Medicine & Health articles from September 2003

Medicine & Health archives from September 2003

Medicare conferees to meet ...(Medicare)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... House and Senate Medicare negotiators plan to meet the week of Sept. 8 to vote on tentative agreements reached by staff members during the August recess, conference committee and House Ways and Means chair Bill Thomas (R-CA) told reporters...

Are uninsured caught in hospital regulatory bind?(In Medicine & Health Perspective this week ...)
September 8, 2003... This is the second in a series of Perspectives on hospital charges and the uninsured. The first part appeared in our Aug. 28 issue. Advocates who argue that hospitals should lower charges for uninsured people and desist from aggressive...

... As budget deteriorates.
September 8, 2003... Meanwhile, deficit projections continue to mount, potentially giving more credibility to those who argue that a broad-based Medicare drug benefit is too expensive, as well as constricting the resources available for other health care...

Drug bill's e-provisions wrong prescription, say docs ...(E-Prescribing)
September 8, 2003... Congress should make electronic prescription voluntary, not mandatory, under Medicare prescription-drug legislation it's developing, a large number of physicians groups have told congressional conferees on the measure. In an Aug. 26...

... Who say ambulatory practice hasn't entered online era.(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... Setting standards may appear simple, but in fact it will be "extraordinarily complicated," in part because "broad scale electronic prescribing as envisioned in this legislation does not yet exist in the ambulatory setting." Hospitals and...

WTO deal allows poor nations to import generics.(Prescription Drugs)
September 8, 2003... Under an agreement reached Aug. 30 by the members of the World Trade Organization, poor nations will be allowed to import prescription drugs that ate produced in other countries without the permission of the patent holder. The WTO's...

Lawsuit targets Maine law regulating PBMs.(PBMs pharmacy benefit management)
September 8, 2003... The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association filed a federal lawsuit Sept. 3 against a new Maine law regulating the pharmacy benefit management industry. Intended by its backers to establish ethical standards and disclosure requirements...

EMTALA rule reduces off-campus obligations.(Emergency Medicine)
September 8, 2003... Under a final rule scheduled for Sept. 9 publication by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, off-campus hospital facilities that do not routinely provide emergency care will be relieved of their obligations under the Emergency...

Hospital mortgage insurance bill clears Senate.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... * Hospital Mortgage Insurance Bill Clears Senate. The Senate on Sept. 2 approved legislation passed in March by the House to clear the way for more hospitals to get federal mortgage insurance. Under current law, the Department of Housing...

UNFPA Association gets AIDS group's funding canned.(In Other News United National Population Fund)
September 8, 2003... * UNFPA Association Gets AIDS Group's Funding Canned. The seven-member Reproductive Health for Refugees Consortium, which offers AIDS assistance to African and Asian refugees, has refused $1 million in U.S. funds, after the State Department...

Big Four PBMs become Big Three.(In Other News pharmacy benefit manager)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... * Big Four PBMs Become Big Three. Subject to regulatory approval, Caremark Rx, the nation's fourth-largest pharmacy benefit manager, will buy the country's second-largest PBM, AdvancePCS, for about $5.6 billion in stock and cash. Many...

Judge approves CIGNA managed care case settlement.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... * Judge Approves Cigna Managed Care Case Settlement. On Sept. 4, Miami federal trial judge Federico Moreno preliminarily approved a settlement between CIGNA Corp. and representatives of the nation's doctors, resolving allegations that CIGNA...

FDA trying to block Canadian drugs.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... * FDA Trying To Block Canadian Drugs. The Food and Drug Administration is aggressively moving to prevent cities and states from importing less expensive prescription drugs from Canada. On Aug. 25, the agency warned California that it would...

GAO: malpractice-related access problems real but small-scale.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... * GAO: Malpractice-Related Access Problems Real But Small-Scale. Rising malpractice premiums have contributed to localized health care access problems in certain states, but have not created anything like the "full-blown liability crises" cited...

Flexible funds can pay for non-prescription drugs.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... * Flexible Funds Can Pay For Non-Prescription Drugs. In a guidance issued Sept. 3, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced that over-the-counter drugs can be paid for with pre-tax dollars in health-care flexible spending...

Medicare Rights Center.(People)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... Ben Peck has left the post of legislative representative for Public Citizen's Congress Watch to become Washington policy director of the Medicare Rights Center.

Joshua Wiener.(People)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... Long-term-care analyst Joshua Wiener is director of the aging, disability, and long-term-care program at the Research Triangle Institute. His resume includes stints at the Congressional Budget Office, Health Care Financing Administration, and...

National Committee on Quality Assurance.(People)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... Richard Sorian replaces Andrew Webber as vice president for external relations at the National Committee on Quality Assurance. Sorian most recently was director of public affairs at the Center for Studying Health System Change.

Research Triangle Institute.(People)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... Douglas Kamerow, MD, a former assistant U.S. Surgeon General who is now chief scientist for the Research Triangle Institute, is the new editor of the monthly BMJ USA. It's based on BMJ, the weekly formerly known as the British Medical Journal.

Conferees agree on drug cards, critical access hospitals & more.(Medicare)
September 15, 2003... Medicare conferees met Sept. 9 and approved a series of agreements reached by staff over the August recess, notably a framework for temporary Medicare-endorsed drug discount cards. The cards, designed to offer seniors immediate help while a...

Insurers gear up to fight national health insurance.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)
September 15, 2003... Look for the term "consumer-directed health plan" to morph into "consumer-choice health plan" in the near future. The language shift, recommended to the Health Insurance Association of America by Republican pollster Bill McInturff based on...

Feds move to shut down reimportation business.(Drug Reimportation)
September 15, 2003... After several Food and Drug Administration warning letters went unheeded, the Justice Department Sept. 11 sought a court order to shut down immediately and permanently an Oklahoma company, Rx Depot, that helps U.S. residents buy cheaper drugs...

Hemorrhaging from medicare plans slows.(Medicare+Choice)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... About 40,000 people will lose their Medicare+Choice coverage next year, roughly a fifth of last year's total and the lowest number since the program's creation in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. That's according to the American Association...

Employers aren't leaping to new plan options.(Cost of Coverage)
September 15, 2003... The average cost of employee health-care coverage soared another 13.9 percent between the springs of 2002 and 2003, the third year in a row for a double-digit increase. But while employers clearly are weary and seeking solutions, no new scheme...

Unsafe drugs--they're not just for foreigners anymore.(Drug Safety)
September 15, 2003... Debate rages about how safe patients are if they buy U.S.-made drugs reimported from Canadian pharmacies (see story, p. 3). But evidence suggests that, at least in some places, state and federal officials may have an equally hard time ensuring...

Healthier seniors live longer for same price.(Costs)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... Healthier seniors live longer but don't rack up bigger cumulative medical bills, meaning increasing lifespans do not threaten the financial health of the Medicare program. So says research published in the September 11 New England Journal...

$1.5 billion add-on for NIH falls short.(Appropriations)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... The Senate Sept. 10 approved fiscal year 2004 spending for the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education. Passage came on a 94-0 vote that did not reflect the vigorous debate that occurred over many of the areas covered...

Medicare to decide on accepting legacy claims.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... Medicare will decide by Sept. 25 whether to continue accepting electronic claims in their current formats once new rules designed to standardize electronic health care transactions become effective on Oct. 16, said Leslie Norwalk, Centers for...

Road to medicare bill must go through defined-contribution diehards.(In The News)
September 15, 2003... Look for conservative Republicans to withhold approval from Medicare prescription-drug legislation if it doesn't do more than either the current House and Senate proposals to help shift the entire health-care system toward a...

Pharmaceutical Research.(People)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... John Murray, most recently on the communications and strategic-planning staff of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, has joined the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association as vice president of strategic initiatives.

Institute of Medicine.(People)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... Recently retired Congressional Budget Office analyst Judy Wagner is a scholar-in-residence at the Institute of Medicine. A specialist in pharmaceutical and health-technology issues, she earlier served at the federal Office of Technology...

American Association of Homes and Services.(People)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... Katrinka Smith Sloan, formerly senior vice president for member services at the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, is now chief operations officer for the group.

AAHSA.(People)
September 15, 2003... New at AAHSA is Ann Gillespie, senior vice president for organizational excellence. She's been executive director of the Continuing Care Accreditation Commission, previously sponsored by AAHSA.

GOP, dems suggest big Medicare revamp can wait.(Medicare)
September 22, 2003... Thirteen conservative GOP representatives, all of whom voted "reluctantly" for the House Medicare bill, vowed Sept. 17 to oppose any conference report that lacks provisions that they view as essential to control costs and promote competition....

What's driving spending? More stuff, no brakes.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)
September 22, 2003... Hoping for a respite from rising health expenditures? You're likely out of luck. In their recent third round of site visits to 12 markets around the country, analysts from the nonpartisan research group Center for Studying Health System...

MedPAC: fold S/HMOS into M+C.(Social HMOs)
September 22, 2003... The so-called social health maintenance organizations--with which Medicare has experimented for nearly two decades--should be folded into the Medicare+Choice program when the S/HMO demonstration officially ends this December. That's the word...

Sprawling communities equal sprawling waistlines.(Community Planning)
September 22, 2003... People who live in sprawling suburbs, where distances and neighborhood characteristics favor travel by car over walking, are heavier and more prone to high blood pressure. So says one study published in the September issue of the American...

Minorities still lag in health-care management posts.(Health Care Employment)
September 22, 2003... In its third such study in a decade, the American College of Healthcare Executives finds that minority executives continue to have trouble getting into top-level positions. Higher proportions of both white men and white women hold chief...

High coverage costs brings out crooks again.(Health Insurance Fraud)
September 22, 2003... Purveyors of cheap but phony health insurance are preying on Americans desperate for reasonably priced coverage, the authors of a recent Commonwealth Fund Issue Brief report. Since 2001, just four unlicensed insurers have left nearly...

California legislature sends business coverage mandate to Davis.(In Other News)
September 22, 2003... California legislators voted Sept. 12 to require companies with more than 20 workers to pay for 80 percent of their employees' health coverage, either by providing coverage or paying into a state fund. Gov. Gray Davis (D) has not decided...

FEHBP 2004 premiums to rise 10.6 percent.(In Other News)
September 22, 2003... Rising prescription drug costs and an aging federal workforce have yielded the fourth double-digit premium increase in a row for the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program. But Office of Personnel Management Director Kay Coles James pointed...

Specialist demand up, primary-care demand down in 2002.(In Other News)
September 22, 2003... Shifts in physician reimbursement that took place in 2002 suggest there was increased demand for some specialty care and shrinking demand for primary care. That's according to the American Medical Group Association's 2002 compensation and...

Texans vote to authorize damages caps.(In Other News)
September 22, 2003... On Sept. 14, by a 51-49 percent margin, Texan voters approved a state constitutional amendment clarifying state legislators' authority to do something they've already done: limit noneconomic damages in medical malpractice suits and other types...

CalPERS sees 27 full, eight partial pullouts.(In Other News)
September 22, 2003... Thirty-five California agencies have told the California Public Employees Retirement System that they'll buy their health insurance elsewhere for 2004, rather than pay the significant rate increases they'd face if they remained in CalPERS, the...

Conferees adopt house Bioshield approach.(In Other News)
September 22, 2003... President Bush's Project Bioshield initiative took a step forward Sept. 17 when congressional negotiators provided $890 million for 2004, and $5.6 billion over 10 years, for the program as part of the Homeland Security fiscal year 2004...

Motorized wheelchairs fly out of showroom, courtesy of Medicare.(In Other News)
September 22, 2003... Medicare spending for motorized wheelchairs has ballooned 450 percent over the past four years, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Sept. 9 that it's taking steps to get scamsters out of the lucrative business. ...

Many errors in Medicare provider registry.(In Other News)
September 22, 2003... There is inaccurate information in the records of more than half the providers contained in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Unique Physician/Practitioner Identification Number Database, the most comprehensive source of...

National Institutes of Health's Institute of General Medical Sciences.(People)
September 22, 2003... Jeremy Berg will be the new director of the National Institutes of Health's Institute of General Medical Sciences, beginning in November. A professor of biophysics, he currently directs the institute of basic biomedical sciences at the Johns...

Funding crisis continues, but biggest issues overlooked ...(Medicaid)
September 29, 2003... Unless policy makers look beyond Medicaid--to state revenue structures and to the health-care financing system as a whole--for answers to the program's funding crunch, Medicaid's current crisis will only deepen with time. That was the upshot of...

Is hospital have/have-not gap worsening?(Perspectives)
September 29, 2003... This is the first part of a two-part Perspectives outlining some recent expert analyses of hospital finances. On average, hospitals are on relatively sound footing financially. So have said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,...

... As state revenues plummet.
September 29, 2003... While burgeoning Medicaid spending is thought by many to be the biggest problem facing state budgets, in fact, by far the biggest driver of the persistent state fiscal crisis is an unprecedented sharp decline in revenue that accompanied the...

Conferees get new deadline, Bush pep talk.(Medicare)
September 29, 2003... Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have set a new deadline of Oct. 17 for congressional negotiators to agree on a Medicare prescription drug benefit and a reorientation of the program towards private plans. However, as comments by...

Govs seek cheaper drugs from Canada, FDA stands firm.(Rx Reimportation)
September 29, 2003... On Sept. 24, Minnesota Republican Tim Pawlenty became the third governor to look to Canada as a source of affordable prescription drugs for his state's residents. Pawlenty is being even more aggressive than Democratic colleagues Rod...

Insurer mega-lobby is born.(Lobbying)
September 29, 2003... After years of flirting, the boards of two major health-insurance lobbies have agreed to merge, the Association of American Health Plans and the Health Insurance Association of America announced Sept. 22. Although a vote by AAHP's 1,000 and...

Medicare, blues to continue accepting non-compliant claims.(HIPAA)(Blue Cross Blue Shield companies )(Brief Article)
September 29, 2003... On Sept. 23. both Medicare and the 42 Blue Cross Blue Shield companies said they will continue accepting reimbursement claims in existing formats after the Oct. 16 compliance deadline for the Health Insurance Accountability and Portability...

More flu shots for health staff a priority.(Infectious Disease)(Brief Article)
September 29, 2003... Only 36 percent of the nation's healthcare workers got flu vaccinations in 2001. That's a particularly alarming statistic, since people with influenza can pass on the disease before they are even aware of symptoms. That means unvaccinated...

Loosened requirements for SNF feeding staff stick in Grassley's Craw.(In Other News)(skilled nursing facilties)(Brief Article)
September 29, 2003... Skilled nursing facilities may hire a new category of less-trained assistants to help residents eat and drink, according to a final rule published in the Sept. 26 Federal Register by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Assistants...

Congress funds government for a month; House votes to extend QMB, TANF.(In Other News)(Assistance to Needy Families)(Brief Article)
September 29, 2003... In lieu of the 10 fiscal year 2004 appropriations bills that it has yet to send to the White House, Congress on Sept. 25 sent President Bush a stopgap measure to keep the government functioning for a month. The so-called continuing...

Bush health chiefs said at odds over Commissioned Corps plan.(In Other News)(Public Health Service Commissioned Corps)(Brief Article)
September 29, 2003... Top administration health officials are among those critical of an evolving plan by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to transform the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps into a 100 percent "deployment ready" force to...

Relative few affected by Medicare+Choice withdrawals.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
September 29, 2003... Sixteen health plans are withdrawing from Medicare+Choice or reducing their service area, leaving 41,000 people to find new coverage for 2004, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Sept. 22. That's down sharply from the 217,000...

Philip Morris gets appeal, reduced bond.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
September 29, 2003... The Illinois Supreme Court agreed Sept. 16 to hear Philip Morris USA's appeal of a $10.1 billion verdict against it for allegedly deceiving smokers about health hazards associated with so-called light cigarettes. The Court also said Philip...

Abortion restriction advances with Roe affirmation.(In Other News)(Brief Article)
September 29, 2003... Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) got the Senate on record again in support of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a woman's constitutional right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy. But the declaration of support is...

Steve Tilton, who's coordinated health-policy activities for the House Energy and Commerce Committee and advised Commerce's health subpanel on policy issues.(People)(AdvaMed appoints Steve Tilton vice president for government relations)(Brief Article)
September 29, 2003... Steve Tilton, who's coordinated health-policy activities for the House Energy and Commerce Committee and advised Commerce's health subpanel on policy issues, recently left the Hill. His new post is as vice president for government relations at...

AdvaMed.(People)(Lisa Wolfington appointed vice president for public affairs)(Brief Article)
September 29, 2003... Lisa Wolfington is AdvaMed's vice president for public affairs. Previously, she was a journalist and media and marketing director for Virginia's Inova Health System.