State Highlights: Johns Hopkins Docs Urge FTC Caution On Hospital Mergers; Michigan Hospices To Test Medicare Model
Health care stories are reported from Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, Colorado, Arizona, Washington, Iowa and Texas.
The Baltimore Sun:
Hospital Consolidation Troubling, Hopkins Docs Say
A group of Johns Hopkins doctors and professors have called on the Federal Trade Commission to act with more caution when considering hospital mergers. The consolidation of hospitals into large chains makes the market less competive, gives patients fewer choices and could result in higher medical expenses, the researchers said in a commentary published in the Aug. 13 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The authors of the article want the FTC to pay particular attention to mergers that could result in one dominant hospital system in a region. (McDaniels, 8/20)
MLive:
Michigan Hospices Test Medicare Model Allowing Patients To Get 'Curative' Care
Medicare patients will be able to receive hospice care while also pursuing "curative" treatments under a program that will be tested by 10 Michigan hospice programs. The new Medicare Care Choices Model marks a departure from the traditional approach to hospice care - Medicare rules do not allow a patient to receive curative and hospice care at the same time. The program, being rolled out at 141 hospices nationwide, is aimed at bringing the quality-of-life care provided by a hospice to more Medicare patients. (Thoms, 8/20)
Politico New York:
Nonprofit Insurers Lose On Medicare Under New Obamacare Rules
New York State has in many ways been a showcase for things that have gone right with Obamacare. ... But there have also been some surprising wrinkles here. One is that the Affordable Care Act seems to be having a negative impact on the bottom lines of nearly all of New York’s nonprofit regional health plans, many of which offer coverage in underserved parts of western and upstate New York. The most pronounced underwriting losses stem from the Medicare Advantage line of business, which allows private health plans to administer the government insurance program for Americans over the age of 65. ... The large national for-profit insurers aren’t seeing these financial losses when it comes to Medicare Advantage. (Jennings, 8/19)
The New York Times:
Louis Stokes, Congressman From Ohio And Champion Of The Poor, Dies At 90
Inadequate health care for minorities was a major concern of his, and he was an early advocate of federal intervention in the AIDS crisis, which was ravaging black communities in the 1990s. Interviewed for this obituary in 2011, Mr. Stokes said he was particularly proud of sponsoring legislation that established the Office of Minority Health as a permanent federal agency. “That started the real work of that office,” he said. (Hevesi, 8/19)
Modern Healthcare:
New York Health Loses Another IT Official Following Probe Into EHR Implementation
The New York City Health and Hospitals Corp. has lost its second health IT leader amid an investigation into a multiyear, multimillion dollar installation of an electronic health-record system. In 2013, Epic Systems Corp. of Verona, Wis., won a 15-year, $302 million contract to replace HHC's decades-old EHR system. With 11 hospitals, HHC is the largest municipal health network in the nation. The total cost of the health information technology upgrade is estimated at $1.4 billion. (Conn, 8/19)
Reuters:
Appellate Court Says Employees Have Right To Fix Faulty Leave Requests
A fired healthcare worker can sue her Pennsylvania-based employer under the Family Medical Leave Act after she was denied leave and terminated for absences without the chance to fix the problems in her request for time off, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district judge and found that employers have to give workers a chance to amend faulty leave requests, just like they have to tell workers of their FMLA rights. (Iafolla, 8/19)
The San Jose Mercury News:
Money Stripped From Bill To Provide Nurse Oversight Of Foster Youth Medication
Facing opposition from budget hawks, a Bay Area lawmaker on Wednesday deeply cut his bill to bolster monitoring of California's 63,000 foster children, who critics say are too often prescribed powerful psychiatric drugs with little follow-up or coordinated care. (Richman, 8/19)
Reuters:
14-Year Sentence Upheld In Health Fraud That Led To Teen's Death
A federal appeals court has affirmed a 14-year prison sentence for a Philadelphia social worker involved in a healthcare fraud linked to the death of a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy. Judge D. Brooks Smith, writing for a unanimous panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said that Solomon Manamela failed to prove that he should not be subject to healthcare fraud laws, even though he was not a healthcare provider. (Pierson, 8/20)
Health News Colorado:
Guns, Poor Mental Health System Lead To Record Suicide Toll
Colorado lost the largest number of people to suicide in state history last year —1,058 — and the state once again ranks among the worst in the U.S. for high suicide rates. Suicide kills more Coloradans each year than homicide, car crashes, diabetes, breast cancer, flu or pneumonia, according to state health officials. (Kerwin McCrimmon, 8/19)
The Arizona Republic:
Doctor Pays $208,000 To Settle Medicare Billing Probe
An Arizona doctor has agreed to repay the federal government $207,988 to settle claims that he billed Medicare for “green light” prostatectomies that often were too short to provide therapeutic benefit to patients. (Alltucker, 8/19)
The Seattle Times:
Doctor's State License, Military Contracts Suspended Over Misconduct Allegations
The Washington State Medical Commission has suspended the license of Dr. John Hagmann, a Gig Harbor doctor who garnered millions of dollars in federal contracts to teach emergency medicine, for professional misconduct. The alleged violations include authorizing students to inject each other with controlled substances, allowing them to perform invasive procedures on one another and exploiting course participants for sexual gratification. (Bernton, 8/19)
The Des Moines Register:
Ex-DHS Consultant Helped Company Win State Medicaid Job
The same month she helped a Florida-based company land a lucrative state contract, an Iowa Department of Human Services consultant terminated her work with the state to join that company. The timing of former state Rep. Renee Schulte’s move to WellCare of Iowa raised questions this week about whether any ethics were violated. Schulte’s consulting firm was paid almost $100,000 a year to assist DHS’s mental health division since January 2013, but terminated its contract Feb. 20, four days after Gov. Terry Branstad announced the state was seeking competitive bids to contract with private companies to manage Iowa’s Medicaid program. (Clayworth, 8/19)
The Associated Press:
Iowa Medicaid To Cut Ties With 20-Year Mental Health Manager
The Iowa Medicaid program plans to cut ties with the company that has managed mental health and substance abuse benefits for its members for two decades, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Magellan Health Inc. emerged as a major loser in Gov. Terry Branstad’s plan to turn over administration of the $4.2 billion Medicaid program to four national companies beginning Jan. 1. Magellan was one of six bidders passed over by the Iowa Department of Human Services for the work, a decision that surprised many Iowa providers and sent the company’s shares tumbling Monday afternoon. (Foley, 8/19)
The Baltimore Sun:
Zoning Clampdown Unneeded For Medical Marijuana
To quote the Grateful Dead, "What a long strange trip it's been." Over the decades, medical marijuana has made the journey from preposterous hippie myth to accepted medical practice in Maryland and several other states. Now, the legalization process for dispensing cannabis to the sick faces a more prosaic hurdle — zoning law. Around the state, some legislators want that hurdle to be unnecessarily burdensome. Medical marijuana is now an issue on the county level in Maryland. That's why county officials a few weeks ago packed an information session at the Maryland Association of Counties' annual convention seeking guidance now that entrepreneurs are scouting locations to grow and dispense medical marijuana to those with prescriptions to use it. (8/19)
The Wall Street Journal:
The Dangers Of The Street Drug K2
A synthetic form of marijuana is getting noticed by New York officials after a rash of users have ended up in the emergency room and often behaved violently in public. But cracking down on the drug, most commonly known as K2, poses a different set of challenges from trying to get older drugs off the streets of New York City, according to local, state and federal officials. (Francescani, 8/19)
Los Angeles Times:
South Pasadena Nursing Home Gets A New Start With Ownership Change
For eight years, South Pasadena police had a nursing home on their radar, as officers responded to 1,100 calls for service, some involving violent crimes. ... During a 2012 meeting with police, nursing home operators promised to do what they could to keep the rate of calls down. And they did — by rerouting 911 calls back to the facility's nursing station, according to police.On Wednesday, on the steps of the facility formerly known as the South Pasadena Convalescent Hospital, Miller joined city officials in touting a change in ownership. Miller said he hopes to see a turnaround at the nursing home, which the new owners renamed South Pasadena Care Center. (Mejia, 8/19)
The Associated Press:
Shannen Doherty's Lawsuit Reveals Actress Has Breast Cancer
The former "Beverly Hills, 90210" star claims that her former business managers and accountants mismanaged her money and allowed her health insurance to lapse last year. Because of that, she said she didn't go to the doctor until she had insurance and there was a delay in diagnosing her cancer, which will likely require more drastic treatments, including a possible mastectomy and chemotherapy. (8/19)
The Texas Tribune:
Prosecutor: State Cancer Official Deceived Agency
A Travis County prosecutor on Tuesday asked a jury to convict a former high-ranking official with the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas of securing an $11 million grant for a biotechnology firm “by fraud.” Jerry Cobbs, the former chief commercialization officer of the state agency known as CPRIT, misled his colleagues to get the grant approved, Assistant District Attorney Rob Drummond said during opening arguments before a 12-member jury in Austin. (Walters, 8/19)