Medicine & Health articles from January 2002

Medicine & Health archives from January 2002

Philosophical divide on coverage dooms stimulus bills. (Economic Stimulus).(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... Bipartisan negotiations to produce economic stimulus legislation fell apart in late December. Part of the reason for the stimulus' demise may be that lawmakers see some signs that a recovery already is beginning and the package may not be so...

HHS offers anthrax vaccine, extended drug course. (Anthrax).(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... With many postal workers and Capitol Hill staffers exposed to inhalational anthrax hitting the end of their 60-day course of preventive antibiotics, the Department of Health and Human Services Dec. 18 offered these individuals two additional...

Senate passes bioterror bill. (Bioterrorism).(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... The Senate Dec. 20 passed a bill authored by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Bill Frist (R-TN) that would provide a framework for allocating the $2.5 billion in anti-bioterrorism funding contained in $20 billion emergency spending package that...

HHS funding bill omits mental health parity. (Appropriations).(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... Three months after the 2002 fiscal year began on Oct. 1, 2001, Congress finally passed the FY 2002 appropriations bill funding the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education. The House passed the legislation on Dec. 19, with...

Bills to help ease nurse shortage head to conference. (Nursing Workforce).(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... Legislation implementing scholarships and public relations campaigns to boost nursing school enrollments passed both houses of Congress in the waning hours of the session. Both bills (H.R. 3487 and S. 1864) are considerably less far-reaching...

Court upholds Florida plan to cut Medicaid drug costs. (Medicaid Rx Drugs).(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... On Dec. 28, a federal district court upheld a Florida law requiring drug companies to provide a 10 percent discount on drugs sold through that state's Medicaid program. The discount is on top of the existing 15.1 percent federal Medicaid...

Cards, internet yield better deals on lower-priced drugs. (Prescription Drug Prices).(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... Expecting a big price break from buying prescription drugs with a discount card on from an Internet pharmacy? Percentage-wise, the big breaks come almost entirely on generic drugs and lower-priced brandname items, while pricey, high-profile...

Johnson proposes M+C payment hike. (Medicare+Choice).(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chair Nancy Johnson (R-CT) introduced a promised bill Dec. 20 that, for 2003 only, would allow Medicare+Choice plans to be paid based on 100 percent of fee-for-service Medicare costs. While she intends to...

OIG to CMS: review home health demands on docs. (Home Health).(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... Most physicians say they understand the Medicare oversight requirements they're expected to meet when referring patients to home health care but argue the demands are unrealistic, says a report from the HHS Office of Inspector General. In a...

Judge quashes attempt to restrict Oxycontin access. (OxyContin).(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... A U.S. District Court judge in Kentucky Dec. 27 denied a plaintiffs' motion to restrict marketing of and access to the time-release pain drug OxyContin. Especially in rural areas, many people say they have become addicted to the narcotic,...

OPPS update postponed.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... * OPPS Update Postponed. It's official: the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Dec. 19 that it is postponing implementation of the 2002 outpatient prospective payment system rates for up to three months, which would be until April...

E-Health transaction standards delayed a year.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... * E-Health Transaction Standards Delayed A Year. President Bush Dec. 27 signed a bill delaying for one year, to Oct. 16, 2003, the compliance deadline for the standards governing electronic health care transactions issued under the Health...

AMA criticizes congressional failure to block Doc pay cut.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... * AMA Criticizes Congressional Failure To Block Doc Pay Cut. The American Medical Association is lambasting the Republican congressional leadership for preventing "a bipartisan, super majority in the House and Senate" from voting to prevent a...

GAO tackles researcher conflicts.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... * GAO Tackles Researcher Conflicts. The General Accounting Office is urging the Department of Health and Human Services to be more aggressive in helping academic research institutions deal with the problem of financial conflicts of interests in...

Terrorism aftermath highlights shaky New York Mental Health System, advocates say.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... * Terrorism Aftermath Highlights Shaky New York Mental Health System, Advocates Say. Following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, the need for community-based mental health care swelled in New York State, advocates told the Albany Times Union Jan...

Colorado Clinics report big up tick in visits by uninsured.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... * Colorado Clinics Report Big Up Tick In Visits By Uninsured. Denver-area health clinics are seeing "thousands more" uninsured patients than they did a year ago, thanks in part to a slowed economy, the Denver Post reported Jan. 3. Among other...

Keeping track of CMP money not CMS's forte, GAO says.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... * Keeping Track of CMP Money Not CMS's forte, GAO Says. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services needs to do a better job of keeping track of and collecting the money it is owed in civil monetary penalties, the General Accounting Office...

Douglas Wood, MD, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist, will chair Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson's 27-member Advisory Committee on Regulatory Reform, HHS announced Dec. 26.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... Douglas Wood, MD, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist, will chair Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson's 27-member Advisory Committee on Regulatory Reform, HHS announced Dec. 26. Wood is a member of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid...

The advisory panel, composed of consumers and health care professionals.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... The advisory panel, composed of consumers and health care professionals, will also include Susan Desmond-Hellman, MD, chief medical officer for Genentech; Gary Dennis, MD, Howard University's chief of neurosurgery; Mary Martin, board chair of...

Health person of the year.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2002... * Public Health Goes On Public View. Thanks to lethal concoctions of anthrax spores sent by mail to several targets, public health climbed onto policymakers' agenda for the first time in decades in the fall of 2001. Strengthening the nation's...

Health care spending increases quickening. (Spending).(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... American health care spending rose 6.9 percent in 2000, to $1.3 trillion, the third year of accelerating cost growth and the biggest jump since 1993's 7.4 percent increase, according to a study led by Katharine Levit, director of the National...

PBM finds drug use varies widely state to state. (Rx Drug Utilization).(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... Releasing what the company calls the first comprehensive state-by-state study of prescription drug use Jan. 7, the St. Louis-based pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts said that geographical location is a remarkably powerful predictor of...

WARF, Geron settle stem cell suit. (Stem Cells).(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... Geron Corp. is giving up some of its exclusive rights to develop and commercialize medical treatments derived from human embryonic stem cells. The agreement comes as part of the settlement of a lawsuit filed against Geron last year by the...

Court blocks Michigan drug discount plan. (Prescription Drugs).(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America won a Jan. 7 preliminary injunction preventing Michigan from implementing a law requiring doctors to get prior authorization before prescribing medications not on the state's preferred...

NIH strategic plan needed to ensure fruitful research. (Federal Research Funding).(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... Implementation of a "really robust" strategic planning process to determine precisely what knowledge is needed to tackle major disease questions, such as the mechanisms of cell death, would yield a better return on the nation's biomedical...

More treatment and drugs for depression sufferers. (Depression).(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... The decade between 1987 and 1997 saw a tripling of the percentage of Americans being treated for depression on an outpatient basis, from 0.73 percent of the population in 1987 to 2.33 percent in 1997, according to a study published in the Jan....

Tough times for tough-to-insure groups. (Coverage).(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... As health costs rise and insurers seek to bolster earnings by dropping unprofitable lines of business, groups for whom it's hard to find affordable coverage are seeing further deterioration of their ability to buy health insurance, regional...

MEDPAC opines on regs, blood, and pain. (MedPAC).(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... Medicare should move to a standard nationwide system of claims processing and eliminate local coverage policies, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recommends in a recent report. The commission proffers six other recommendations designed...

Federal judge orders kids out of TennCare.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... * Federal Judge Orders Kids Out Of TennCare. A federal district judge Dec. 18 ordered Tennessee to set up separate coverage for 550,000 child TennCare enrollees, after determining that they were not receiving Medicaid's mandated periodic...

New Jersey adopts Doc antitrust law.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... * New Jersey Adopts Doc Antitrust Law. A bill signed into law in New Jersey Jan. 7 gives physicians a much sought after exemption from antitrust prohibitions, allowing doctors who work independently to form coalitions to negotiate with insurers...

Supremes continue narrow interpretation of ADA.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... * Supremes Continue Narrow Interpretation of ADA. To qualify for protection under the first prong of the Americans with Disabilities Act, an individual must be "unable to perform the variety of tasks central to most people's daily lives" --...

HMOs friendlier to brand-name drugs.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... * HMOs Friendlier To Brand-Name Drugs. Health maintenance organizations relaxed some controls on enrollee use of brand-name drugs in the waning years of the last decade, according to SMG Marketing Group data published by Aventis...

Coverage before tax cuts, says Porter.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... * Coverage Before Tax Cuts, Says Porter. Former Illinois Rep. John Porter (R), a year removed from the post of House appropriations chair for health and human services, said at a National Press Club forum Jan. 9 that the federal government...

National Institute on Drug Abuse.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... Glen Hanson has been named acting director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. A professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Utah, Hanson joined NIDA last year as director of the division of neuroscience and behavioral...

Medical Device Manufacturers Association.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... Larry Holden, most recently chief of staff to Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), has left that post to take over the top staff position at the Medical Device Manufacturers Association. Previously, Holden has been political technology advisor for...

Long Term Care Pharmacy Alliance.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... Holden replaces Steve Northrup at MDMA, who departs to become the first executive director of the fledgling Long Term Care Pharmacy Alliance, a group representing companies that provide pharmacy services to long-term care sites such as nursing...

Center for Studying Health System Change.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... Richard Sorian will join the Center for Studying Health System Change on Feb. 1 as director of public affairs and senior researcher. Since 1998, Sorian has been a senior researcher at Georgetown University's Institute for Health Care Research...

American Dental Education Association.(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... Jack Bresch is the new associate executive director and director for the center for public policy and advocacy at the American Dental Education Association. Longtime director of legislative affairs for the Catholic Health Association of the...

Chronic care model: can we get there from here? (Perspectives).(Brief Article)
January 14, 2002... This is the first part of a Perspectives article on shifting the health care system to a model that emphasizes chronic care, one of a series on the topic that Medicine & Health is publishing over a several-month period. The second part will...

Bush agenda: tax credits, medicare drugs, quality data. (Bush 2002 Agenda).(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... A top priority for the Bush administration in 2002 will be a pricey proposal to expand health coverage by offering refundable tax credits directly to uninsured people, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Tom Scully said...

Two percent hike for M+C plans. (Medicare + Choice).(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... Medicare+Choice plans are slated to get only a 2 percent payment increase in 2003, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Jan. 15 in a 45-day advance notice of changes for next year. In a statement the same day, CMS...

Boomers will flood, expose weakness of, individual market. (Health Insurance).(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... The individual insurance market "is kind of going to hit the wall" during the next five years, as the entire baby boom generation moves passes the fifty-year mark and moves out of employer-sponsored coverage in large numbers, Mathematica Policy...

Quality forum has first consensus, feds' view unclear. (National Quality Forum).(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... The National Quality Forum, a coalition that includes stakeholder groups from across the health care system, has produced its first consensus document: a list of 27 "serious reportable events" for use in medical error databases in states that...

Leapfrog encouraged by survey results. (Patient Safety).(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... The first results of an ongoing survey of hospital error-prevention efforts are "overall very promising," said Suzanne Delbanco, executive director of the Leapfrog Group, at a Jan. 17 press conference. Almost half of urban hospitals invited to...

Groups release framework to evaluate standards. (Patient Safety).(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... Three prominent health care organizations on Jan. 15 released a framework designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed patient safety standards for hospitals. "Health care providers are investing tens of millions of dollars in new...

Medpac: pay M+C plans local FFS rates. (Medicare + Choice).(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission Jan. 17 voted to recommend that Congress set risk-adjusted payments to Medicare+Choice plans at 100 percent of per-capita local fee-for-service spending and that an adequate risk-adjustment mechanism be...

Tight times siphon more money from tobacco funds. (Tobacco).(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... Only five states -- Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Minnesota -- fund tobacco prevention efforts at or above the minimum level recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a report released Jan. 15...

Doc pay to be revamped? (MedPAC).(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission voted Jan. 16 to recommend that Congress replace the system Medicare uses to set reimbursement rates for physicians. In a report to be released in March, MedPAC will suggest updating physician...

High court considers state external review laws.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... * High Court Considers State External Review Laws. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Jan. 16 in a case challenging the right of states to require independent external review of health plan decisions denying benefits. In Rush Prudential HMO...

Court stays injunction against Michigan Rx discount requirement.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... * Court Stays Injunction Against Michigan Rx Discount Requirement. Michigan can go ahead with its plan to require discounts from pharmaceutical companies, beyond the normal Medicaid discount, for drugs sold through the state's Medicaid program...

Pfizer to offer Rx drug card.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... * Pfizer To Offer Rx Drug Card. Beginning March 1, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. will offer a prescription drug card enabling low-income Medicare beneficiaries to buy a 30-day supply of a Pfizer product for $15, the company announced...

High Court turns down Lilly Prozac plea.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... * High Court Turns Down Lilly Prozac Plea. The U.S. Supreme Court Jan 14 ended Eli Lilly and Co.'s patent-infringement claim against Barr Laboratories, which has been marketing a generic version of Lilly's groundbreaking anti-depression drug...

Funding an "emergency" public health system not enough, says Koplan.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... * Funding An "Emergency" Public Health System Not Enough, Says Koplan. The new money and attention directed to public health infrastructures following last fall's bioterror scare can build a renewed public health system "for the 21st century,"...

Scully votes for choice.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... * Scully Votes For Choice. Asked at a Jan. 16 forum in Washington about ideas for reconciling patients' expensive desire for more health care choices and more health care, period, with calls for them to become cost-conscious consumers, Centers...

Is tort reform a "never event"?(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... * Is Tort Reform A "Never Event"? Tort reform, while "clearly a priority for our members," isn't on the federal legislative agenda of the American College of Physicians -- American Society of Internal Medicine because "there aren't the votes...

Morehouse School of Medicine's National Center for Primary Care.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, MD, will become the first director of the Morehouse School of Medicine's National Center for Primary Care after his four-year term as the nation's top physician runs out next month. Satcher, who headed the...

People problems plague switch to chronic care models.(Brief Article)
January 21, 2002... This is the second part of a Perspectives on chronic care, one of a series that Medicine & Health has published over the past several months. Will health care in the United States successfully make the switch from its current focus on...

Surplus projections decrease by $4 billion. (The Budget).(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... "What a difference a year makes," said Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad in opening a Jan. 23 hearing on the federal budget outlook. In January 2001, the Congressional Budget Office had projected $5.6 trillion in cumulative surpluses...

Aides see tough going for big health bills in 2002 ... (Congress).(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... Moving from the 2001 health policy congressional debates to the 2002 Hill health agenda is "like a weird party, where you wake up the next morning and a lot of the guests are still there," said Dean Rosen, Republican staff director for the...

... Talks, but still disagreement on PBOR ... (Patients' Bill of Rights).(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... "We're as interested as everybody else in the world to see if we can ever pass that damn bill," said Debbie Curtis of patients' rights legislation Jan. 17. Curtis is the administrative assistant for Rep. Pete Stark (CA), senior Democrat on the...

... Providers likely to win payment increases ... (Medicare).(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... One thing is certain: There will be legislation boosting payments or at least halting scheduled payment cuts for some -- perhaps many -- Medicare provider groups in 2002. In the press of terrorism, Congress left off enacting such a measure at...

... Some dems say `yes, but' to tax credits for coverage ... (Uninsured).(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... The White House apparently is set to propose refundable tax credits to help the uninsured buy health coverage, which could force Congress to at least pay lip service to the issue. However, last year even a small-scale attempt to extend...

... GOP's `not yet' may mean `no' on parity. (Mental Health Parity).(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... At year's end, a conference committee on Health and Human Services appropriations rejected a Senate-passed provision to require group health plans to offer mental health coverage equal to that offered for other illnesses and conditions....

California first to set nurse staffing ratios. (Nursing Workforce).(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... California Gov. Gray Davis (D) Jan. 22 unveiled a hard-fought proposed state rule mandating hospital staffing ratios for nurses. The product of a two-year research process in which staffing ratios around the state were collected and analyzed,...

California gets go-ahead to expand coverage, economy will delay move.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... * California Gets Go-Ahead To Expand Coverage, Economy Will Delay Move. The federal government Jan. 24 approved California's request for a Medicaid flexibility waiver to cover parents in families with incomes up to two times the federal poverty...

Coburn, Sullivan, to co-chair AIDS council.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... * Coburn, Sullivan, To Co-Chair AIDS Council. Tom Coburn, MD, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma, and Louis Sullivan, MD, a Health and Human Services Secretary under President George W. Bush's father, are said to be in line to chair...

U.S. social contract requires paying for own long term care, says HHS official.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... * U.S. Social Contract Requires Paying For Own Long Term Care, Says HHS Official. Americans' view of their waning years goes like this: competing in the Senior Olympics and traveling, then a brief stay in an intensive care ward, then death. In...

More plans, elderly to flee M+C, analysts predict.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... * More Plans, Elderly To Flee M+C, Analysts Predict. All Medicare+Choice firms except Kaiser Permanente likely will have fewer M+C enrollees in 2002 than they did in 2001, according to an analysis by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Decisions...

NCQA gets deeming authority.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... * NCQA Gets Deeming Authority. The National Committee on Quality Assurance is the first private group to win federal approval as a so-called deeming authority, authorized to certify that Medicare+Choice organizations licensed as HMOs meet some...

Carolyn Lewis, the first African-American and first hospital trustee elected chair of the American Hospital Association, has died of cancer.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... Carolyn Lewis, the first African-American and first hospital trustee elected chair of the American Hospital Association, has died of cancer. The 65-year-old Lewis was AHA chair in 2000. After retiring in 1997 as assistant director of the...

Michelle Fried is now serving as vice president and chief counsel for the Federation of American Hospitals.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... Michelle Fried is now serving as vice president and chief counsel for the Federation of American Hospitals. Previously, she was federal affairs director for the American College of Emergency Physicians. She earlier served as director of...

The new executive director for public programs at the American Association of Health Plans is Jennifer Baxendell.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... The new executive director for public programs at the American Association of Health Plans is Jennifer Baxendell, of late a top health policy staffer at the House Ways and Means Committee. At AAHP, Baxendell will focus on public policy...

Merrill Matthews is the new executive director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... Merrill Matthews is the new executive director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance. For most of the 1990s, Matthews directed the Center for Health Policy Studies at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Christopher McCabe, a Maryland state senator and director of development for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... Christopher McCabe, a Maryland state senator and director of development for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, is the new head of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Chronic care means altered practice, new institutions. (Medicine & Health Perspectives).(Brief Article)
January 28, 2002... This is the final part of a three-part Perspectives on chronic care, one of a periodic series on the topic that Medicine & Health has published over the past several months. Consider the acute care paradigm: The patient notices a symptom...