Category Archives: Health System

Into the COVID fray again, or for the first time

Posted on by • Posted in Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Employee Morale, Employee Satisfaction, Essential Workers, Fatigue, Front Lines, Health System, Healthcare Providers, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Talent Management, Workforce Strategy, Workload, Workplace Flexibility, Workplace Safety • Leave a comment

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Addressing Workforce Needs for COVID-19 | University at Albany

While it sometimes seems like the coronavirus has been with us forever, it’s worth remembering that there are still parts of the country that are only now experiencing their first big spike in cases—that’s the nature of a “patchwork” pandemic working its way across a vast country.

One of our health system members in the Midwest, with whom we recently spent time, is in just this situation: they’re seeing their highest inpatient COVID census to date, just this month. As they shared with us, there are advantages and drawbacks to being a “late follower” on the epidemic curve. The good news is that they’re ready.

Back in March, like most systems, they stood up an “incident command center”, and began preparing for a wave of COVID patients, designating a floor of the hospital as a “hot zone”, creating negative pressure rooms, cross-training staff, developing treatment protocols, stockpiling protective equipment, and securing a pipeline of critical therapeutics and testing supplies. There was a moderate but manageable number of cases across the late spring and summer, but never to an extent that stressed the system.
 
Eventually, recognizing that they couldn’t ask their doctors, nurses, and administrators to stay on high alert indefinitely, they “stood down” to a more normal operational tempo, only to watch with dismay as the surrounding community seemingly forgot about the virus, and lessened precautions (masking, distancing, and so forth), wanting life to return to “normal”. And now, the post-Labor Day, post-return-to-school spike has arrived.

The challenge now is getting everyone, inside and outside the system, to stop talking about COVID in the past tense, as though they’ve already “gotten through it.” The preparations they’ve made are paying off now. Hospital operations continue to run smoothly even with a high COVID census, but the workforce is exhausted, and citizens aren’t stepping outside to bang gratefully on pots every night anymore.

Asking the team to return to war footing is no easy task, given the fatigue of the past seven months. A question looms: what is the trigger to restart “incident command”? As cases begin to increase again in some of the original COVID hot spots—New York, New England, the Pacific Northwest—healthcare leaders there will need to learn from the experiences of their colleagues in the newly-hit Midwest, about how to take an already virus-weary clinical workforce back onto the battlefield.

Atrium, Wake Forest Baptist merge to create 42-hospital system

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Wake Forest Baptist, Atrium Health merge into a 'single enterprise' to be based in Charlotte | Local | journalnow.com

Charlotte, N.C.-based Atrium Health and Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Wake Forest Baptist Health have completed their merger, creating a 42-hospital system with more than 70,000 employees. 

With the transaction complete, Wake Forest Baptist Health and Wake Forest School of Medicine will become the “academic core” of Atrium Health. The health system said it plans to build a second campus of the school of medicine in Charlotte. 

“As the healthcare field goes through the most transformative period in our lifetime, in addition to a new medical school, our vision is to build a ‘Silicon Valley’ for healthcare innovation spanning from Winston-Salem to Charlotte,” Atrium President and CEO Eugene A. Woods said in a news release. “We are creating a nationally-leading environment for clinicians, scientists, investors and visionaries to collaborate on breakthrough technologies and cures. Everything we do will be focused on life changing care, for all, in urban and rural communities alike. And we will create jobs that provide inclusive opportunities to enhance the economic vitality of our entire region.”

Atrium cited an independent economic analysis that showed the direct and indirect annual employment impact of the combined system exceeds 180,000 jobs. 

“The impact of the strategic combination will be far-reaching, elevating North Carolina as a clear destination of choice to receive medical care for people all across the nation,” said Julie Ann Freischlag, MD, CEO of Wake Forest Baptist Health and dean of Wake Forest School of Medicine. “Through our combined, nationally recognized clinical centers of excellence in multiple specialties, we will be able to expand our research in signature areas, such as cancer, cardiovascular, regenerative medicine and aging, and target bringing research breakthroughs to the community in less than half the time of the national average.”

Mr. Woods will serve as president and CEO of the combined system, and Dr. Freischlag was appointed chief academic officer for Atrium Health in addition to her current positions. 

A 16-member board of directors appointed by the Charlotte Mecklenburg Hospital Authority and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center will govern the new nonprofit enterprise. 

Trinity Health’s annual revenue dips to $18.8B

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Major merger

Trinity Health saw revenue decline in fiscal year 2020, and the Livonia, Mich.-based health system ended the period with a loss, according to recently released financial documents. 

Trinity Health saw revenue decline 2.4 percent year over year to $18.8 billion in the 12 months ended June 30. The health system attributed the drop in revenue to the COVID-19 pandemic and the divestiture of Camden, N.J.-based Lourdes Health System in June 2019. 

The 92-hospital system’s expenses were down 1.4 percent year over year in fiscal 2020. Trinity Health took several steps to reduce operating and capital spending in response to the pandemic, including implementing furloughs and reducing salaries for executives. 

Trinity Health reported an operating loss of $344.7 million for fiscal 2020, compared to operating income of $106.8 million a year earlier. 

After factoring in investments and other nonoperating items, Trinity Health posted a net loss of $75.5 million in fiscal 2020, down from net income of $786 million in fiscal 2019. Lower nonoperating gains in the most recent fiscal year were primarily driven by the pandemic’s effect on global investment market conditions, the health system said. 

Approaching a “new normal” for healthcare volumes?

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Eight months into COVID-19, national healthcare volumes are still lagging pre-pandemic levels. The graphic above shows highlights from Strata Decision Technology’s recent analysis of volume data from 275 hospitals nationwide between March and August, and reveals that inpatient, and especially emergency department, volumes are still well below 2019 levels. 

This isn’t surprising. Consumer confidence in healthcare facilities hasn’t changed much since April, with many still reporting feeling unsafe in emergency care and hospital settings. Even some outpatient providers are still seeing lags compared to last year.

While outpatient volume as a whole has rebounded, critical outpatient diagnostics, including mammographies and colonoscopies, are still down significantly, leading to reduced downstream oncology and surgical volume as well, at least in the short-term.
 
COVID-19 is also accelerating the outmigration of high-margin surgical procedures like total knee replacements. Comparing a two-week period in August to the same period last year reveals that inpatient knee procedures are down by nearly 40 percent, while similar outpatient procedures are up over 80 percent.

As Strata Executive Director Steve Lefar said in a recent conversation with Gist Healthcare Daily’s Alex Olgin, these data expose “an elasticity of demand the healthcare industry never even knew existed” and that “the demand curve for healthcare services may be permanently adjusted because people are just changing their behaviors.” 

While we expect volumes will ebb and flow over coming months in step with the local severity of COVID-19, health systems should plan for a longer-term “new normal” with volume below pre-pandemic levels.

Advocate Aurora Health, Beaumont Health end merger plans

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Gloved merger acquisitions

Advocate Aurora Health and Beaumont Health have put an end to their discussions around a potential partnership, officials announced Friday. 

The announcement comes months after the two organizations signed a letter of intent to open discussions.

It also comes after Michigan lawmakers—as well as doctors at Beaumont—raised serious concerns about Beaumont, Michigan’s largest healthcare system, becoming part of one of the largest nonprofit integrated health systems in the U.S.

Advocate Aurora has 28 hospitals, more than 500 sites of care and more than 70,000 employees. Beaumont Health is a $4.7 billion health system with eight hospitals and 145 outpatient sites of care and 38,000 employees.

“We continue to have a very high regard for Advocate Aurora Health,” said John Fox, president and CEO of Beaumont Health, in a statement. “But at this time, we want to focus on our local market priorities and the physicians, nurses and staff who provide compassionate, extraordinary care every day.”

Discussions began in late 2019 but were put on hold in the midst of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said. In April, Beaumont Health temporarily laid off 2,475 workers and cut 450 positions in response to massive financial losses.

However, the two organizations made their letter of intent public in June, saying at the time they wanted to allow further discussions into creating a health system that would span across Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.

Leaders from the organizations had agreed to an equal one-third governance representation of any future partnership between Beaumont and both the legacy Advocate Healthcare and Aurora Healthcare organizations, which merged in 2018 to created Advocate Aurora Health. That megamerger formed one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the U.S. with a combined revenue of $11 billion.

“We have great respect for Beaumont Health, and we continue to believe scale will play a critical role in advancing quality, accelerating transformation and reducing cost in the healthcare world of tomorrow,” said Jim Skogsbergh, president and CEO of Advocate Aurora Health, in a statement.

Earlier this year, Beaumont Health called off a potential deal with Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health.

Hospitals that don’t submit daily COVID-19 data could lose participation in Medicare, Medicaid

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US Department of Health and Human Services moves to Microsoft Office 365

Hospitals currently not reporting daily COVID-19 data have a few months to get in compliance or risk being thrown out of Medicare and Medicaid.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Tuesday it will send notices to all hospitals over their requirements for reporting COVID-19 data to the Trump administration.

Any hospital not in compliance with the daily reporting requirements will have 14 weeks to get in line or risk their participation in Medicare and Medicaid, officials said.

The agency gave an enforcement timeline that gives “hospitals ample opportunity to come into compliance,” said Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma on a call with reporters Tuesday.

The Trump administration wants hospitals to submit daily data that includes COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations as well as patients currently in the intensive care unit with the virus. Hospitals must submit data on the ages of patients admitted with suspected COVID-19 infections. Facilities need to also report their inventory of the COVID-19 therapy Remdesivir, any staffing shortages and the number of ventilators. Every week hospitals also report data on their personal protective equipment on hand and supply of critical medications.

Facilities now must also report on new data for influenza cases. “The new requirements will allow us to gather critical information on influenza at hospitals across the U.S.,” said Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, M.D.

Verma said that the large majority of hospitals in CMS’ system are already reporting this data to the agency. CMS will also give hospitals that are not in compliance a wide berth to get them into compliance.

Hospitals will be sent multiple notices over the 14-week timeline to get their data reporting in line.

“This work of getting hospitals into compliance around reporting has been an ongoing effort,” Verma said.

CMS proposed the mandatory daily reporting requirements back in August, much to the chagrin of hospital advocates. 

The American Hospital Association (AHA) said that CMS tying Medicare and Medicaid participation to compliance “remains an overly heavy-handed approach that could jeopardize access to hospital care for all Americans,” according to a statement released Tuesday. 

“Today’s interpretive guidance on COVID data reporting does answer some of the questions hospitals and health systems have been asking about compliance since the interim final rule was released six weeks ago,” the group said. “In particular, the Administration will provide hospitals with information on whether their data are making it into HHS Protect and they will give hospitals the necessary time to adjust their data collection to come into compliance if need be.”

The Federation of American Hospitals called the new rules “sledgehammer enforcement.”

“It is both inappropriate and frankly overkill for CMS to tie compliance with reporting to Medicare conditions of participation,” said FAH President and CEO Chip Kahn in a statement.

New Jersey hospitals are a microcosm of potential COVID-19 financial impact

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What CFOs think about the economic impact of COVID-19

The last time margins sank so deeply into the red was after the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, though today’s margins are faring worse.

COVID-19 continues to have deep and lingering financial impacts on hospitals in New Jersey. A midyear analysis of financial data shows nearly 60% of the state’s hospitals in the red and an average statewide operating margin of negative 4%.

The effects have been profound, and serve as a potential microcosm of the continuing impact of the coronavirus on hospital operating margins nationwide.

The decline in the state is the result of a dual blow of declining revenues and rising expenses, according to the report from the Center for Health Analytics, Research and Transformation at the New Jersey Hospital Association. Officials said the state’s hospitals haven’t experienced this level of fiscal distress in more than 20 years.

In fact, the last time margins sunk so deeply into the red was in the late 1990s. At that time, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 resulted in significant payment cuts to the state’s hospitals, with margins falling to -1.7% and -2.3% in 1998 and 1999, respectively. And those numbers are not as distressing as the ones being experienced during the public health crisis.

WHAT’S THE IMPACT?

The report, “At Mid-Year, COVID-19’s Financial Wounds Continue for N.J. Hospitals,” shows the impact of continued loss of revenue from the suspension of elective procedures at COVID-19’s peak in the spring, and the slow rebound of patients returning to the hospital.

CHART’s data, comparing June 30, 2019, with June 30, 2020, shows that total patient revenues declined 6.6%. Emergency department cases plummeted 23%, while hospital admissions fell by 8% and outpatient visits dropped by 22%.

An additional aggravating factor is a 12% increase in total operating expenses, because COVID-19 required hospitals to redirect resources to increase staffing; boost supplies of personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals and ventilators; and modify operations and facilities to expand capacity.

CHART’s analysis takes a closer look at the disruption of elective procedures in New Jersey hospitals and its lingering impact. Governor Phil Murphy’s Executive Order 109, in effect March 27 through May 26, required hospitals to suspend elective procedures during the state’s COVID-19 surge. CHART used claims data for some of the highest-volume elective procedures performed in New Jersey hospitals – bariatric surgery, pacemaker insertion, spinal fusion, knee replacement and hernia repair – to gauge the impact.

In April and May 2019, the state’s hospitals performed these procedures 4,336 times. That number plummeted to just 400 statewide in April and May 2020. The state’s executive order suspending procedures during this time allowed exemptions for cases in which a delay would result in “undue risk to the current or future health of the patient.” 

The year-over-year decline persisted even when the suspension was lifted. In June and July of 2019, 4,194 procedures from the list of high-volume procedures were performed, compared with 3,191 in June and July of 2020.

But the greatest decline in volume by percentage was seen in hospital emergency departments, where cases nosedived 23.4% between June 30, 2019, and June 30, 2020. That has healthcare leaders concerned.

NJHA officials said a hospital turnaround is critical for the statewide recovery from the coronavirus.

“The state’s hospitals pump $25 billion annually into the New Jersey economy and employ 154,000 people,” said NJHA’s Roger Sarao, vice president of economic and financial information and lead author of the CHART report. “They are an essential part of the road to recovery from this public health and economic crisis.”

THE LARGER TREND

The effects of the pandemic on the nation’s hospitals will be long-lasting, especially among nonprofits. A recent Fitch Ratings analysis showed that the full effects have yet to be felt.

The agency predicted that capital spending will be greatly reduced in the initial years post-pandemic, though some of it will ultimately accelerate due to anticipated merger and acquisition activity.

Fitch expects hospitals to take on added expenses to perform the same level of service, and predicts revenue declines from a shift in payer mix.

CommonSpirit Health posts $550M operating revenue loss in fiscal year due to COVID-19

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A financial chart

Hospital system CommonSpirit Health reported operating revenue losses of $550 million during its fiscal year that ended in June, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to roil patient volumes.

The 137-hospital system reported its financial earnings Friday for the 2020 fiscal year that ended June 30. CommonSpirit’s expenses also surged during the pandemic as more resources were needed to screen visitors and staff.

“Although it varies significantly by division, beginning the middle of March, the COVID-19 pandemic caused up to a 40% slowdown in volumes,” CommonSpirit’s financial report said. “As communities heeded guidelines to avoid hospitals for non-emergent issues, appointment volume, especially for specialty practices, fell and emergency department volume declined.”

CommonSpirit’s patient volumes did rebound after shelter-in-place orders started to be lifted in April and May, but the volumes are still below pre-pandemic levels.

At the end of the system’s fiscal year on June 30, the volumes on adjusted admissions were down 6.2% compared with the 2019 fiscal year.

Adjusted patient days for the fiscal year were also lower than the same period in 2019 by 5.7%.

At the same time, net patient and premium revenues declined by $239 million, or 0.9% over the same period in 2019.

“The decrease is primarily due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased charity care, partially offset by a stable payor mix,” the earnings said.

Overall, CommonSpirit recorded an operating loss of $550 million for the 2020 fiscal year, which was an improvement on the $617 million in losses from 2019.

But those 2020 losses ballooned up to $1.4 billion when not taking into account money the system received from a $175 billion provider relief fund Congress set up as part of the CARES Act to help prop up hospitals and other providers.

The system also reported a $1.3 billion decline in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization and nonoperating income from March through June.

About 62% of the lost EBITDA has been recouped through the CARES Act funding, and another $500 million remains to be regained, CommonSpirit said.

Overall, CommonSpirit has recorded $826 million in money from the provider relief fund. It also got another $2.6 billion from the Medicare Accelerated and Advance Payment Program, which the system will have to repay.

The system anticipates it will defer $410 million in employer payroll taxes to December 2022, a flexibility also afforded under the CARES Act.

“While the aid received from the programs above provides much needed assistance during this crisis, CommonSpirit is unable to assess the extent to which the amounts and benefits received, or to be received, will offset the long-term changes in volumes, payor mix or service mix,” the report said.

The Department of Health and Human Services has more than $50 billion to still give out to hospitals, but some hospital groups say that more money is needed to combat the financial crisis caused by the pandemic. Talks on a new coronavirus relief deal have stalled in Congress.

While some larger for-profit systems such as HCA and Tenet have posted profits thanks to the provider relief funding, other not-for-profit systems such as Trinity Health and some smaller systems have reported struggles with overcoming the new financial crisis.

Los Angeles hospital can force Anthem to cover ER visits, court rules

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Innovating in Emergency Medicine: CMS Launches ET3 — A New Treatment Model for EMS | by StartUp Health | StartUp Health

A federal appellate court recently ruled that Anthem is required to pay Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles for about 75 emergency room visits from covered patients, according to Bloomberg Law. 

The appeal centered on whether Anthem was required to cover services MLK Jr. Community Hospital rendered to employees of Budco Group, an Ohio company, when the hospital was assigned the patients’ benefit payments. Anthem is the administrator of Budco’s Employee Retirement Income Security Act plan, and the employees who received services at the hospital were beneficiaries of the plan. 

Between 2015 and 2017, Budco employees visited MLK Jr. Community Hospital’s emergency room at least 75 times and assigned their benefits under the company’s ERISA plan to the hospital as a condition of receiving care. Instead of paying MLK Jr. Community Hospital, which was out of Anthem’s network, the insurance company paid the beneficiaries, forcing the hospital to attempt to recover payment from the beneficiaries. The Budco employees deposited payment into their personal accounts and did not send any of the benefit payments to the hospital. 

The hospital sued Anthem and Budco in 2016, seeking benefit payments and declaratory relief. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the hospitals, and Anthem and Budco appealed. 

On appeal, Anthem argued the case was blocked by a provision in its health plan that prevented patients from assigning their rights to third parties such as MLK Jr. Community Hospital, according to Bloomberg Law. The hospital argued that the “anti-assignment” provision did not bar assignments in this case. 

In an unpublished split decision filed Oct. 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the hospital, holding that the language cited by Anthem allowed assignments to healthcare providers, including those that were out of network. 

“The provision lists three entities other than the beneficiary that Anthem may pay directly. Providers are included among those entities,” the court stated. “In the same paragraph, and only two sentences later, the anti-assignment provision forbids beneficiaries from assigning benefits to ‘anyone else.’ This sentence restricting assignment must be read consistently with the entire paragraph, which concerns benefit payments to entities other than the beneficiary. Thus, we interpret the anti-assignment provision’s reference to ‘anyone else’ to permit assignments to those entities, including ‘providers.'”

Alternatively, the appellate court held that the anti-assignment provision is not part of the health plan documents. 

“The anti-assignment provision is plainly not a benefit, and therefore the district court correctly determined it should not be incorporated as a description of the plan’s benefits,” the appellate court held. 

In his dissenting opinion, Judge Daniel Collins said the anti-assignment provision is an express term of the documents that govern the Budco plan. He also disagreed with the majority’s alternative conclusion that the language of the anti-assignment provision did not bar the assignments that plan beneficiaries made to MLK Jr. Hospital. 

Indiana hospital employee fired after speaking to New York Times

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Hospital Employee Is Fired After Speaking to The New York Times - The New York Times

NeuroBehavioral Hospital in Crown Point, Ind., terminated the employment of a discharge planner last week after she spoke to the New York Times about nursing homes discharging unprofitable patients, a practice known as “patient dumping,” the NYT reports.

In the Sept. 19 NYT article, Kimberly Jackson said that during the pandemic nursing homes in Illinois and Michigan have repeatedly sent elderly and disabled Medicaid patients to NeuroBehavioral Hospital, a psychiatric facility, even though they were not experiencing psychosis, seemingly in an effort to get rid of patients who are not lucrative for reimbursement or require extra care. 

“The homes seem to be purposely taking symptoms of dementia as evidence of psychosis,” Ms. Jackson is quoted in the article.

She was fired from NeuroBehavioral Hospital Sept. 24. Rebecca Holloway, the hospital’s corporate director of human resources, told the NYT that Ms. Jackson violated the hospital’s media policy. 

Ms. Jackson told the newspaper she was shocked to be fired for speaking to the media.

“I saw something that was wrong, and I called it out,” she said.

NeuroBehavioral Hospital is part of NeuroPsychiatric Hospitals. The South Bend, Ind.-based network has five facilities in Indiana, two in Texas and one in Arizona.