(Brief Article)
August 2, 2004... * Drug Benefit Asset Test To Focus On Finances, Real Estate. Under the proposed rule for the Medicare drug benefit, beneficiaries would not have to count wedding rings, burial plots, family heirlooms, or the family car as assets in determining...

Aussies disconcerted by U.S. revolving doors.(Ralph Ives, Claude Burcky, lead negotiators change jobs)(Brief Article)
August 2, 2004... * Aussies Disconcerted By U.S. Revolving Doors. "Two senior United States trade negotiators who sealed the trade deal with Australia have accepted plum jobs representing U.S. medical and drug companies." So says the July 27 Sydney Morning...

American Association for Homecare.(People)(Brief Article)
August 2, 2004... Martha Rinker has joined the American Association for Homecare as vice president for government relations. She has been legislative counsel at the American Podiatric Medical Association and directed government relations at the American...

CMS lowers outlier threshold in inpatient rule.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, hospital reimbursement)
August 9, 2004... Under the final Medicare inpatient payment rule for fiscal year 2005, released August 2, hospitals will have an easier time obtaining special payments for treating the most costly Medicare patients. The proposed rule would have made these...

Doubts, hopes mingle as CDHP market develops.(Consumer directed health plans)
August 9, 2004... This is the third part of a Perspectives series on the state of consumer-directed health coverage. The second part appeared in our August 2 issue. On one point there is little disagreement: Health-care spending growth is making it hard for...

New suits on uninsured charges target for-profit hospitals.(Hospital Charges)
August 9, 2004... Earlier this year, trial lawyers began a wave of class-action lawsuits alleging that not-for-profit hospitals vastly overcharge uninsured patients and then harass them when they are unable to quickly pay the bills. Now, a new group of suits is...

FDA approves two combo brand-name AIDS drugs.(Truvada, from Gilead Sciences Inc.,)(Epzicom, from GlaxoSmithKline AB)(Food and Drug Administration)
August 9, 2004... The Food and Drug Administration August 2 granted accelerated approval to two once-a-day, fixed-dose combination antiretroviral drugs. Each drug--Truvada, from Gilead Sciences, and Epzicom, from GlaxoSmithKline--combines two of its...

Zerhouni sees no price restraints in Bayh-Dole.(Elias Zerhouni, National Institutes of Health director, drug prices)
August 9, 2004... A five-fold price increase does not justify the federal government overriding Abbott Laboratories' patent on the AIDS medication ritonavir, National Institutes of Health Director Elias Zerhouni said August 4. Zerhouni refused several...

Discount cards: some savings ...(Medicare Rx Discount Cards)(Maryland, health care industry)(Brief Article)
August 9, 2004... At least in Maryland, Medicare's prescription drug discount cards provide significant savings over retail, according to a study by the consulting firm Health Policy Alternatives Inc. for the Kaiser Family Foundation. For a basket of the...

... But hard choices.(Medicare Rx Discount Cards)
August 9, 2004... Choosing the best card is not likely to be all that easy: "Most beneficiaries are not now using the Internet; even their helpers are often finding the Web-based information more perplexing than helpful," the study reports. "Despite a...

Minorities face resource-poor, less well connected system.(Racial Disparities in health care industry)
August 9, 2004... Some health-care disparities likely result from the fact that African-American and other minority patients disproportionately get care from providers who can't guarantee access to specialty referrals or hospital admissions and have higher...

SNFs to get 2.8 percent pay increase, inpatient rehabs 3.3 percent for 2005.(Skilled Nursing Facility)(Brief Article)
August 9, 2004... The fiscal year 2005 market-basket increase for skilled nursing facilities under the Medicare prospective payment system is 2.8 percent, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in a July 30 Federal Register notice. ...

Hill.(Sally Canfield gets appointed)(Brief Article)
August 9, 2004... Sally Canfield, a former top aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, returns to the Hill as health policy advisor to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). Most recently a deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland...

Desire to expand, launch clinics outpaces federal funding.(Community Health Centers)
August 23, 2004... Local interest in opening and expanding federally qualified community health centers is running high, and the public need for the centers' wide range of primary-care services is growing. But funding lags further behind demand this year than in...

The future of CDHPs: the only thing constant is change?(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)
August 23, 2004... This is the fourth part of a Perspective series on the state of consumer-directed healthcare. The third part appeared in our August 9 issue. Everybody knows that the next--or maybe the current--big thing is the consumer-directed health...

CMS projects 6.6-percent boost in total outpatient pay for 2005.(Medicare Outpatient PPS)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services )
August 23, 2004... Hospital outpatient services will see a 3.3-percent payment update for calendar year 2005, plus other increases enacted in last year's Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA). The various payment boosts will bring...

Kerry does too have a med-mal plan, says advisor.(Medical Malpractice)(John Kerry )
August 23, 2004... Aside from acknowledging that increased use of information technology and a commitment to fostering patient safety could improve healthcare, the presidential campaigns of President George Bush and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) diverge widely on...

Multi-stakeholder group gives up on incremental change.(Health System Reform)
August 23, 2004... Incremental changes to the health-care system won't cut it. Access, quality, and cost must all be tackled together, and soon, with policies that are "commensurate with the scope of the challenges we face." That's the conclusion of the...

Go ahead and lose that number, [Dr.] Ricky.(Medicare Billing)
August 23, 2004... Got a question on Medicare coverage or billing policy? Don't expect help from the toll-free telephone hotline. That appears to be the advice that the General Accountability Office is offering when it comes to the call centers through which...

Hold that bandwagon ...(In Other News)(tax-exempt organization's investigation)(Brief Article)
August 23, 2004... Hold That Bandwagon... Joining consumer-advocacy groups, the plaintiffs' bar, and at least three congressional committees, the Internal Revenue Service is the latest group to announce a probe of the not-for-profit sector. The IRS is launching...

9th Circuit declines administration request for rehearing on assisted suicide.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
August 23, 2004... The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals August 11 turned down a Bush administration request to reconsider its ruling that the federal Controlled Substances Act does not effectively ban Oregon's law permitting assisted suicide. The new ruling sets...

Senate Finance Committee.(People)(Brief Article)
August 23, 2004... There are two new faces on the Democratic health staff of the Senate Finance Committee: Alice Weiss will handle Medicaid, State Children's Health Care Program, and uninsurance matters. Most recently, she was health-policy director at the...