Posts Tagged ‘Obama administration’
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
With little fanfare, the Obama administration has released $250 million to establish “new access points,” locations designed specifically to house primary-care services in underserved neighborhoods. The facilities are intended to mirror community health centers. Created by the new healthcare reform law, the grants will be awarded by the Health Resources and Services Administration.
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, said “These funds reflect the administration’s steadfast commitment to improving and expanding access to vital primary healthcare services. From our cities to our smallest towns, each health center has an important role to play, ensuring access to services in its community.”
Organizations eligible for the funding include public and non-profit groups, including tribal and faith-based community organizations. All must meet health center funding requirements.
Tags: community health centers, Department of Health and Human Services, faith-based organizations, Health Resources, healthcare reform, Kathleen Sebelius, Obama administration, primary healthcare, tribal organizations
Posted in Healthcare, Healthcare Village | No Comments »
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
Private detectives retained by Medicare required an average of six months to refer fraud cases to law enforcement officials, according to congressional investigators. The average lag time was 178 days - and by then, many cases are so cold that catching the perpetrators is virtually impossible, as is recovering taxpayer dollars. Recently, an inspector general report had questions about the contractors who play a leading role in Medicare’s efforts to rein in fraud. In 2007, private contractors identified $835 million in problematic Medicare payments. The government was able to recover only about $55 million or seven percent of the total, according to the report.
Medicare overpayments - which typically range from a billing error to a brazen swindle - totaled more than $36 billion in 2009, according to the Obama administration. That’s why President Obama has placed a high priority on fighting fraud and waste in the hope that the savings will help fund the new healthcare law. The opposition - in the form of Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) - questions whether taxpayers are getting a good deal from Medicare’s private eyes. His office is reviewing Medicare data from the last four years to determine why it took so long to refer fraud cases to law enforcement officials. According to Grassley, “Medicare is already a pay-and-chase system when it comes to fraud, waste and abuse. Providers are paid first; then questioned if there’s a problem. Add to that mix contractors who sit on cases of ongoing fraud when they should be referring them to law enforcement, and you have a recipe for disaster.”
Medicare retains seven private companies - collectively known as “Program Safeguard Contractors” - at work to find fraud, a program that was started in the late 1990s. These contractors, who oversee specific areas, investigate accusations of misconduct and work with the government’s criminal investigators.
Tags: Congress, Medicare, Obama administration, Republicans, taxpayers
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Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
New grants totaling $159.1 million were announced recently by the Obama administration with the goal of training nurses and geriatric specialists. The grants also seek to recruit students from minority groups whose presence in geriatrics is under-represented. The grants contain new and continuing funding and are designed to build on multimillion dollar investments provided for in the healthcare reform law. The goal is to address a shorting of primary-care workers, especially acure as the population ages.
According to a 2008 report by the Council on Physician and Nurse Supply, schools need to graduate 30,000 nurses every year to make up for a coming mass retirement. Currently, 45 percent of nurses are 50 or older. Kathleen Sebelius, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, said the grants will be used in several ways, including offsetting students’ tuition and other expenses, creating curricula, training teachers and funding research.
Washington, D.C., universities - such as Howard University - were among the recipients. Howard received the single largest grant in the nation’s capital at more than $1 million for a “Center of Excellence” program that will increase minority participation in the healthcare profession and to better serve minority patients.
Tags: Department of Health and Human Services, geriatrics, healthcare reform legislation, Howard University, Kathleen Sebelius, Obama administration
Posted in Economics, General, Healthcare, Hospital Systems | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
A familiar face is hitting the airwaves to promote the Obama administration’s new healthcare law to the nation’s senior citizens. The pitchman is 84-year-old Andy Griffith, a lifelong Democrat whose role as Mayberry Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show made him a lasting symbol of small-town values. Medicare is picking up the $700,000 tab for the advertisements.
In the commercials, which are airing on The Weather Channel, CNN, Hallmark and Lifetime, Griffith assures Americans that “good things are coming” as a result of the healthcare law. He lists free preventive checkups and lower-cost prescriptions for Medicare patients as two of the benefits. According to some polls, senior citizens are skeptical about the healthcare law because Medicare cuts will provide a significant share of the financing to cover the uninsured.
The ads come at a time when Medicare is celebrating its 45th anniversary. In the ad’s background is a photo of President Lyndon Johnson signing the Medicare bill into law. Griffith assures senior citizens that better protections are coming, thanks to the healthcare reform law.
Tags: Andy Griffith, Andy Taylor, Barack Obama, Chuck Grassley, Lyndon Johnson, Medicare, North Carolina, Obama administration
Posted in General, Healthcare, Hospital Systems, Wellness Centers | No Comments »
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
The federal government has issued revised standards for the “meaningful use” of electronic medical records that will financially reward physicians and hospitals who adopt the new technology. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, physicians and hospitals could receive as much as $27 billion over the next decade if they put patients’ medical records on computer instead of paper. Physicians can be paid up to $44,000 under Medicare and $63,750 for Medicaid. Depending on their size, hospitals have the potential to receive millions of dollars. In 2015, hospitals and physicians face financial penalties under Medicare if they fail to use electronic medical records by the deadline.
Dr. Donald Berwick, the new administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said electronic medical records will lead to “better, smoother care, more reliable care.” Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said “Only 20 percent of doctors and 10 percent of hospitals use even basic electronic health records.” Taking a slightly different perspective, Richard J. Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association (AHA), said the new standards are an improvement over the rules initially proposed but was not convinced that doctors or hospitals would adopt the new technology.
Some physicians believe that using electronic medical records will reduce errors and save patients’ lives. The new standards are flexible and require physicians to meet 15 specific requirements, as well as another five selected from a list of 10 objectives. To fulfill the new standards, physicians will have to submit 40 percent of prescriptions electronically. “We are delaying some of the more ambitious requirements,” said Dr. David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health information technology.
Tags: American College of Cardiology, American Hospital Association, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Dr Donald Berwick, electronic medical records, Kathleen Sebelius, Medicaid, Medicare, Obama administration, President Barack Obama
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Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Starting in September, the approximately five million Americans under the age of 19 who have pre-existing medical conditions cannot be denied health insurance coverage. The healthcare reform law also gives these patients expanded physician choices because many previously had to rely on government programs such as Medicaid. Children account for approximately nine percent of the 57.2 million Americans under the age of 65 who have pre-existing conditions.
Although Congress wanted to implement this section of the bill immediately instead of waiting until September 23, some private insurers are showing signs of stepping up to the plate and providing coverage as soon as the Obama administration issues regulations on final implementation. According to Illinois Insurance Director Michael McRaith, “It would not surprise me if insurers would undertake this earlier.”
Although there were some concerns that insurers might try to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions or set rates too high, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to Karen Ignani, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans directing the trade organization to comply with the new law. “To ensure there is no ambiguity on this point, I am preparing to issue regulations in the weeks ahead ensuring that the term ‘pre-existing condition exclusion’ applies to both a child’s access to a plan or to his or her benefits once he or she is in the plan,” Sebelius wrote.
“This is a confidence builder in what healthcare reform does,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a consumer health advocacy group that backed expanding healthcare coverage. “It’s a popular group to reach out to…and it’s not going to have as big of an impact on costs as, say, somebody between the ages of 56 and 64 who has multiple chronic conditions.”
Tags: America's Health Insurance Plans, Congress, Deparment of Health and Human Services, Families USA, healthcare reform, Karen Ignani, Kathleen Sebelius, Medicaid, Obama administration, pre-existing medical conditions
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Monday, March 1st, 2010
The American College of Physicians (ACP) is urging Congress and the Obama administration to move ahead and pass healthcare reform legislation. ACP, whose membership includes 129,000 internists, internal medicine subspecialists, medical students, residents and fellows, offers this advice: “Don’t start over.”
“Let’s take the bills passed by the House and Senate and make them even better,” urges Bob Doherty, the ACP’s senior vice president of government affairs and public policy. “We shouldn’t toss them out and start from scratch.” An ACP report warns of the costs of failure to pass healthcare reform, quoting Congressional Budget Office projections that healthcare spending will climb to 25 percent of GDP by 2025. Similarly, the Census Bureau has warned that the number of the uninsured will soar to 60 million Americans by 2020 if reform does not occur.
ACP President Joseph Stubbs notes that “A highly partisan and polarized debate over healthcare reform legislation has regrettably taken the country’s ‘eye off the ball’ from the urgency of implementing reforms.” The ACP advocates building on existing legislation to reach ultimate agreement on a bill and create bipartisan proposals to cut the costs of the medical liability tort system with the goal of increasing the number of primary-care physicians.
Tags: American College of Physicians, Bob Doherty, Congress, Congressional Budget Office, healthcare reform, healthcare summit, internists, Joseph Stubbs, Medicare, Obama administration, primary-care physicians, US Census Bureau
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Thursday, February 25th, 2010
The Obama administration has released approximately $1 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus bill. The money is a downpayment on funding access to health information technology for more than 100,000 hospitals and primary-care physicians. Another goal is to train people for careers in healthcare and information technology. A total of $19 billion for healthcare information is contained in the stimulus bill.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that $750 million of the initial $1 billion will be used to help hospitals and physicians convert to electronic health records. “We are at a point in the United States where only 20 percent of doctors and 10 percent of hospitals have even basic electronic health records,” Sebelius said in a teleconference. “These grant awards, the first of their kind, will help develop our electronic infrastructure and give doctors and other healthcare providers the support they need as they adopt this powerful technology.”
Tags: department of labor, electronic medical records, healthcare it, Kathleen Sebelius, Obama administration, stiumulus money
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Thursday, January 28th, 2010
In 2011, physicians will be eligible for extra payments from federal health insurance programs if they implement electronic medical record systems. The extra money is courtesy of President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus bill signed into law early last year. To help physicians - especially those in small practices - pay for the several thousand dollar systems, private insurers are also offering financing incentives of their own.
UnitedHealth Group, for example, is offering interest-free loans to small practices that start using Ingenix CareTracker, an internet-based system. Chicago-headquartered Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc., is offering a six-month, no-payment program for qualified buyers of its electronic healthcare records software.
Under the federal legislation, physicians who start using electronic medical records can receive more than $40,000 in Medicare payments over a five-year period. At present, the Obama administration is soliciting comments on new regulations to “lay a foundation for improving quality, efficiency and safety through meaningful use of certified electronic health record technology.” Although electronic records keeping will cut paperwork, control costs and create a more efficient system, physicians have been slow to adopt the technology because of the high cost of purchasing the equipment.
Even though 75 percent of Americans patronize doctors in small practices, less than 15 percent of physicians now use electronic records systems. UnitedHealth, which says its CareTracker system can cost less than $7,000 annually, is “helping physicians overcome the challenge of funding their upfront investment - the biggest barrier in implementing health information technology,” said Bill Miller, executive vice president of Ingenix, the firm’s health information technology subsidiary.
Tags: electronic medical records, Medicare, Obama administration, stimulus bill, UnitedHealth Group
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is warning that the healthcare reform bill may not pass until after the New Year. According to Reid, debate in the Senate may not begin until December, pushing back the timeline on legislation that tops President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda.
Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says that the House of Representatives is on a faster track and that a vote could come soon on a bill to extend coverage to people who lack healthcare insurance, ban industry practices such as denying coverage of pre-existing conditions and put the brakes on medical spending. The $1.2 trillion, 10-year bill would expand coverage to an estimated 96 percent of all Americans. Additionally, the House bill includes a public option intended to put pressure on private insurers to make coverage more affordable for all.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) currently is working on a cost estimate for the draft bill that Reid submitted recently. White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer reacted to the news by saying “The House plans to vote on the health reform bill within days. Senator Reid has committed to the president that as soon as the Senate has the information back from the CBO they will move expeditiously to pass health reform.”
A delay past the year-end timetable would push off healthcare reform to a mid-term election year and raise questions about the Democrats’ ability to deliver legislation that the Obama administration has made a priority.
Tags: Congressional Budget Office, House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, Obama administration, Senate, Senator Harry Reid
Posted in Healthcare, Hospital Systems | No Comments »
