Video: How the CommonWell Health Alliance is trying to solve the EHR interoperability problem.
As the wave of hospital mergers continue around America, will more and more workers turn to unions for relief?
The Times reported:
”Patients and family caregivers — who are always the de facto care coordinators — may feel bombarded, said Carol Levine, the director of the United Hospital Fund’s Families and Healthcare Project.”
“’I hear a lot about people getting discharged from the hospital, and four or five people call the next week: ‘How’re you doing?’ ” she said. Families wonder, ‘Who are all these people, and why are they bothering me?’ she said. Sometimes, overwhelmed patients simply stop answering the phone.”
As policymakers seek to address this problem, Republican leaders present a conservative approach: End the the dependence on not-for-profit managed-care providers and open it up to for-profits to compete for hundreds of millions in state funding for mental health.
The Miami Herald reported Rep. Gayle Harrell, (R.-Stuart), who is sponsoring the House bill, HB 7119, said that for-profit companies would have to follow, in The Herald’s words, “the same ‘ground rules’ as the not-for-profit organizations known as ‘managing entities,’ which now are required to spend no more than 5 percent on administration and devote the rest of the budget to mental health services.
”The goal is to provide more performance-based payment of services, but the idea has drawn mixed reviews from mental health advocates. On one hand, they welcome the long-overdue update of the state’s mental health delivery system. On the other, they question how a chronically underfunded system could have room for big companies to make profits.”
“’There is a belief by some that for-profits are better, but while they may be good at being cost effective, they are not very good at being treatment effective,’” said John Dow, executive director of the South Florida Behavioral Health Network, told the paper.
Even some state healthcare officials agree that private providers can provide the same, if not better, services for less than half the cost of state agencies.
The Stamford Advocate notes:
”Testimony submitted last month to the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee by the state Department of Developmental Services notes that while state-run residential facilities can cost upwards of $300,000 annually for each patient, private providers are offering the same services for about $131,000 a year.”
“Even some state healthcare officials agree that private providers can provide the same, if not better, services for less than half the cost of state agencies.”
A major reason for the cost differential; Unionized public employees earn a lot more than private providers’ employees.
“Sisyphus,” by Titian.
Physicians have long lobbied the Feds to delay implementing the ICD-10 diagnostic coding set.
But the W0rkgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, in a survey of 1,100 physicians, payers and vendors about the ICD-10 implantation date looming on Oct. 1, a survey of more than 1,100 physicians, payers, and vendors, finds that the biggest barrier to readiness is the fear that there will be yet another delay.
The sector is crying out for predictability. It reminds us a bit of the stock market, where nervous investors often prefer actionable bad news to uncertain, and thus not actionable, good news.
Becker’s Hospital Review reports:
“CMS has released a proposed rule that would change reporting requirements for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program to a 90-day period instead of the current one-year reporting period.
“The proposed rule seeks to better align current measures of meaningful use stage 1 and stage 2 with the proposed meaningful use stage 3 requirements. It also aims to reduce the burden and duplication of reporting requirements.
“CMS proposes to align reporting requirements for the next two years with those proposed for stage 3. This means reporting periods would follow the calendar year for 2015 and 2016 instead of the fiscal year, which is how reports are currently submitted.”
