Medicine & Health articles from May 2005

Medicine & Health archives from May 2005

Budget socks Medicaid with $10 billion in cuts; Congress divided on effects of FY2006 budget.(Medicaid)
May 16, 2005... If the hard part was deciding whether to cut Medicaid, the really hard part will be determining how to alter the program to accommodate its new constraints. The House and Senate barely passed 2006's budget, voting 214-211 and 52-47...

Report reveals need for better Medicare quality monitoring; comprehensive look at program praises successes, analyses failures.(Medicare Quality)
May 16, 2005... Medicare has come a long way in its mission to improve the care of the elderly and disabled, but it still has a long way to go. On May 6 the Commonwealth Fund released Quality of Health Care for Medicare Beneficiaries, one of the most...

Health coverage slipping for employees, young adults; 'Cover the Uninsured Week' tries to spur government, business solutions.(Access)
May 16, 2005... Several organizations observed "Cover the Uninsured Week" May 1-8 with a series of reports and figures on the continuing decline of insurance coverage in America. Forty-five million Americans lack health coverage, including more than g...

AQA releases ambulatory quality measures; consortium hopes for widespread adoption by insurers, Medicare.(Quality of Care)(Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance)
May 16, 2005... The Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance released its widely endorsed set of clinical performance measures May 3. The AQA expects physicians in the ambulatory setting will embrace these measures, because physician organizations played key roles in...

Long-term care hospitals' Medicare payments continue to increase, despite debate; MedPAC's cautions all but ignored in new rule.(Long-Term Care)
May 16, 2005... The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission suspects that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' high Medicare payments for long-term care hospitals could provide for-profit facilities with an incentive to try to qualify as LTCHs. So why is...

Part D is for 'debacle,' consumer group fears; beneficiaries and even health experts baffled by new benefit, Medicare Rights Center warns.(Medicare Drug Benefit)
May 16, 2005... The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services still has work to do in relaying vital information to those affected by the new Medicare Part D drug benefit, according to recently released findings from a national Medicare consumer service...

Physicians dragging heels on quality issues; it's hard to get quality improvement programs off the ground when docs aren't cooperating.(Quality of Care)
May 16, 2005... The Commonwealth Fund's report on Medicare quality (see story, page 1) shows that policymakers need to find a way to integrate quality of care standards into payment methods. But this might prove difficult if such reforms depend on...

CMS touts P4P demo progress; 3-year incentive project already improving care quality, McClellan says.(Pay-for-Performance)
May 16, 2005... The early word is good on quality of care levels for hospitals participating in Medicare's latest demonstration project, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. In a speech to the American Hospital Association's annual...

HSA membership doubles in 6 months.(In Other News ...)(health savings accounts)(Brief Article)
May 16, 2005... America's Health Insurance Plans, the health insurance industry lobbying group, released survey data May 4 showing steady growth of health savings accounts. High-deductible health plans linked with HSAs now cover 1,031,000 people, a steep...

Physician spending rose a startling 15.2 percent in 2004.(In Other News ...)(Brief Article)
May 16, 2005... That's the largest increase since the fee schedule began in 1992. This figure means policymakers are less likely to be able to make structural changes to the way Medicare updates physician payments. And this in turn may make avoiding next...

Already heated specialty hospital debate just got hotter: new bill would prohibit physician investor increases in 'grandfathered' specialty hospitals.(Specialty Hospitals)
May 23, 2005... Just weeks away from the end of the 18-month moratorium on specialty hospitals, new legislation and a signal from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has stirred up the physician self-referral ethical dispute. Critics of...

Private sector, lawmakers push for health I.T. reform: government must participate but not lead the effort, Brailer says.(Information Technology)
May 23, 2005... The drive for improving the health care industry's information technology could be approaching critical mass. On May 11, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and Treasury Secretary John Snow oversaw the release of a...

Hospitals to receive federal aid on immigrant care: hospitals won't need to grill patients on their citizenship status.(Hospitals)
May 23, 2005... Hospitals struggling with unpaid bills for care given to uninsured Americans and illegal immigrants soon will get a helping hand from Medicare. Federal officials announced May 9 that they would begin paying hospitals for providing...

Action need to avert geriatric care crisis, report says: payment system discourages medical students from geriatric path.(Long-Term Care)
May 23, 2005... While the U.S. population is aging rapidly, medical schools are failing to train enough geriatricians and other professionals who specialize in treating older adults to meet future needs. As a result, there will be only one geriatrician for...

Health establishment has made progress on medical errors, but not enough: Harvard report notes attitude change, points out areas for improvement.(Medical Errors)
May 23, 2005... Five years after the Institute of Medicine's landmark patient-safety report, "To Err Is Human," the medical industry is still comprised of humans. But they're a lot more likely to own up to mistakes in order to learn from them and improve...

Pay-for-performance tops experts' list to control health care costs: survey shows low marks for 'consumer-driven health care' strategies.(Costs)
May 23, 2005... Pay-for-performance has been a buzzword for months. but now it is officially a red-hot trend. To aid in answering the eternal question of how America can control its spiraling health care costs, the Commonwealth Fund, using Harris...

U.S. vaccine supply not immune to major problems: popular misunderstandings, supply problems plague vaccination efforts.(Immunization)
May 23, 2005... Most people in the United States don't understand the severity of infuenza but are willing to pay extra for coverage, according to the May/June issue of Health Affairs. The most recent issue of the journal features numerous articles that...

Panel warns against estrogen for disease prevention: but will physicians and patients finally forgo former wonder drug?(Women's Health)
May 23, 2005... A federal task force on preventive health care is the latest organization to advise against the long-term use of estrogen to stave off heart disease, stroke and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women who've undergone hysterectomies. The U.S....

Is there a pill Medicare can take to ease the budgetary pain?(In Other News ...)(Brief Article)
May 23, 2005... * A new congressional study says Medicare will pay nearly $2 billion to pay for medications to treat erectile dysfunction during the first decade of Part D. The costs were tallied at the request of Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who has drafted...

The end of MediGap as we know it.(In Other News ...)(Brief Article)
May 23, 2005... * MediGap purchasers have always been an alluring but nebulous target for managed Medicare plans, mainly because it's been difficult for plans to reach out to them in their typically rural areas. But changes to Medicare Advantage and the...

Researchers praise bill passage, but their joy may be short-lived: likely presidential veto should restore status quo on stem cells.(Stem Cell Research)
May 30, 2005... In what is likely a temporary victory for proponents of stem cell research, the House of Representatives voted May 24 to overturn the Bush Administration's policy restricting the research to fewer than two dozen existing stem cell lines. ...

Controversial advisory commission will mold Medicaid's future: some legislators say the commission is far from independent or bipartisan.(Medicaid)
May 30, 2005... The new Medicaid advisory commission has a mammoth task: Figure out how to apply the $10 billion in funding cuts while expanding coverage to more beneficiaries. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt established...

Is Medicare unwittingly paying for overseas services? Booming radiology trend raises HIPAA questions, economic concerns.(Outsourcing)(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996)
May 30, 2005... Now the growing outsourcing problem extends beyond overseas transcriptions. Committee on Energy and Commerce ranking member Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI) is worried that hospitals are outsourcing their radiology readings to foreign...

Cost concerns keep more sick Americans from needed meds: those with chronic conditions are particularly at risk.(Costs)
May 30, 2005... More Americans are forgoing needed prescription drugs because of high costs--and the problem is particularly severe for those with chronic health problems. A new study by the Center for Studying Health System Change, a Washington-based...

States, employers tussling in coverage tug-of-war: Wal-Mart laws' typify messy debate as to who has responsibility for providing coverage.(Access)
May 30, 2005... Whose job is it to make sure more Americans receive health coverage--employers' or states'? This debate is becoming more heated in 2005, as a growing number of cash-strapped states consider legislation that would impose mandates on...

Rate hike delays long-term care debate--for now: CMS boosts SNF rates, but tougher decisions await.(Long-Term Care)(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, skilled nursing facility)
May 30, 2005... The Bush administration's proposed rule for long-term care payment is another example of a provider group getting better news than it was expecting based on preliminary reports. In the months preceding the proposed rule's posting May 13,...

States consider unprecedented number of Rx drug laws: reimportation, Medicare Part D affecting agendas across country.(Prescription Drugs)
May 30, 2005... State lawmakers have drugs on their mind--prescription drugs, that is. Legislatures across the nation this year are considering a record number of measures relating to prescription medications, according to a new report from the...

9/11 priorities shifted FBI away from health fraud, GAO says: FBI allegedly used HIPAA transfer funds to pay for counterterrorism efforts.(Antifraud)(Government Accountability Office, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
May 30, 2005... The last few years may have been a good time to commit health care fraud. That's because the Federal Bureau of Investigation might have siphoned tax dollars from health care fraud prevention to fund more counterterrorism activities after...

Change on transfer rules could hurt hospitals, home care providers: CMS proposes reducing hospitals' DRG payments when patients go to home care.(Home Care)(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, diagnosis related group)
May 30, 2005... The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is looking to drastically expand hospitals' post-acute transfer policy. The policy pays hospitals a per diem amount, rather than the whole diagnosis related group (DRG) payment, if a patient receives...