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Craig Wortmann on Being an Entrepreneur

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Virtually anyone can be an entrepreneur, although starting one’s own business is a giant leap.  Many people look at becoming an entrepreneur as a cause and effect – the academic term being “causal logic”.  That may not be the optimal way to view entrepreneurship, however.  Rather, the world’s most successful entrepreneurs use effectual logic.  According to Craig Wortmann, Clinical Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, “It goes like this:  I’m an entrepreneur, I’ve got this idea, I’ve got this limited set of resources and I’m just going to begin, and I’m not exactly sure what the effect will be.”  Wortmann has more than 20 years of experience in entrepreneurial sales and marketing strategy experience.

According to Wortmann, this is a powerful way to think about entrepreneurship because the concept has such an underlying vibe of optimism.  This notion of entrepreneurship is just start the business, anyone can do it.  They are all personality types; they don’t have to be deep in domain knowledge.  Anyone can start a business.  The research suggests that as long as people are not rigid about reaching a certain outcome, they will be successful.

Wortmann asks budding entrepreneurs to think about the idea they have and ask what is the relative value to the idea.  He believes that many people get stuck as entrepreneurs because they say “I can’t be an entrepreneur because I don’t have the next Google.  I’m not waking up in the middle of the night with the next idea for Facebook.”  Any idea that will change the focus of people or get them to do something better or a bit different – you have a potential business.

Would-be entrepreneurs need to begin taking action.  They need to talk to potential customers and partners, and start to formulate a product or service to offer to people.  Chances are the fledgling entrepreneur will be rejected; there is no question about that.  But if they keep embracing that chaos and making contact with the market, things will begin to take shape.  They need to get out there and realize that they are the structure and the process.

The challenge for entrepreneurs can be maintaining momentum.  It it’s the product, stay close to the product.  If it’s the people, get out into the market, meet people and maintain energy.  According to Wortmann, “One of the things I like to talk to students about:  is shutting down a business failure?  It is in a way, but we’re all on a journey and that’s just a chapter.  In a microcosm, it is a failure.  But is it really a failure if you take those lessons and start something new or go back to a big company and leverage all those things you learned?  That looks like success to me.”

To listen to Craig Wortmann’s full interview on entrepreneurship, click here.

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Medicare Times Are a Changing

Monday, January 16th, 2012

Baby boomers may not like it — and whoever wins the White House this year — but the Medicare that our parents knew and love is destined to change. And it’ll be like it or lump it.

With more than 1.5 million baby boomers enrolling in Medicare every year, the program’s future is one of the most crucial economic issues for anyone who currently is 50 or older. Healthcare costs are the most erratic part of retirement expenses, and Medicare remains a great deal for retirees, who often get benefits worth significantly more than the payroll taxes they paid while working.  “People would like to have what they used to have.  What they don’t seem to understand is that it’s already changed,” said Gail Wilensky, a former Medicare administrator. “Medicare as we have known it is not part of our future.”

Consider these numbers.  Medicare’s giant trust fund for inpatient care is expected to run out of money in 2024.  When that happens, the program will collect only enough payroll taxes to pay 90 percent of benefits.  Additionally, researchers estimate that as much as one-fifth and even two-thirds of the more than $500 billion that Medicare now spends every year is spent on treatments and procedures of little or no benefit to patients.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Finance Committee, is leading the charge on changing Medicare.  Ryan’s current proposals will not impact people now 55 or older would not have to make any changes.  But how would it work?  Would it save taxpayers’ dollars?  Would it shift costs to retirees, who are least able to afford it?   Will Congress ultimately end traditional Medicare?  These questions are still waiting for answers.  “I’m not sure anybody has come up with a formula on this that makes people comfortable,” said health economist Marilyn Moon, who formerly served as a trustee overseeing Medicare finances.

The White House’s preference is to keep the existing structure of Medicare while “twisting the dials” to control spending, said Medicare trustee, economist Robert Reischauer of the Urban Institute think tank.

Ryan’s original approach would have put 100 percent of future retirees into private insurance.  His most recent plan, written with Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), would keep traditional Medicare as an option, competing with private plans.

Writing for AARP, Ricardo Alonzo Zaldiver says that, “This could mean more Medicare recipients joining private insurance plans (currently, only about 25 percent of Medicare recipients are in private ‘Medicare Advantage” plans, while the other three-quarters participate in the traditional, government-run Medicare program).  A new voucher-for-private-Medicare plan would be available to anyone currently under 55.

“It could also mean keeping the existing Medicare structure but making certain tweaks to control spending.  Under President Obama’s healthcare overhaul, the Independent Payment Advisory Board could force Medicare cuts to service providers if costs rise above certain levels and Congress fails to act.  Obama has said he’ll veto any plan to cut Medicare benefits without raising taxes on the wealthy.  During failed budget negotiations last summer, he indicated a willingness to gradually raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67, revamp co-payments and deductibles in ways that would raise costs for retirees, and cut payments to drug makers.  ‘For the 76 million baby boomers signing up over the next couple of decades, it will pay to be watching.’”  President Obama has promised that he will veto any plan to cut Medicare benefits without raising taxes on the wealthy.

The Chicago Sun-Times offers this sage advice: “Fix Medicare, ignore scare talk.”  According to writer Steve Huntley, “I’ve contributed to Medicare every year of its existence. Yet, it’s a myth that seniors have paid the costs of their Medicare services, as demonstrated by the research of economists Eugene Steuerle and Stephanie Rennane of the Urban Institute think tank.  Their study showed that a two-income couple earning $89,000 a year would pay $114,000 in Medicare taxes during their careers but could expect to receive $355,000 in medical care in retirement. They could get prescriptions, doctor visits and hospital services valued at three times their contribution to Medicare.

“Medicare combined with Medicaid and Social Security add up to an entitlement time bomb –  they’ll consume all tax revenues by 2052, according to a Heritage Foundation analysis –  for the people who’ll be stuck with the bill: working Americans.  In 1950, there were 16 taxpaying workers for each retiree; by the time the baby boomers all retire, there will be two workers for each retiree. Entitlement reform has to happen.”

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States Rewarded for Adding Kids to Public Insurance Rolls

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Twenty-three states will share $296.5 million in federal funds for encouraging low-income families to enroll children in state-run public healthcare programs.  The bonuses reward states that streamlined eligibility for Medicaid, the federal-state health program and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).  The goal is to assure coverage for children younger than 19 from households with annual incomes of less than $45,000 for a family of four, though some states are more generous.  Despite 2011’s shaky economy, the number of uninsured children fell to 5.9 million in 2010 from 6.9 million the previous year, according to a study by the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute.  Children still leave the program rolls because parents neglect to renew eligibility, increasing the likelihood of missed vaccinations and dental checkups, said Tricia Brooks, a senior fellow at the Georgetown institute.

“Families may avoid routine preventive care with the hope they’ll have more money next month or delay seeking care until they know they really have to bring the children in,” Brooks said.  “At that point, the emergency room is a likely choice.”

Besides the 1.2 million newly insured children, three million who previously had private insurance transferred to CHIP or Medicaid during that time frame, said Sherry Glied, assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  Because of that, children have been protected from 10 years of erosion of health insurance among Americans that resulted as employers dropped coverage, workers with insurance were laid off because of the recession, and people whose only alternative was to buy insurance on their own could not afford to do so.  Since CHIP was first established in 1997, the share of adults ages 26 to 64 with a health plan dipped from 83 percent to 80 percent. By contrast, in the same period, the share of children with insurance grew from 86 percent to 93 percent.  “It’s very encouraging, because it shows that even in an economic downturn, CHIP really made a difference,” Glied said.

The 23 states that are eligible to receive performance bonuses are: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

To earn their bonuses, states used electronic databases rather than paperwork submissions from families to verify incomes or preemptively enrolling kids who appear to be eligible.  Additionally, states may guarantee one year of eligibility rather than requiring periodic renewals.  Georgia and South Carolina use information from their nutrition assistance programs to hasten eligibility determinations, said Marilyn Tavenner, acting administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  In 2010, 15 states claimed bonuses totaling approximately $206 million.  Alabama, which received $55 million after adding 133,000 children to its public insurance programs, led the pack.

In Connecticut, for example, an estimated 49,000 Connecticut children under 18 have no health insurance, said Mary Alice Lee, senior policy fellow with Connecticut Voices for Children.  The state provides affordable insurance for children under the Husky Health program. According to Lee, considering that the state’s economic downturn and the 2010 nine percent unemployment rate, the fact that the percentage of uninsured children held steady means that the Husky program is working.  “The number of uninsured children in Connecticut is really relatively low compared to other states,” Lee said.  On a national basis, 9.8 percent of children under 18 were uninsured in 2010.  “The Husky program is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do, that is, provide affordable coverage for children during times of economic stress.”

No parent in America should have to think twice about taking their child to a doctor’s appointment or filling a prescription for their child because the cost is too high,” Tavenner said. “And no child should have to miss school or activities because they’re not getting the care they need to stay healthy.”  States have wide latitude regarding how they spend the funds, but the intent is that they will be used to help defray the shared Medicaid costs that the states incur by enrolling more children.

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ACA Is Fixing U.S. Healthcare Delivery: Donald Berwick

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Dr. Donald Berwick, who oversaw Medicare and Medicaid until recently said the programs are trapped in a health system that promotes wasteful spending and inefficient care. “Healthcare is broken,” Berwick, who headed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said.  “We have set up a delivery system that is fragmented, unsafe, not patient-centered, full of waste and unreliable.  Despite the best efforts of the workforce, we built it wrong. It isn’t built for modern times.”  Berwick said the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is changing how physicians and hospitals are paid and deliver care through such innovative arrangements as accountable care organizations (ACOs), which improve coordination and lower costs.”

According to Berwick, it is not clear whether these efforts will produce results quickly enough to silence the critics who want to make more radical changes that would shift the majority of the burden onto beneficiaries.  “That is the central question, the nub…whether that will happen fast enough, I just don’t know.”

To read the full transcript of Berwick’s remarks, click this link:

Berwick defended his tenure as CMS administrator. Even though he failed to win Senate confirmation, that did not impact his ability to get things done, though he would have preferred a longer term.  “An agency of this size will do better with longer-term leadership commitment,” he said.  With the knowledge that his tenure was likely to be short, Berwick felt a greater sense of urgency to achieve things.  Berwick’s most challenging decisions involved state requests to cut Medicaid benefits and writing regulations to encourage doctors and hospitals to form ACOs, while not making the requirements overly burdensome.

Berwick took exception to state’s efforts to limit hospital coverage for Medicaid recipients, which is presently under review by federal regulators.  Hawaii has proposed a 10-day limit on some enrollees; Arizona has proposed a 25 day limit.  “It’s a nonsensical idea.  If a patient needs 20 days, the patient should get 20 days,” he said.

According to the Bangor Daily News, Berwick’s departure from CMS is “an unnecessary loss.” Berwick’s parting words should help Americans understand how their health system is in the process of being improved.  The article notes that “Waste is a broad term, including needless medical procedures, failure of adequate preventive measures, duplication and inefficiency, as well as outright fraud.  Hospital-acquired infections have caused the deaths of almost 100,000 Americans each year and the illness of millions more, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Dr. Berwick has reported that these complications have added as much as $45 billion a year to hospital costs borne by taxpayers, insurers and customers.  He said that some hospitals have virtually eliminated some infections that other hospitals still consider inevitable.  Under the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare, financial incentives will go to hospitals that excel in fighting these infections starting in 2015.

Unnecessary hospital readmissions add another $12 billion a year, estimates the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.  It says half or more of these readmissions could be prevented through better coordination and patient education, permitting them to recover at home rather than re-entering the hospital with complications.  ‘Integrated care’ will also reduce costs, said Dr. Berwick, by protecting patients from having to tell their stories over and over to different providers and letting a doctor know what medication they had already been given.  No figure is available for the savings from automated record keeping, but it is becoming substantial.  Preventive medicine is already reducing waste, for example by detecting diseases at early stages for prompt treatment.  The Affordable Care Act makes preventive benefits like cholesterol tests, mammograms and screening for colon and rectal cancer free for everyone with Medicare.”

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Brain Scans a Tool In Early Alzheimer’s Detection

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Researchers believe they can see revealing brain shrinkage years before a person develops memory loss or other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. The new finding may ultimately let physicians detect the disease and treat patients earlier with the goal of keeping them functional longer.

Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to measure how thick the brain’s outer layer is in 159 people who did not suffer from memory loss.  Earlier studies have linked Alzheimer’s disease with distinctive shrinkage in nine regions of the brain’s gray matter, or cerebral cortex.  This is what physicians call the “Alzheimer’s signature.”

According to researchers, the brain shrinks as it loses nerve cells – more commonly known as neurons.  They aren’t entirely sure what causes this.  One theory is that the cells die after they become choked by excess amounts of two kinds of protein — beta amyloid and tau.  “The neurons degenerating over time are really what we think causes the shrinkage,” said researcher Brad Dickerson, M.D., an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the frontotemporal disorders unit at Massachusetts General Hospital.  “And that shrinkage in their size is something you can measure with an MRI scan.”

Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.  The number of deaths has increased in recent years, and there is no cure.  In the new study, researchers focused on how thick the edges of the brain are.  “We’re looking at the parts of the cortex that are particularly vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease, parts that are important for memory, problem-solving skills and higher-language functions,” Dickerson said.

The 15 percent of participants – who averaged 76 years old –who had the thinnest brain areas performed poorly on the tests: About one in five of them were experiencing cognitive decline, as well as increases in signs of abnormal spinal fluid, a possible sign of developing Alzheimer’s disease.  “That suggests they may be developing symptoms,” according to Dickerson.

Susan Resnick, PhD, who works at the National Institute of Aging, wrote:  “The ability to identify people who are not showing memory problems and other symptoms but may be at a higher risk for cognitive decline is a very important step toward developing new ways for doctors to detect Alzheimer’s disease.”

Dr. Simon Ridley, from the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK, said, “The ability to predict who will develop Alzheimer’s disease is a key target for dementia research, as it would allow new treatments to be tried early, when they are more likely to be effective.  These findings add weight to existing evidence that Alzheimer’s begins long before symptoms appear, although it’s important to note that the study did not assess who went on to develop the disease.  This research provides a potential new avenue to follow, but we need to see larger and longer-term studies before we can know whether this type of brain scan could accurately predict Alzheimer’s.”

Writing in Time, Alice Park notes that “Alzheimer’s disease has always been difficult to diagnose — the only way to identify it definitively is by autopsying the brain after death — but scientists may now have an easier way to spot the degenerative brain disease long before that, even before symptoms appear, using brain scans.  By studying people’s brain scans over time, they were able to see that these nine brain regions appear to be thinner in people who eventually go on to develop Alzheimer’s — but that it takes many years for this structural difference to show up as symptoms of memory loss or cognitive problems.  Using this brain-size signature as a yardstick, the researchers decided to confirm the correlation by testing the patients’ cognitive abilities three years after a baseline brain scan.  Indeed, they found that 21 percent of participants, who had the thinnest Alzheimer’s-related brain regions but showed no signs of memory problems or other cognitive deficits at the start of the study did show signs of cognitive decline three years later, compared with none of the subjects who did not have the same brain thinning and seven percent who showed moderately thinner brain areas.”

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States to Determine Their Own ACA Coverage Levels

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

The Obama administration averted a potentially vicious lobbying battle over the medical benefits insurers must cover under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) when it handed the decision to the states.  The ruling gives states the power to set coverage levels for the policies uninsured people will purchase through exchanges, starting in 2014.  Business groups will make a case for a narrow set of benefits to save costs while consumer advocates want expanded coverage.  The decision shifts the issue to the states and away from the White House, and lets President Barack Obama say he’s giving governors and legislatures greater flexibility to confront rising medical costs and control changes the 2010 healthcare law is bringing to insurance markets.

“Obama has taken all the grief he can stand over healthcare,” said Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  “He doesn’t want it to give the Republicans any more political ammunition.  He is passing the hot potato to the states.”

“This is significantly more state-flexible and friendly than many would have expected,” said Alan Weil, head of the National Academy for State Heath Policy. What’s to guarantee that the state’s choice of a benchmark plan will be affordable?” asked National Retail Federation Vice President Neil Trautwein.  If coverage is unaffordable today, this doesn’t change the equation.”

Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would have to provide “strong oversight and enforcement” of the benefit standards as the states implement them.  “It will be important to ensure that adequate coverage across all 10 required benefit categories is provided — marking an improvement over many plans offered today,” he said.  Giving states greater flexibility to determine necessary benefits was perceived as an attempt to defuse criticism that the health reform law gives the federal government too much control over the healthcare system.  A longtime advocate for federal health reform, Pollack also expressed reservations.  “We understand the inclination to balance flexibility, comprehensiveness of coverage, and cost,” he said. “However, flexibility must yield to reliable, comprehensive coverage of benefits for consumers.  It is essential that HHS provide strong oversight and enforcement.”

Under the revised guidelines, state legislature must either set coverage levels in line with widely subscribed small- business plans in their communities, or tie them to benefits included in their state employees’ health plan, federal plans or the largest commercial managed-care plan in the state.  Generally, health plans for small businesses, state employees and federal workers “cover similar services,” including doctors’ visits, hospitalization and outpatient mental health, according to a study conducted by HHS.  Discrepancies arise in areas such as prescription drugs.  While they’re covered as a basic benefit by all government employee plans, only 84 percent of small business plans cover them.  Others require additional premiums.  Small business plans also rarely cover dental care, acupuncture, bariatric surgery and hearing aids, unless states require it.

According to Forbes magazine’s sba.com column, “At a first glance, this seems like it might be a step in the right direction for individuals and small business owners.  However, that is not necessarily the case.  It seems as though the new idea comes with a wide array of new problems.  First, while the new policy will give states flexibility, it imposes more benefit mandates.  The new policy lists 10 ‘essential health benefits’ that the state MUST provide.  Some of these essential benefits are prescription drugs, preventative care, doctor and hospital services, and maternity care.  The new policy allows the states to designate a state-wide ‘benchmark’ health insurance plan, setting the minimum standard of care.  All insurers would then have the ability to change their insurance plans as long as the coverage provided benefits of the same or greater value.  The new ‘more flexible’ plan still seems very rigid and regimented.  Additionally, the new plan would lead to higher-cost insurance premiums, not lower.

“Another long-standing issue with Obama’s idea is that individuals are not clear on what services and benefits are expected to be provided as a minimum.  Instead of clearing up this confusion and spelling out what exactly would be required, Obama has simply put that responsibility on the states – giving them the ‘flexibility’ to design their plans.

“While it may look like Obama is responding to his opponents’ remarks about his previous plan forcing health insurance standards on states, it seems as though this policy change still accomplishes his goals – just through a different means.  Obama can continue to shape and reshape his ideals; however it will be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether the government can require Americans to buy health insurance at all.”

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ACA Gives 2.5 Million Young Adults Healthcare Coverage

Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

The number of young adults who have no medical coverage has contracted by 2.5 million since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) took effect, according to a new analysis by the Obama administration.  That decline is 2½ times larger than earlier government and private estimates, which showed about one million Americans ages 19 – 25 had acquired coverage.

Obama administration officials said they now have more comprehensive data and are slicing the numbers more precisely than the government typically does, in an attempt to identify the impact of a popular provision in the law.  Thanks to the ACA, young adults can remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until their 26th birthdays.  Families have flocked to sign up their offspring, making the transition to work in a challenging economic environment a bit easier.

“Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 2.5 million more young adults don’t have to live with the fear and uncertainty of going without health insurance,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  “Moms and dads around the country can breathe a little easier knowing their children are covered.”

“This comparison makes it clear that the increase in coverage among 19 to 25 year-olds can be directly attributed to the Affordable Care Act’s new dependent-coverage provision,” according to an Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) brief.  “Furthermore, the coverage gain for young adults was entirely due to an increase in private coverage (from 49 percent to 58 percent), with no change in Medicaid coverage during this period.”

“The increase in coverage among 19- to 25-year-olds can be directly attributed to the Affordable Care Act’s new dependent coverage provision,” according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  “Initial gains from this policy have continued to grow as…students graduate from high school and college.”

That age group previously recorded the highest uninsured rate. Now, 26- to 35-year-olds have that dubious distinction by a narrow margin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the HHS survey, nearly 36 percent of Americans ages 19 – 25 — more than 10.5 million people — were uninsured in the third quarter of 2010, before the law’s provision took effect.  The majority of employer-based health plans began carrying the provision January 1, 2011.  By the 2nd quarter of 2011, the proportion of uninsured young adults had fallen to slightly more than 27 percent, or about eight million people.

And just who are these young adults?  Some are transitioning from school to work. Others are trying to start their careers by working at low-wage jobs that don’t usually come with healthcare coverage.  Some – known as the “invincibles” – pass up job-based health insurance because they don’t think they’ll need it and prefer some extra money in their paychecks.

Similarly, the National Center for Health Statistics has documented a broadly similar trend, only not nearly as spectacular.  According to administration officials, those statistics do not focus on the change from calendar quarter to calendar quarter, as the new HHS report does.  Instead, they pool data over longer time periods; that tends to dilute the law’s perceived impact.

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Time to Resolve the “Doc Fix”

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

Congress’ end of year to-do list inevitably includes the “doc fix” – billions of dollars to avoid deep rate cuts for physicians who treat Medicare’s 48 million patients.  Congressmen and Senators always defer the cuts demanded by a 1997 reimbursement formula — known as the sustainable growth rate (SGR) – and which most believe needs to be entirely rewritten.  The deferrals are temporary, and the doc fix has become increasingly difficult to pass through a divided and deficit-wary Congress.  In 2010, Congress put off scheduled cuts five times, with the longest delay lasting one year.

The story is the same heading into 2012.  If lawmakers are unable to agree before returning home for the holidays, 500,000 physicians will face a stiff 27 percent cut beginning January 1.  Although Congressional leaders have vowed to prevent that, they disagree over how to pay for the fix.  There is little doubt some agreement will be reached, but that deal could be delayed until early next year.

The cost of congressional intervention, not surprisingly, has grown: Delaying the cuts — the solution Congress has chosen since 2003 — will cost $21 billion for a one-year delay and $38.6 billion for two years.  Repealing the formula would add approximately $300 billion to the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

No one imagined that the SGR would cause so much trouble when it was passed as a minor element of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.  Nearly 15 years ago, Medicare physician spending, which accounts for a small share of the program’s overall outlay, was growing slowly.  The law included other restraints that have since been repealed.  Analysts predicted that, at most, the SGR formula would curb physician payments minimally.  “It wasn’t viewed as a big deal at the time,” said Paul Van de Water, an economist specializing in Medicare with the research group Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.  “They needed a few more billion dollars in savings (for the Balanced Budget Act), so they just tacked on the SGR arrangement.”

Kaiser Health News wonders why Congress doesn’t just scrap the SGR formula.  “Money is the biggest problem.  It would cost about $300 billion to stop the doc fix cuts over the next decade and Congress can’t agree on where to find that kind of cash.  Some lawmakers, including Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), have proposed using money saved from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to finance a permanent fix.  While the idea has found favor among some Democrats, other Republicans oppose it.  For physicians, the prospect of facing big payment cuts is a source of mounting frustration.  Some say the uncertainty led them to quit the program, while others are threatening to do so.  Still, defections have not been significant to date, according to MedPAC.  Physician groups continue to lobby Congress to enact a permanent payment fix.”

Dr. Florence C. Barnett recently decided to quit seeing Medicare patients.  She said the plan covered approximately 33 percent of what it cost her to see patients — and found herself facing a growing Medicare patient population after other local neurosurgeons left the program in 2010.  “This is the way the government will ration healthcare,” Barnett said.  “The people who can afford it will have healthcare, and the people who are only on government support — they will not be able to find a doctor or they will have a very long wait.  It’s happening now.”

A survey conducted by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission found that among patients looking for a new primary-care physician in 2010, 79 percent experienced no problems finding one.  According to the American Medical Association (AMA), which generally resists limits in reimbursements, nearly 33 percent of primary-care physicians already restrict how many Medicare patients they accept in their practices.

Physicians are once again relying on Congress to put off the impending cut.  It’s a scenario that Glen Stream, M.D. and president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, calls a “Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football thing.”  In other words, physicians have become numb to the whole situation.  This year, that numbness could be risky.  “Doctors are sort of numb from this,” Stream said.  “It’s concerning because I think there’s a very serious chance that this cut could go into place and yet many practicing physicians have heard this years and years in a row and it always seems to get averted at the last minute.  I think that they may not understand the gravity of the situation this time.”

Writing on the MDNews.com website, Maggie Behringer says that “Last year the battle to fund the Medicare deficit — $19 billion for the fiscal year — ended in a one-year measure.  The summer saw a hands-off stance from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services when the administration instructed providers to temporarily cease filing claims until Congress resolved a standstill over stimulus spending and unemployment benefits.  The cut projected for January, 2012, should Congress fail to enact the customary doc-fix, totals to 27.4 percent.  The core conflict for legislators — 19 of whom are physicians, themselves — emerges in the inability of the SGR to adapt in today’s economic environment.  The formula was originally developed to bind spending to the economy’s growth.  Despite initial success, the exponential climb in healthcare costs quickly surpassed the overall market.  The subsequent deficits to fund Medicare were further compounded by the recent depression and ongoing recession.  Even if Congress is able to act in time with a temporary doc-fix over the holidays, the fundamental dilemma will remain a question of funding just as the patient population eligible for Medicare benefits enters a major boom.”

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Berwick Laments Washington, D.C., Cynicism About ACA

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Dr. Donald Berwick, who recently left his job as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) because the Senate refused to confirm his nomination, struck back at his critics who had accused the pediatrician of advocating healthcare rationing.

“The true rationers are those who impede improvement, who stand in the way of change, and who thereby force choices that we can avoid through better care,” Berwick said.  “It boggles my mind that the same people who cry ‘foul’ about rationing an instant later argue to reduce healthcare benefits for the needy, to defund crucial programs of care and prevention, and to shift thousands of dollars of annual costs to people — elders, the poor, the disabled – who are least able to bear them.”

Although Berwick didn’t specifically accuse Senate Republicans, it was clear that he was referring to proposals to drastically slash the nation’s budget deficit by capping federal funding to states for Medicaid.  That proposal could cut billions of dollars that critics have said would lead to cuts in benefits.

During his 16-month tenure at CMS, Berwick studiously avoided using the term “rationing”.  Now, the gloves have come off.  “When the 17 million American children who live in poverty cannot get the immunizations and blood tests they need, that is rationing.  When disabled Americans lack the help to keep them out of institutions and in their homes and living independently, that is rationing.  When tens of thousands of Medicaid beneficiaries are thrown out of coverage, and when millions of seniors are threatened with the withdrawal of preventive care or cannot afford their medications, and when every single one of us lives under the sword of Damocles that, if we get sick, we lose health insurance, that is rationing.”

Berwick also jabbed at those who inaccurately said the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) included so-called “death panels.”  According to Berwick, “If you really want to talk about ‘death panels,’ let’s think about what happens if we cut back programs of needed, life-saving care for Medicaid beneficiaries and other poor people in America.  Maybe a real death panel is a group of people who tell healthcare insurers that is it OK to take insurance away from people because they are sick or are at risk for becoming sick.”

Going even further, Berwick said that the ACA needs more advocates supporting the law. “The law is just a framework,” Berwick said.  “Healthcare in America can improve and it can become sustainable without a tremendous amount of community involvement.”  President Obama has an important role in this, as do healthcare consumers who must push healthcare leaders to rethink the way they work.  “Increasingly, though, that advocacy role is falling to physicians, nurses, and hospital executives.  We need their voices, because they know the system can’t go on the way it is,” he said.

“I think that a lot of the public concern about that law and a lot of the congressional criticism is ill-founded and based on myths,’’ Berwick said.  “I think any chance to air publicly, with conversation and even debate, matters of such concern is healthy.’’

While contemplating what to do next in his career, Berwick said “I’m excited by how much is in motion in healthcare right now.  It’s an incredibly interesting and promising time with many risks, and I want to stay thoroughly engaged in reshaping American healthcare into the high-performance, sustainable system I know it can be.”

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Minnesota Test Drives Its Insurance Exchanges

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Minnesotans are test driving their  prototype healthcare insurance exchange currently available on the state Commerce Department’s website. The state-based exchanges let consumers shop for healthcare coverage, compare various plans, and guide eligible residents through the process of applying for public subsidies.

Although individuals and small businesses won’t be able to use an exchange until January 2014, Minnesota has a deadline to get planning underway.  States must show they can operate an exchange by early 2013.  The federal government will operate the exchange in those states that fail to establish a viable model.  Some of the Minnesota prototypes are similar to online travel sites such as Expedia or Travelocity where consumers comparison shop.  The difference is that instead of comparing airfares and flight times, users compare the cost and coverage of different health plans.  The sites don’t allow the user to obtain specific information, such as the out-of-pocket costs for a knee replacement.  Some sites allow the user to compare plans based on a person’s age, gender and health habits, such as smoking.

According to Minnesota Exchange Director April Todd-Malmlov, the state wants feedback. “We’ll have a questionnaire tool that’s on there that will ask people what did you most like about this prototype, what could be improved about that prototype, and then give us a sense of who they are, who’s responding,  Are they a consumer, are they a provider, are they an insurer, so we can look at the responses and see how different groups think of the component pieces.”

Insurer Ceridian’s prototype website has an interactive simulation of shopping on its exchange, said Vice President Manny Munson-Regala.  “What you’ll have a chance to do is be in the role of a small employer, an employee.  You’ll get a sense of what the enrollment process will feel like, how you set up payments and confirm.”  Minnesota’s approach to building an exchange is unique, according to Munson-Regala.  Instead of asking companies to build exchanges from the ground up, Minnesota asked insurers to demonstrate particular components, such as the small employer or private individual access points.

Similar to filling out health insurance forms, additional information is needed to buy a policy.  Some of the prototypes require information about the individual or business before the user can even compare plans.  Public review of the prototypes is a great idea, said Geoff Bartsh of Medica, who said it’s important to assess whether consumers find the prototypes helpful or not.  The true heavy lifting will be making the prototypes work.  “I think the true test of them is going to be how they will actually make those functions happen within the state agencies, between state agencies, and federal agencies,” Bartsh said.

Writing in the Washington Post, Sarah Kliff says that “When Democrats decided to call the new insurance marketplaces created by the health reform law ‘exchanges,’ they didn’t exactly do themselves a favor.  The idea of a health insurance ‘exchange’ has never really caught on; it doesn’t conjure up anything specific in the minds of Americans.  Because of that, some health reform advocates have recommended forgoing the term altogether, instead calling the exchanges ‘marketplaces.’”

“The public gets a ‘marketplace’,” according to the Herdon Alliance, a pro-health reform strategy firm.  “They remain confused by an ‘exchange.’”  The standard definition of a health insurance exchange is a state-run website where individuals can buy coverage, although that probably means very little to many Americans.  The best way to understand the concept of a health insurance exchange is to see what one actually looks like.

Despite the prototypes’ test drive, Minnesota has not yet decided if the exchange will choose the health insurance plans that ultimately are offered, or if it will be open to all plans that meet certain requirements.

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