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Southwest Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowships

News

Last 50 News Postings

(Most recent listed first. Click on title to be directed to the manuscript.)

CMS Proposes Increased Reimbursement for Hospitals but a Decrease for
   Physicians in 2025
California Bill Would Tighten Oversight on Private Equity Hospital Purchases
Private Equity-Backed Steward Healthcare Files for Bankruptcy
Former US Surgeon General Criticizing $5,000 Emergency Room Bill
Nurses Launch Billboard Campaign Against Renewal of Desert Regional
   Medical Center Lease
$1 Billion Donation Eliminates Tuition at Albert Einstein Medical School
Kern County Hospital Authority Accused of Overpaying for Executive
   Services
SWJPCCS Associate Editor has Essay on Reining in Air Pollution Published
   in NY Times
Amazon Launches New Messaged-Based Virtual Healthcare Service
Hospitals Say They Lose Money on Medicare Patients but Make Millions
   Trust in Science Now Deeply Polarized
SWJPCC Associate Editor Featured in Albuquerque Journal
   Poisoning by Hand Sanitizers
Healthcare Layoffs During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Practice Fusion Admits to Opioid Kickback Scheme
Arizona Medical Schools Offer Free Tuition for Primary Care Commitment
Determining if Drug Price Increases are Justified
Court Overturns CMS' Site-Neutral Payment Policy
Pulmonary Disease Linked to Vaping
CEO Compensation-One Reason Healthcare Costs So Much
Doctor or Money Shortage in California?
FDA Commissioner Gottlieb Resigns
Physicians Generate an Average $2.4 Million a Year Per Hospital
Drug Prices Continue to Rise
New Center for Physician Rights
CMS Decreases Clinic Visit Payments to Hospital-Employed Physicians
   and Expands Decreases in Drug Payments 340B Cuts
Big Pharma Gives Millions to Congress
Gilbert Hospital and Florence Hospital at Anthem Closed
CMS’ Star Ratings Miscalculated
VA Announces Aggressive New Approach to Produce Rapid Improvements
   in VA Medical Centers
Healthcare Payments Under the Budget Deal: Mostly Good News
   for Physicians
Hospitals Plan to Start Their Own Generic Drug Company
Flu Season and Trehalose
MedPAC Votes to Scrap MIPS
CMS Announces New Payment Model
Varenicline (Chantix®) Associated with Increased Cardiovascular Events
Tax Cuts Could Threaten Physicians
Trump Nominates Former Pharmaceutical Executive as HHS Secretary
Arizona Averages Over 25 Opioid Overdoses Per Day
Maryvale Hospital to Close
California Enacts Drug Pricing Transparency Bill
Senate Health Bill Lacks 50 Votes Needed to Proceed
Medi-Cal Blamed for Poor Care in Lawsuit
Senate Republican Leadership Releases Revised ACA Repeal and Replace Bill
Mortality Rate Will Likely Increase Under Senate Healthcare Bill
University of Arizona-Phoenix Receives Full Accreditation
Limited Choice of Obamacare Insurers in Some Parts of the Southwest
Gottlieb, the FDA and Dumbing Down Medicine
Salary Surveys Report Declines in Pulmonologist, Allergist and Nurse
   Incomes
CDC Releases Ventilator-Associated Events Criteria

 

 

For complete news listings click here.

The Southwest Journal of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep periodically publishes news articles relevant to  pulmonary, critical care or sleep medicine which are not covered by major medical journals.

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Entries in care (3)

Friday
Jul142017

Medi-Cal Blamed for Poor Care in Lawsuit

Several sources are reporting a lawsuit filed in California alleging poor care in the state’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal (1). The suit alleges that Medi-Cal failed to pay doctors enough to provide proper care. The suit was filed by five Latino residents on behalf of California’s 13 million lower-income residents, more than half of them Latinos. The suit alleges that "…California has created a separate and unequal system of health care, one for the insurance program with the largest proportion of Latinos (Medi-Cal), and one for the other principal insurance plans, whose recipients are disproportionately white.”

The state budget includes $107 billion in state and federal funding for Medi-Cal this year, but the spending is not enough to restore reimbursement cuts made during the Great Recession of 2008. A proposal in the U.S. Senate to repeal the Affordable Health Care law (ACA, Obamacare) could drastically reduce funding for Medicare and the individuals who can access it.

Thomas Saenz, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund who filed the lawsuit, said he believes it is the first time the civil rights approach has been tried in California. According to Saenz this legal approach is possible because California is one of the few states to specifically prohibit discriminatory effects in state programs.

Other states in the Southwest also have disproportionately large Hispanic populations in their Medicaid programs (Table 1).

Table 1. Percent Caucasian and Hispanic total population/Medicare population by State (2,3).

Reimbursement does appear disproportionately low in California which ranked 48th in the nation in 2015 in how much it paid hospitals, doctors and other healthcare providers for treating Medi-Cal patients, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (4). In the Southwest the state with the highest reimbursement was Nevada (5-10). California reimbursement averaged only 47% of Nevada reimbursement for the procedures listed (Table 2).

Table 2. Medicare reimbursement for common procedures by state (4-9).

The reason for the wide differences in reimbursement rates is unclear but is likely historical dating back to cost containment programs from the 1980’s and 90’s (11). The differences do not appear to be explained by differing costs of living. None of the procedure reimbursements correlated with the cost of living in the largest city in each state (Phoenix, Los Angeles, Denver, Albuquerque, Honolulu, and Las Vegas, p>0.1, all comparisons).

The chances of the lawsuit’s success are unclear since there is no precedent. However, it seems likely that if the suit is successful, more suits will be filed since California Medi-Cal’s situation of disproportionately providing care to minorities is not unique.

Richard A. Robbins, MD

Editor, SWJPCC

References

  1. Thompson D. Latino plaintiffs sue California alleging poor health care. Associated Press. July 12, 2017. Available at: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/latino-plaintiffs-sue-california-alleging-poor-health-care-48592841 (accessed 7/13/17).
  2. Kaiser Family Foundation. Population distribution by race/ethnicity. 2015. Available at: http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D (accessed 7/13/17).
  3. Kaiser Family Foundation. Distribution of the nonelderly with Medicaid by race/ethnicity. 2015. Available at: http://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/distribution-by-raceethnicity-4/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D (accessed 7/13/17).
  4. Dickson V. Low Medi-Cal payments could weaken expanded coverage for undocumented children. Modern Healthcare. June 17, 2015. Available at: http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20150617/NEWS/150619908 (accessed 7/13/17).
  5. California Department of Health Care Services Medi-Cal. Medi-Cal Rates. June 15, 2017. Available at: https://files.medi-cal.ca.gov/pubsdoco/rates/rateshome.asp (accessed 7/13/17).
  6. Arizona Health Cost Containment System. Physician fee schedules. 2017. Available at: https://www.azahcccs.gov/PlansProviders/RatesAndBilling/FFS/Physicianrates/ (accessed 7/13/17).
  7. Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. Provider rates & fee schedule. June 2017. Available at: https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/hcpf/provider-rates-fee-schedule (accessed 7/13/17).
  8. Quest Hawai’i. Medicaid fee schedule. 2013. Available at: http://www.med-quest.us/ (accessed 7/13/17).
  9. Nevada Division of Health Care Financing and Policy. Fee schedules. Available at: http://dhcfp.nv.gov/Resources/Rates/FeeSchedules/ (accessed 7/13/17).
  10. New Mexico Human Services Department. New Mexico Medicaid fee for service CPT code fee schedule. 2017. Available at: http://www.hsd.state.nm.us/uploads/FileLinks/e7cfb008157f422597cccdc11d2034f0/7.17_CPT_Codes__2_.pdf (accessed 7/13/17).
  11. Tatar M, Paradise J, Grafield R. Medi-Cal managed care: an overview and key issues. Kaiser Family Foundation. Mar 02, 2016. Available at: http://www.kff.org/report-section/medi-cal-managed-care-an-overview-and-key-issues-issue-brief/ (accessed 7/13/17).

Cite as: Robbins RA. Medi-Cal blamed for poor care in lawsuit. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2017;15(1):42-4. doi: https://doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc091-17 PDF 

Monday
Nov212016

Substitution of Assistants for Nurses Increases Mortality, Decreases Quality

Substituting nursing assistants for professional nurses is associated with poorer quality of care and increased mortality according to a study published in BMJ Quality & Safety (1). Linda H. Aiken PhD and colleagues analyzed the effect of increasing the proportion of less extensively trained nurses at 243 acute care hospitals in Belgium, England, Finland, Ireland, Spain, and Switzerland. They surveyed 13,077 nurses and 18,828 patients who had been in 182 hospitals between 2009 and 2010. They also consulted mortality records for 275,519 patients who had had surgery in 188 of the hospitals between 2007 and 2009.

Overall, 47% of the professional nurses in the study had bachelor's degrees, although they were unevenly distributed, with some hospitals having none. In a hospital that has average nurse staffing levels and skill mix, the researchers estimated that replacing one professional nurse with a lower-skilled worker increased the odds of a patient dying by 21%. Conversely, each 10% increase in the proportion of nurses with high-level skills was associated with an 11% decrease in the odds of a patient dying postoperatively and a 10% decrease in the odds of a patient giving the hospital a low rating.

Overall, the findings paralleled those from the United States and are consistent with the concept that a higher level of education leads to improved care. "We find a nursing skill mix in hospitals with a higher proportion of professional nurses is associated with significantly lower mortality, higher patient ratings of their care and fewer adverse care outcomes," the researchers write. They conclude "that caution should be taken in implementing policies to reduce hospital nursing skill mix because the consequences can be life-threatening for patients."

Richard A. Robbins, MD

Editor, SWJPCC

Reference

  1. Aiken LH, Sloane D, Griffiths P, et al. Nursing skill mix in European hospitals: cross-sectional study of the association with mortality, patient ratings, and quality of care. BMJ Qual Saf. 2016. Published on-line 11/15/16. [CrossRef] 

Cite as: Robbins RA. Substitution of assistants for nurses increases mortality, decreases quality. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2016;13(5):252. doi: https://doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc121-16 PDF

Friday
Oct282016

Dental Visits May Prevent Pneumonia

Several sources are reporting on a paper presented at IDWeek that showed people with a regular dental checkup had half the incidence of bacterial pneumonia (1). Michelle Doll and colleagues used the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data from 2013. The researchers were able to assess participants' access to dental care and used ICD-9 codes to look for bacterial pneumonia in the previous year. The survey had data on 26,687 people, including 441 who had an episode of bacterial pneumonia. Thirty-four percent of those who developed pneumonia reported having at least two dental checkups a year, compared with 46% of those who did not. It is important to point out that this is an observational study and there were significant differences between those who developed and did not develop bacterial pneumonia. Those who got pneumonia were: more likely to be white and older, with an average age of 47 versus 40; more likely to have comorbidities and cognitive limitations; and less likely to have dental insurance.

Nevertheless, the data is consistent with the hypothesis that microaspiration is a frequent cause of bacterial pneumonia. Previous data has shown oral chlorhexidine reduces ventilator-associated pneumonia in the ICU (2). Although a large randomized study is needed, the data suggests that dental care may be another community-acquired pneumonia preventative in addition to conjugated pneumococcal vaccine (3).

Richard A. Robbins, MD

Editor, SWJPCC

References

  1. Smith M. Regular checkups linked to protection against bacterial disease. Medscape. October 28, 2016. Available at: http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/IDWeek/61071 (accessed 10/28/16). 
  2. Hua F, Xie H, Worthington HV, Furness S, Zhang Q, Li C. Oral hygiene care for critically ill patients to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2016 Oct 25;10:CD008367. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  3. Bonten MJ, Huijts SM, Bolkenbaas M, et al. Polysaccharide conjugate vaccine against pneumococcal pneumonia in adults. N Engl J Med. 2015 Mar 19;372(12):1114-25. [CrossRef] [PubMed]

Cite as: Robbins RA. Dental visits may prevent penumonia. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2016;13(4):186. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc105-16 PDF