Medicine & Health articles from January 2004

Medicine & Health archives from January 2004

Feds moving to ban ephedra.(Dietary Supplements)
January 5, 2004... The federal government will ban ephedra, the adrenaline-like herbal supplement widely used for weight loss and athletic-performance enhancement that has been linked to high blood pressure, heart problems, stroke, and death. The coming ban,...

Health person of the year.(Perspectives)(Sen. Max Baucus)
January 5, 2004... From pricing debates to state actions to... oh, yeah, the Medicare legislation, the editors of M&H name our top stories of 2003 and the people who embody them. * It's the prices, stupid. That's how Johns Hopkins University's Gerard...

Advisory panels say morning-after pill should be OTC.(Emergency Contraception)
January 5, 2004... Two Food and Drug Administration advisory panels overwhelmingly recommend allowing the "morning-after" pill to be sold without a prescription. Meeting jointly on Dec. 16, committees of outside experts dealing with nonprescription and...

IRS issues guidelines for new tax-favored accounts.(HSAs)
January 5, 2004... The Internal Revenue Services in new guidelines outlines the broadly favorable tax treatment and other details of health spending accounts established under the Medicare prescription-drug bill. HSAs are tax-exempt trust or custodial...

Nurse staffing ratios go live in California.(Nursing)
January 5, 2004... As California's new nursing-staff ratio requirements took effect Jan. 1, doubts about the success of implementation for the 1999 law remained. "We're really moving into a heated public relations phase" when nursing groups and unions will...

FDA says enjoined vaccine not experimental.(Anthrax)
January 5, 2004... Armed with a new Food and Drug Administration finding that the military's anthrax vaccine is safe and effective in combating all forms of anthrax infection, the federal government has asked Judge Emmet Sullivan to reverse his decision barring...

Smith is acting CMS chief.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
January 5, 2004... Former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Tom Scully has joined the law firm of Alston & Bird, where he will work on "health care regulatory, strategic, and public policy matters," the firm announced Dec. 18. Scully joins...

CMS Tackles Doc Fees, AWP.(In Other News)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Average Wholesale Price)(physicians-reimbursement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 2004... CMS Tackles Doc Fees, AWP. Under a final rule scheduled for Jan. 6 Federal Register publication, physicians will receive the 1.5 percent Medicare reimbursement increase mandated for 2004 by the new Medicare bill, rather than the 4.5 percent cut...

Hospitals Say Medicare Billing Rule Changes Needed to Ease Cost Crunch for Uninsured.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
January 5, 2004... Hospitals Say Medicare Billing Rule Changes Needed To Ease Cost Crunch For Uninsured. Medicare billing rules don't precisely demand that hospitals charge uninsured people as much as they charge Medicare or private insurers for care. But...

Med Mal Fight Plays Lazarus in Florida.(In Other News)(medical malpractice)(Brief Article)
January 5, 2004... Med Mal Fight Plays Lazarus In Florida. After Florida legislators enacted malpractice-liability caps last year, you might expect the issue to lie low for a while. No such luck, says a Dec. 29 report in the Tallahassee Democrat. Instead,...

Chronically Ill Minority Patients Most Likely to Skimp on Prescriptions.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
January 5, 2004... Chronically Ill Minority Patients Most Likely To Skimp On Prescriptions. Working-age African Americans and Latinos with chronic health conditions are much more likely to report not filling prescriptions because of cost than working-age whites,...

Short-Term Shortages Could Put Long-Term Crimp in Vaccine Programs.(In Other News)(vaccine supply-influence)(Brief Article)
January 5, 2004... Short-Term Shortages Could Put Long-Term Crimp In Vaccine Programs. Actions taken by immunization-program managers and providers in response to 2001 and 2002 vaccine shortages could have adverse public-health consequences down the line,...

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's.(People)(appointments)(Brief Article)
January 5, 2004... The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's director of legislative policy is Theresa Doyle, formerly legislative affairs director for WellPoint Health Networks.

U.S. health spending hit $5,440 per person in 2002.(Health Spending)
January 12, 2004... Growth in U.S. spending on health care continued to accelerate for most services in 2002, particularly in the hospital sector, which saw its spending growth rate increase for the fourth consecutive year. So says the annual analysis of public-...

Some tough nuts to crack in first AHRQ quality report.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)(analysis of health care)
January 12, 2004... Scheduled for a fall 2003 release by Congress' 1999 reauthorization of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the nation's first annual report on health-care quality emerged somewhat tardily over the December holidays. The National...

Researchers predict big hospital demand.(Health Spending)(medical economics)
January 12, 2004... The factors driving up hospital spending, notably the expectations of the baby boomers and the relentless march of health care technology, are likely to retain their potency over the next decade, according to an analysis in the...

For-profit plans give seniors high-cost care.(Medicare Managed Care)(healthcare planning)(Brief Article)
January 12, 2004... At least in the Medicare program, for-profit managed care plans provide as much access to expensive care as their non-profit counterparts. So says a study in the Jan. 8 New England Journal of Medicine, which looked at the experience of...

In Europe, drugmakers win a court victory ...(Rx Pricing)
January 12, 2004... Europe's highest court has given the continent's pharmaceutical industry at least a temporary victory in the industry's fight to prevent wholesalers and distributors from purchasing drugs in European Community countries where the price is low,...

Questions on Medicare card put Maine Rx Plus on hold.(State Pharmacy Assistance)(National Association of Health Underwriters)
January 12, 2004... Maine's retooled prescription-drug discount program--Maine Rx Plus--will stay on the shelf beyond its originally scheduled Jan. 1 start date. That's thanks to questions about how the program will intersect with the temporary...

Newhouse: Medicare will have to set more Rx prices.(Medicare Prescription Drugs)(price regulation)
January 12, 2004... Health economist Joseph Newhouse predicts that the Medicare prescription-drug law's "noninterference clause," which prohibits the federal government from using its clout to achieve lower drug prices, won't last long. The language--for which...

CMS invites geographic reclassification requests.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
January 12, 2004... Hospitals have until Feb. 15 to request geographic reclassifications that would yield more favorable wage indices and thus higher payments under the Medicare inpatient prospective payment system, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services...

Rural hospitals receive help in outpatient rule.(In Other News)
January 12, 2004... Rural hospitals will get more money under a Jan. 6 interim final rule that revises reimbursements under Medicare's outpatient prospective payment system in accordance with the recently passed legislation overhauling that program. The rule...

CMS to pharmas: stop the shredders.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
January 12, 2004... The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Jan. 6 proposed requiring pharmaceutical manufacturers to retain data they use to substantiate Medicaid drug rebate amounts for 10 years after they first submit it to states, or for longer if...

Health investors should keep wary eye on consumerism, cautions S&P.(market research firm reports)
January 12, 2004... The U.S. health-care industry is "now beginning to see actual consequences from the increased personal stake of consumers in the health care they receive," and investors should keep an especially watchful eye on some sectors as a result,...

Study says Minnesota abstinence-only program doesn't work.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
January 12, 2004... An independent report says a five-year-old abstinence-only sex education program isn't working in Minnesota schools, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. In a survey of 413 junior-high-school students from three schools who were enrolled...

Military anthrax vaccinations resume.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
January 12, 2004... The federal judge overseeing the legal challenge to the military's mandatory anthrax vaccinations has given the Department of Defense permission to resume the program, at least for now, and the Pentagon has restarted the vaccinations. On...

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.(People)(retirement of director)(Brief Article)
January 12, 2004... Katharine Levit, director of the national health statistics group in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services office of the actuary, will retire from that position in March.

National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering for the National Academy of Engineering.(People)(Brief Article)
January 12, 2004... Departing the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering for the National Academy of Engineering is deputy director Donna Dean. Dean served as acting director of NIBIB from its inception in January 2001 until her appointment as...

For retirees, more costs now, less coverage later.(Retiree Health Coverage)
January 19, 2004... Ten percent of large employers eliminated subsidized health benefits for future retirees in 2003, and 20 percent say they are very (6 percent) or somewhat (14 percent) likely to drop such benefits within three years. So says a Kaiser...

IOM panel demands universal coverage by 2010.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week)
January 19, 2004... The Institute of Medicine panel that's meticulously studied uninsurance and its consequences for three years says this: To save the country from a creeping coverage crisis that threatens access to care even for those with health insurance, the...

Look beyond volume for quality measures, studies say.(Quality Measurement)
January 19, 2004... Two new studies show that the number of procedures a hospital performs in a given area is at best a rough proxy for quality of care and can be a misleading statistic. Direct indicators of outcome--such as patient death rates--and process...

Lawmakers decry softened tone of HHS disparity report.(Health Disparities)
January 19, 2004... The executive summary of the National Healthcare Disparities Report released last month by the Department of Health and Human Services presents a Pollyanna picture of the report's scientific findings that is tantamount to an unethical...

Pollsters cite support for health care overhaul.(Public Opinion)
January 19, 2004... Given the shortened congressional calendar and partisan tensions that come with an election year, many have expressed skepticism that Congress will enact major health care legislation in 2004. But an American Hospital Association-commissioned...

2002 hospital nurse influx was older, foreign-born.(Nursing Shortage)
January 19, 2004... Increasing wages and rising unemployment brought an unprecedented 105,000 older and foreign-born registered nurses back into hospitals in 2002, according to research described in the November/December Health Affairs. But the big jump does...

AARP's Novelli calls for Medicare law changes, drug pricing restraint.(In Other News)
January 19, 2004... AARP is calling on pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors to voluntarily limit price increases to the rate of general inflation. And that's just one of the myriad drug-related initiatives that CEO William Novelli announced Jan. 16. ...

MedPAC recommends inpatient, outpatient market-basket updates.(In Other News)
January 19, 2004... With hospitals' overall Medicare margin projected to fall to 1.8 percent in 2004, even with the payment increases in the new Medicare law, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission voted Jan. 15 to recommend full market-basket updates for...

MedPAC says: no updates for HHAs, SNFs.(In Other News)
January 19, 2004... The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission Jan. 14 voted to offer no fiscal year 2005 payment updates to home health agencies or skilled nursing facilities. The panel still wants the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a new...

JCAHO, NQF chiefs call for federal priority-setting on quality.(In Other News)
January 19, 2004... What's the key requirement for kicking into high gear the fledgling movement toward a quality-measurement and accountability culture in U.S. health care? The federal government must "clearly define national quality goals," said Joint Commission...

AAHP-HIAA can now watch state legislation like a hawk.(In Other News)
January 19, 2004... At the behest of members, the big merged health-insurance lobby, AAHP-HIAA, has greatly expanded its capacities to track emerging legislation and regulation at the state level, President Karen Ignagni said Jan. 14. The pace of state legislation...

Join Wellpoint's doc network, get a free Dell Computer.(In Other News)
January 19, 2004... That's the deal WellPoint Health Networks Inc. is offering to some 19,000 contracting network physicians in California, Georgia, Missouri, and Wisconsin, in an attempt to lure its physicians into the electronic age. At their option, doctors may...

Pitt, Morris to health-care companies: Sarbanes-Oxley is for you.(In Other News)
January 19, 2004... Sarbanes-Oxley, the new corporate financial disclosure law, makes it all the more important for healthcare organizations to develop transparent compliance programs and to ensure that compliance officials have unobstructed communications...

NACDS and Express Scripts, the latest odd couple.(In Other News)
January 19, 2004... The National Association of Chain Drug Stores, which not so long ago sued to prevent the Department of Health and Human Services from creating a Medicare-endorsed drug discount card, is now applying to offer just such a card. And in doing so...

Big but not easy future for retiree Breaux?(In Other News)
January 19, 2004... Retiring Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) could be wooed by the president to serve as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services in a second Bush administration, The Hill newspaper speculates Jan. 16. Breaux turned down an invitation in 2000 to...

Winnie Pizzano is the acting director of public affairs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.(People)
January 19, 2004... Winnie Pizzano is the acting director of public affairs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Formerly a health-care consultant, she's been senior adviser to the CMS administrator on long-term-care insurance issues and headed the...

More disclosure of NIH scientists' private work, pay?(National Institutes of Health)
January 26, 2004... It's not yet a certainty, but it appears likely that many more scientists at the National Institutes of Health will soon disclose publicly the details of compensation they receive for consulting with private industry. A consensus that increased...

Bush pushes catastrophic, individual coverage, med-mal caps.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)
January 26, 2004... Few new ideas were on display in the health-care sections of President Bush's 2004 State of the Union address, but the initiatives he emphasized reinforced what the administration views as priorities. Part of an overall program of changes...

Should federal researchers be private-company bedfellows?
January 26, 2004... Financial disclosure and supplemental payments to federal scientists are the easy part, however. A stickier issue produced less agreement: whether NIH scientists should be allowed to do external work that's compensated by private companies at...

ACP: feds must refill dwindling primary-care pool.(Primary Care)
January 26, 2004... An aging population will need more chronic-disease care, often best handled by primary-care docs. But federal action is needed to bolster fast-dwindling interest in the primary-care disciplines among medical students. So says the American...

Kennedy wants employer mandate.(The Uninsured)
January 26, 2004... All businesses with more than 50 employees would be required to provide their workers with health insurance under the universal coverage initiative unveiled Jan. 22 by Sen. Edward Kennedy. (D-MA) According to a summary of Kennedy's Health...

Plans get big medicare rate hike.(Medicare Advantage)
January 26, 2004... Medicare Advantage health plans will get reimbursement increases averaging 10.6 percent, effective March 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Jan. 16. The record increases for the health maintenance organizations and...

Bird flu scares experts.(Infectious Disease)
January 26, 2004... SARS has reappeared, "Mad Cow" disease has spread to the United States, and the inability of the influenza vaccine to protect against the "Fujian" strain of the disease helped make for an early-starting and deadly flu season. But what...

Blues' credit tied to income, cost.(The Uninsured)
January 26, 2004... The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has developed a three-pronged approach to increasing access to health coverage. The Blues separate the uninsured into those poor enough to be eligible for public programs, those who make over $50,000,...

Senate clears spending bill.(Appropriations)
January 26, 2004... Almost four months into the fiscal year, the Senate finally completed the FY 2003 appropriations process Jan. 22 by passing an $820 billion omnibus package containing seven of the 13 annual appropriations bills. The omnibus, which the House...

High court rules Texas must hold to EPSDT consent decree.(Medicaid)
January 26, 2004... States must abide by consent decrees they enter into with federal courts, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously Jan. 14 in a case involving Texas' compliance with Medicaid's Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment...

Congressional medicaid investigations expand to chain drug stores.(In Other News)
January 26, 2004... As part of its investigation of rebates and other pharmaceutical money-changing under the Medicaid program, the House Energy and Commerce Committee Jan. 14 asked five large drug-store chains to turn over pricing documents. In search of...

More flexibility for critical access.(In Other News)
January 26, 2004... Continuing to implement the recently passed Medicare law, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Jan. 22 that critical access hospitals--rural hospitals at least 35 miles away from other hospitals--will be paid 101 percent of...

CMS issues rule on national provider identifiers.(In Other News)
January 26, 2004... Health-care providers can begin applying for unique, constant National Provider Identifiers on May 23, 2005, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a Jan. 23 final rule. The rule is the agency's latest step in implementing...

Julie Goon.(People)
January 26, 2004... Heading the administration's information initiative for Medicare's new look will be Julie Goon, long-time lobbying veteran with the American Association of Health Plans-Health Insurance Association of America. She'll lead beneficiary-education...