Category Archives: Health System

Some providers face daunting repayment deadline for Medicare advance loans

Posted on by • Posted in Cash, Cash Reserves, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Liquidity, Medicare, Medicare Advance Payments • Leave a comment

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals/some-providers-face-daunting-aug-1-repayment-deadline-for-medicare-advance-loans?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWkRReFlqRmpaamRtWVdabSIsInQiOiJFTEp3SjQ3NG01NXcwRTg3Z0hCZkdTRlwvOURSeEVlblwvRlFUWlZcL09ONjZGNVEybzl3ekl3VFd2ZEgxSjY2NGQ0TkFIRFdtQ0ZDWUx0ak96NU15d09qMWcrdm9BMFUxOSszcVI0T21rak5raEN0aE5Kb0VUUGFcL254QnBjMjdCbzkifQ%3D%3D&mrkid=959610

Starting this month, some providers are facing the prospect of their Medicare payments garnished to repay COVID-19 loans.

The pressing Aug. 1 deadline has sparked concerns from some experts and hospital groups that worry providers couldn’t afford to lose out on Medicare revenue as they combat revenue losses caused by the pandemic. While the program was intended to be a short-term solution, COVID-19 surges are proving that is not the case for some hospitals.

At the onset of the pandemic in March, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) extended the advance payment program, which has been used previously to help providers beset by disasters such as hurricanes. Providers and suppliers could apply for advance Medicare payments to offset massive losses sparked by declines in patient volumes due to COVID-19.

Most providers could get up to 100% of their Medicare payments for a three-month period, and inpatient acute care hospitals, children’s hospitals and some cancer hospitals can request up to 100% for a six-month period. Critical access hospitals could have gotten up to 125% over six months.

CMS had given out $100 billion of loans before suspending the program.

“It was very effective because the process was already in place,” said Denise Burke, a partner with the healthcare compliance and operations group for law firm Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis.

The goal behind the program is to help providers stay afloat and was meant to be a short-term solution, as repayment starts 120 days after a provider gets the first payment. But that is the problem, experts say.

“It was intended as a short-term bridge so they could get through the summer before everything returned to normal, only problem is nothing has returned to normal,” said Dan Mendelson, founder and former president of consulting firm Avalere Health.

Now, repayment for the first loans are due on Aug. 1 as more and more states are seeing massive surges of COVID-19. Some major hospital systems, such as HCA and CHS, have been able to offset massive declines in revenue thanks to the loans and money from a $175 billion provider relief fund passed by Congress.

Hospitals have one year from the date of the accelerated payment to repay the balance of the loan, but Medicare Part A providers and Part B suppliers have 210 days from the accelerated payment to repay.

“CMS should think about relative to financial position of the provider,” Mendelson said. “Some providers are doing just fine and can repay loans just like everybody else.”

After the 120-day period is up, CMS will take 100% of Medicare claims payments that would have gone to the provider to offset the balance of the loan.

But it remains unclear whether CMS can change the terms of the repayment to give providers and suppliers more time, especially if they are struggling.

“CMS moves deadlines all the time,” Mendelson said. “The question is whether they can or are willing to exercise this discretion in this case.”

It also is unlikely that CMS will resume the program, which some provider groups have also called for.

“It seems unlikely CMS will continue to allocate money through the advance payment program that has fewer terms and conditions than allocating through provider relief fund,” Burke said, referring to the $175 billion fund that Health and Human Services is still allocating.

CMS did not return a request for comment as of press time.

A major problem for some hospitals is they may not have the liquidity available to repay the loans.

“There are a lot of hospitals struggling right now because volumes are off,” Mendelson said. “This comes down to the fact that people are staying away from the hospital to the extent they possibly can.”

Provider groups such as the American Hospital Association are imploring Congress to forgive the loans, or at the very least change the repayment terms.

For instance, some groups want to lower the interest rates to 50 or 25% of a Medicare payment as opposed to 100%.

But talks on a new COVID-19 relief package have stalled so far no deal has emerged.

Senate Republicans released their own package earlier this week that includes another $25 billion for providers and gives liability protections for hospitals and other businesses. But the package doesn’t include changes to the loans.

 

 

 

Appeals court upholds nearly 30% payment cut to 340B hospitals

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), District Court of Appeals, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medicare, Medicare 340B Drug Discount Program, Medicare Site Neutral Payment, Pandemic, Safety Net Hospitals, Safety-Net Providers • Leave a comment

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals/appeals-court-upholds-nearly-30-payment-cut-to-340b-hospitals?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWkRReFlqRmpaamRtWVdabSIsInQiOiJFTEp3SjQ3NG01NXcwRTg3Z0hCZkdTRlwvOURSeEVlblwvRlFUWlZcL09ONjZGNVEybzl3ekl3VFd2ZEgxSjY2NGQ0TkFIRFdtQ0ZDWUx0ak96NU15d09qMWcrdm9BMFUxOSszcVI0T21rak5raEN0aE5Kb0VUUGFcL254QnBjMjdCbzkifQ%3D%3D&mrkid=959610

In court filing, AHA says HHS should make 340B hospitals 'whole ...

A federal appeals court has ruled the Trump administration can install nearly 30% cuts to the 340B drug discount program.

The ruling Friday is the latest legal setback for hospitals that have been vociferously fighting cuts the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced back in 2017.

340B requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to deliver discounts to safety net hospitals in exchange for participation in Medicaid. A hospital will pay typically between 20% and 50% below the average sales price for the covered drugs.

HHS sought to address a payment gap between 340B and Medicare Part B, which reimburses providers for drugs administered in a physician’s office such as chemotherapy. There was a 25% and 55% gap between the price for a 340B drug and on Medicare Part B.

So HHS administered a 28.5% cut in the 2018 hospital payment rule. The agency also included the cuts in the 2019 payment rule.

Three hospital groups sued to stop the cut, arguing that HHS exceeded its federal authority to adjust the rates to the program.

A lower court agreed with the hospitals and called for the agency to come up with a remedy for the cuts that already went into effect.

But HHS argued that when it sets 340B payment amounts, it has the authority to adjust the amounts to ensure they don’t reimburse hospitals at higher levels than the actual costs to acquire the drugs.

If the hospital acquisition cost data are not available, HHS could determine the amount of payment equal to the average drug price. HHS argued that hospital cost acquisition data was not available and so HHS needed to determine the payment rates based on the average drug price.

The court agreed with the agency’s interpretation.

“At a minimum, the statute does not clearly preclude HHS from adjusting the [340B] rate in a focused manner to address problems with reimbursement rates applicable only to certain types of hospitals,” the ruling said.

The court added that the $1.6 billion gleaned from the cuts would go to all providers as additional reimbursements for other services.

340B groups were disappointed with the decision.

“These cuts of nearly 30% have caused real and lasting pain to safety-net hospitals and the patients they serve,” said Maureen Testoni, president and CEO of advocacy group 340B Health, which represents more than 1,400 hospitals that participate in the program. “Keeping these cuts in place will only deepen the damage of forced cutbacks in patient services and cancellations of planned care expansions.”

This is the latest legal defeat for the hospital industry. A few weeks ago, the same appeals court ruled that HHS had the legal authority to institute cuts to off-campus clinics to bring Medicare payments in line with physician offices, reversing a lower court’s ruling.

The groups behind the lawsuit — American Hospital Association, American Association of Medical Colleges and America’s Essential Hospitals — slammed the decision as hurtful to hospitals fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. But the groups didn’t say if it would appeal the decision.

“Hospitals that rely on the savings from the 340B drug pricing program are also on the front-lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, and today’s decision will result in the continued loss of resources at the worst possible time,” the groups said in a statement Friday.

 

 

 

How Many People in the U.S. Are Hospitalized With COVID-19? Who Knows?

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Coronavirus, Data, Data Analytics, Data Control, Data Governance, Data Interpretation, Data Management, Data Ownership, Data Sharing, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Transparency • Leave a comment

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-many-people-in-the-us-are-hospitalized-with-covid-19-who-knows?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter&utm_content=feature

 

The Trump administration told hospitals to stop reporting data to the CDC, and report it to HHS instead. Vice President Mike Pence said the information would continue to be released publicly. It hasn’t worked out as promised.

In mid-July, the Trump administration instructed hospitals to change the way they reported data on their coronavirus patients, promising the new approach would provide better, more up-to-the-minute information about the virus’s toll and allow resources and supplies to be quickly dispatched across the country.

Instead, the move has created widespread confusion, leaving some states in the dark about their hospitals’ remaining bed and intensive care capacity and, at least temporarily, removing this information from public view. As a result, it has been unclear how many people are in hospitals being treated for COVID-19 at a time when the number of infected patients nationally has been soaring.

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have been seen as a key metric of both the coronavirus’s toll and the health care system’s ability to deal with it.

Since early in the pandemic, hospitals had been reporting data on COVID-19 patients to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through its National Healthcare Safety Network, which traditionally tracks hospital-acquired infections.

In a memo dated July 10, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told hospitals to abruptly change course — to stop reporting their data to the CDC and instead to submit it to HHS through a new portal run by a company called TeleTracking. The change took effect within days. Vice President Mike Pence said the administration would continue releasing the data publicly, as the CDC had done.

Almost immediately, the CDC pulled its historical data offline, only to repost it under pressure a couple days later. Meanwhile the website for the administration’s new portal promised to update numbers on a daily basis, but, as of Friday morning, the site hadn’t been updated since July 23. (HHS is posting some data daily on a different federal website but not representative estimates for each state.)

“The most pernicious portion of it is that at the state level and at the regional level we lost our situational awareness,” said Dave Dillon, spokesman for the Missouri Hospital Association. “At the end of this, we may have a fantastic data product out of HHS. I will not beat them up for trying to do something positive about the data, but the rollout of this has been absolutely a catastrophe.”

The Missouri Hospital Association had taken the daily data submitted by its hospitals to the CDC and created a state dashboard. The transition knocked that offline. The dashboard came back online this week, but Dillon said in a follow-up email, “the data is only as good as our ability to know that everyone is reporting the same data, in the correct way, for tracking and comparison purposes at the state level.”

Other states, including Idaho and South Carolina, also experienced temporary information blackouts. And The COVID Tracking Project, which has been following the pandemic’s toll across the country based on state data, noted issues with its figures. “These problems mean that our hospitalization data — a crucial metric of the COVID-19 pandemic — is, for now, unreliable, and likely an undercount. We do not think that either the state-level hospitalization data or the new federal data is reliable in isolation,” according to a blog post Tuesday on the group’s website.

Making matters more complicated, the administration has changed the information that it is requiring hospitals to report, adding many elements, such as the age range of admitted COVID-19 patients, and removing others. As of this week, for instance, HHS told hospitals to stop reporting the total number of deaths they’ve had since Jan. 1, the total number of COVID-19 deaths and the total number of COVID-19 admissions. (Hospitals still report daily figures, just not historical ones.)

“Massachusetts hospitals are continuing to navigate the dramatic increase of daily data requirements,” the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association said in a newsletter on Monday. “MHA and other state health officials continue to raise concerns about the administrative burden and questionable usefulness of some of the data.”

“Hospitals across the country were given little time to adjust to the unnecessary and seismic changes put forth by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which fundamentally shift both the volume of data and the platforms through which data is submitted,” the association’s CEO, Steve Walsh, said in the newsletter.

A number of state websites also noted problems with hospital data. For days, the Texas Department of State Health Services included a note on its dashboard that it was “reporting incomplete hospitalization numbers … due to a transition in reporting to comply with new federal requirements.” That came just as the state was experiencing a peak in COVID-19 hospitalizations.

California likewise noted problems.

A spokesperson for HHS acknowledged some bumps in the transition but said in an email: “We are pleased with the progress we have made during this transition and the actionable data it is providing. We have had some states and hospital associations report difficulty with the new collection system. When HHS identifies errors in the data submissions, we work directly with the state or hospital association to quickly resolve them.

“Our objective with this new approach is to collaborate with the states and the healthcare system. The goal of full transparency is to acknowledge when we find discrepancies in the data and correct them.”

Last week, HHS noted, 93% of its prioritized list of hospitals, excluding psychiatric, rehabilitation and religious nonmedical facilities, reported data at least once during the week. (The guidance to hospitals asks them to report every day.)

Asked about the lack of timely data on its public website, HHS said it will update the site to “make it clear that the estimates are only updated weekly.” HHS is now posting a date file each day on healthdata.gov with aggregate information on hospitalizations by state.

But unlike the prior releases from CDC, which provided estimates on hospital capacity based on the responses, this file only gives totals for the hospitals that reported data. It’s unclear which hospitals did not report, how large they are, or whether the reported data is representative.

It’s also unclear if it’s accurate. New York state, for instance, reported that fewer than 600 people were currently hospitalized with COVID-19, as of Friday. Federal data released the same day pegged the number of suspected and confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations at around 1,800.

Louisiana says more than 1,500 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19. The federal data puts the figure at fewer than 700.

Nationally, The COVID Tracking Project reports that more than 56,000 people were hospitalized around the country with the virus, as of Thursday.

The data released by HHS on Friday puts the figure at more than 70,000.

NPR reported this week that it had found irregularities in the process used by the Trump administration to award the contract to manage the hospital data. Among other things, HHS directly contacted TeleTracking about the contract and the agency used a process that is more often used for innovative scientific research, NPR reported.

An HHS spokesperson told NPR that the contract process it used is a “common mechanism … for areas of research interest,” and said that the system used by the CDC was “fraught with challenges.”

Ryan Panchadsaram, co-founder of the tracking website CovidExitStrategy.org, has been critical of the problems created by the hospital data changeover.

“Without real-time accurate monitoring, you can’t make quick and fast and accurate decisions in a crisis,” he said in an interview. “This is just so important. This indicator that’s gone shows how the health system in a state is doing.”

Dillon of the Missouri Hospital Association said the administration could have handled this differently. For big technology projects, he noted, there is often a well-publicized transition with information sessions, an educational program and, perhaps, running the old system and the new one in parallel.

This “was extremely abrupt,” he said. “That is not akin to anything you would expect from HHS about how you would implement a program.”

 

July ends on an uncertain note in the pandemic battle

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Bankruptcy, Chronic Care Management, Chronic Conditions, Chronic Diseases, Clinical Testing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Economy Reopening, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Financial Pressure, Financial Viability, Financially Distressed, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Job, Job Loss, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Leadership Decentralized, Medicare, Medicare Advance Payments, Mortality, National Strategy, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Partisanship, Preexisting Conditions, Public Good, Public Health, Public Safety, Public Welfare, Quarantine, School Reopening, Scientists, Social Distancing, State of the Union, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/0fa09872586c/the-weekly-gist-july-31-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

Fighting a losing battle - post - Imgur

After a week that brought the most disastrous economic data in modern history, the death of a former Presidential candidate from COVID, and signs of an alarming surge in virus cases in the Midwest, Congress left Washington for the weekend without reaching a deal on a new recovery bill. That left millions of unemployed Americans without supplemental benefit payments, business owners wondering whether more financial assistance would be forthcoming, and hospitals facing the requirement to begin repaying billions of dollars of advance payments from Medicare.

Also remaining on the table was funding to bolster coronavirus testing, with the top health official in charge of the testing effort testifying on Friday that the system is not currently able to deliver COVID test results to patients in a timely manner. While the surge in cases appears to be shifting to the Midwest, there were early indications of positive news across the Sun Belt, as the daily new case count in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and California continued to decline, while daily death counts (a lagging indicator) continued to hit new records.

Nationally, the daily case count appears to have reached a new plateau of around 65,000, with daily deaths rising to a 7-day average above 1,150, matching a level last seen in May.

Meanwhile, new clinical findings continued to refine our understanding of how the virus attacks its victims. Reporting in JAMA Cardiology, researchers used cardiac MRI to examine heart function among 100 coronavirus patients, 67 of whom recovered at home without hospitalization, finding that 78 percent demonstrated cardiac involvement and 60 percent had evidence of active heart muscle inflammation—concerning signs pointing to possible long-term complications, even in patients with relatively mild courses of COVID infection.

And yesterday in JAMA, investigators reported that while young children are typically less affected by COVID-19 than adults, children under 5 may harbor 100 times as much active virus in their nose and throat as infected adults. While the study does not confirm that kids spread the virus to adults, it is sure to raise concerns about reopening schools, which has generally been considered relatively safer for younger children.

US coronavirus update: 4.8M cases; 151K deaths; 52.9M tests conducted.

 

 

 

Hospitals lose legal challenge to 340B drug payment cut

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, American Hospital Association (AHA), District Court of Appeals, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medicare, Medicare 340B Drug Discount Program, Medicare Site Neutral Payment, Safety Net Hospitals, Safety-Net Providers • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/hospitals-lose-legal-challenge-to-340b-drug-payment-cut/582717/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%20Weekly%20Roundup:%20Healthcare%20Dive:%20Daily%20Dive%2008-01-2020&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive%20Weekender

340B Program: Important, but Weaknesses Cited - Pharmacy Practice News

Dive Brief:

  • A significant rate cut for some medications for 340B hospitals was based on a “reasonable interpretation of the Medicare statute” and can stand, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled Friday.
  • The 2-1 ruling overturns a district court decision that HHS overstepped its bounds when it cut the reimbursement rate for a certain category of outpatient drugs by 28.5% for hospitals enrolled in the 340B drug discount program.
  • The American Hospital Association, which challenged the rate cut along with three individual hospitals, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An advocacy group for 340B hospitals said in a statement it was disappointed in the ruling and that the rate change has “caused real and lasting pain to safety-net hospitals and the patients they serve.”

Dive Insight:

The decision is another major blow for hospitals, coming two weeks after the same court ruled HHS also acted within its authority when it reduced payments to off-campus hospital outpatient departments.

AHA said this week it is seeking to have that ruling overturned.

HHS made the cut to 340B hospital outpatient drug reimbursement in the 2018 Outpatient Prospective Payment System rule, arguing that those hospitals, which primarily serve low-income populations, get the drugs at a deep discount and thus could be incentivized to overuse them.

The cut was from 106% of the average sales price to 22.5% less than ASP. Hospitals immediately sued, but HHS retained the reduction in the 2019 OPPS. The department has said the change would save Medicare $1.6 billion in 2018.

Writing for the court, Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan said the department did indeed have the authority to make the reduction, “so as to avoid reimbursing those hospitals at much higher levels than their actual costs to acquire the drugs.”

He also called the cut “a fair, or even conservative, measure of the reduction needed to bring payments to those hospitals into parity with their costs to obtain the drugs.”

In a partially dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote that she believes the statute only allows HHS to make the change for a specific group of hospitals under a clause that requires the agency to use a certain data set it did not use.

 

 

 

 

8 hospitals closing departments, ending services

Posted on by • Posted in Cost Management, Cost Reduction, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Department Closure, Hospital Industry • Leave a comment

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/patient-flow/8-hospitals-closing-departments-ending-services.html?utm_medium=email

Several healthcare organizations recently closed medical units or terminated services to shore up finances, focus on more in-demand services or prevent patient care lapses. Here are eight that have announced or completed closures in the last three weeks:

1. As part of a systemwide strategy, Cleveland-based University Hospitals plans to consolidate its birthing services and its cardiac surgery program. University Hospitals Elyria (Ohio) Medical Center will end labor and delivery services in the next few months. University Hospitals St. John Medical Center in Westlake, Ohio, will end its heart surgery program.

2. St. Albans, Vt.-based Northwestern Medical Center will stop providing addiction treatment services by the end of the month in a cost-saving move. The hospital said that it will close the department because it was spending more on addiction treatment than it was making.

3. Kansas City, Mo.-based Saint Luke’s Health System ended inpatient care at Saint Luke’s Cushing Hospital in Leavenworth, Kan., on July 17.

4. In an effort to consolidate services and cut costs, Jersey City, N.J.-based Christ Hospital said it will close its OB-GYN department by July 31.

5. WellSpan Waynesboro (Pa.) Hospital plans to close its birthing unit and end inpatient pediatric services on Sept. 18, the organization announced in July.

6. New York City-based Montefiore Health System is scaling back services at Mount Vernon (N.Y.) Hospital. In early July, Montefiore shut down the intensive care unit at the hospital and laid off 18 nurses. The ICU closure comes after the 121-bed hospital ended obstetrics, pediatrics, cardiology and oncology services.

7. In a cost-cutting move, Seattle Children’s said it will shut down its day care center that employees use for their kids.

8. Ashtabula (Ohio) County Medical Center plans to close its birthing unit by Aug. 1, according to the Star Beacon. The Ohio Nurses Association has filed a lawsuit to prevent the shutdown.

 

 

 

 

New Kaiser Permanente medical school opens in Pasadena with free tuition through 2024

Posted on by • Posted in Coronavirus, Health System, Medical School, Medical School Financing, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Physician, School of Medicine • Leave a comment

https://abc7.com/new-kaiser-school-pasadena-bernard-j-tyson-of-medicine-permanente-medical/6336881/

New Kaiser Permanente medical school set to open in Pasadena [Video]

The new Kaiser Permanente medical school in Pasadena opened its doors to faculty and students for the first time Monday, with free tuition through 2024.

The Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine opened for its inaugural class of 50 students in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which officials say presents “unparalleled challenges.”

The pandemic has forced the school to make adjustments, including adopting a “hybrid model” that includes in-class and virtual programs and more frequent cleaning, Walter Harris, the school’s senior vice president of administration and finance, told City News Service. He said some classes could be held with some students in one classroom and others watching from another classroom via Zoom.

The school has waived tuition, fees and disability insurance for students entering through the fall of 2024, and students in those classes will receive a waiver for the cost of a health plan from Kaiser Permanente unless they have an equivalent health plan, according to the school’s website.

The four-story, state-of-the-art building could accommodate twice as many students, which easily enables physical distancing, Harris said.

Students have been advised they need to wear face masks, and the school will have plenty of hand sanitizer and wipes available, he added.

None of the students objected to the school opening as scheduled, according to Harris, who said they are “very excited to get their medical careers started.”

The school includes an anatomy resource center in which traditional cadaver dissection will be replaced with newer methods that are more clinically relevant, along with a rooftop garden with a meditation, yoga and fitness area for student and faculty “wellness.”

Students are set to begin interacting with patients during their third week of school and to learn from Kaiser Permanente physicians and care teams at six of its medical center campuses, including Los Angeles, West L.A. and Downey.

 

 

 

Florida Coronavirus Deaths Spike To Record High After Days Of Declines

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Capacity, Hospital Industry, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Intensive Care (ICU), Mortality, National Strategy, Out of Control, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/07/28/florida-coronavirus-deaths-spike-to-record-high-after-days-of-declines/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailydozen&cdlcid=5d2c97df953109375e4d8b68#2d45f7d31d35

Florida Coronavirus Deaths Spike To Record High After Days Of Declines

TOPLINE

The coronavirus death toll Florida reported Tuesday set a new daily record high for the state, while new cases, hospitalizations and the number of ICUs at capacity once again rose, reversing what had been days of the state’s coronavirus crisis appearing to show signs of improvement.

KEY FACTS

Florida reported 186 new coronavirus deaths Tuesday, topping a record that had stood since July 22 and ending a streak of what had been a declining daily death toll every day since then.

Hospitals reporting 0% available ICU beds are also again on the rise, with 55 facilities reporting they were at capacity Tuesday, up from the 49 that reported 0% availability Monday.

Other major metrics that show worsening coronavirus spread, like hospitalizations and the rate of tests coming back positive, are also on the rise after declines during the past week.

Florida is the nation’s coronavirus epicenter, and has been for weeks—posting daily case increases that have been unmatched by any other state during the pandemic thus far.

Florida reported 9,243 new cases Tuesday, a rise from the 8,892 reported on Monday, which was the lowest increase the state had posted in three weeks, yet still more cases than most countries have reported throughout the entire pandemic so far.

The death toll in Florida is still far below what New York had during the worst of the pandemic there in March and April, when on its worst days the state would report around 1,000 deaths on its own.

KEY BACKGROUND

Florida was one of the fastest states to lift restrictions on its economy, and was eager to do so since the state largely avoided the dire impact the spring coronavirus surge brought to areas like New York. But a spike would come. Around Memorial Day, when large crowds packed popular vacation spots, the state was only reporting about 500 new cases a day. By mid-July, the state was regularly reporting over 10,000 new cases a day. A rise in hospitalizations would follow, and, more recently, a spike in deaths.

TANGENT

The southern part of the state has been the hardest-hit, including the city of Miami. Even its baseball team, the Miami Marlins, have not escaped the rampant coronavirus spread in Florida. At least 17 members of the organization, mostly players, have tested positive for coronavirus—thrusting plans for a 2020 Major League Baseball season into doubt.

 

 

 

 

6 months in: Following the flow of CARES hospital funding

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Compliance, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Financial Pressure, Financial Transparency, Financial Viability, Financially Distressed, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, The CARES Act • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/6-months-cares-hospital-funding-covid/581506/

Congress has allocated $175 billion to help providers respond to the COVID-19 crisis, but HHS has been hit with multiple complaints about distribution as that money goes out the door.

The COVID-19 pandemic created massive upheaval for the nation’s healthcare system still evident six months after the U.S. declared it a national public health crisis.

The virus continues to surge, reaching new heights with more than 4 million confirmed cases and more than 143,000 deaths. No other country has experienced more deaths or cases than the U.S., data with Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center show.

Parts of the country are facing the prospect of another lockdown as cases overwhelm healthcare facilities.

Forced into quickly responding to the pandemic, health systems have taken substantial financial hits. While the impact has been far from even, one estimate from the American Hospital Association estimates the nation’s health systems’ financial losses in the first four months of the outbreak reached nearly $203 billion.

To help staunch the free fall, Congress earmarked $175 billion in two pieces of legislation in an attempt to keep providers afloat as the virus wreaked havoc on the economy. The majority of that was from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act passed in late March.

Yet, about 65% of the money has yet to go out to providers, with just $61 billion delivered and attested to by providers by mid-July, a senior HHS official told Healthcare Dive.

Still, with no end in sight for the pandemic, at least on U.S. shores, providers are ramping up lobbying in an effort to secure more funding as case counts soar. AHA is asking for another $100 billion in the next round of congressional relief now under discussion.

Many healthcare providers stopped profitable elective procedures as stay-at-home orders blanketed parts of the country to contain the spread of the disease. This also allowed providers to conserve much needed resources such as personal protective equipment that proved hard to procure amid the crisis.

But revenue quickly plummeted as providers delayed care in preparing for a surge of COVID-19 patients.

“The funding hospitals and health systems have received to date, while helpful, is just a small fraction of what we estimate they will lose this year,” Lisa Kidder Hrobsky, group vice president of federal relations for AHA, told Healthcare Dive in a statement.

Where did the money go?

So far, HHS has outlined a spending plan for $125 billion of the $175 billion in provider relief funds.

The program has been met with an array of criticism, including whether the distribution of funds went to those most in need and whether the fine print has deterred providers from taking a piece of the massive financial package.

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In response to those critiques, HHS has sent out additional federal funding in more targeted waves since April.

The first tranche of money — $30 billion in April — was designed to get out the door quickly, as providers were struggling. From there, HHS has attempted to pinpoint the money to certain providers and geographic areas to appease the needs of various providers.

To even out distribution, HHS began sending targeted funding, such as to hospitals overrun with COVID-19 patients, mainly in New York and other hard hit areas. The agency also funneled money to rural providers and skilled-nursing facilities, among others.

After HHS was met with the argument that wealthier hospitals, or those that had larger shares of privately-insured patients, received more funding, it allocated money for those taking care of the neediest.

At the same time, as the agency doles out the rest of the $175 billion, it has promised to reimburse providers for uninsured COVID-19 patients. That has raised questions about whether HHS will have enough for uninsured care and additional tranches.  

However, a senior HHS official said it has only paid out $340 million to providers for uninsured COVID-19 patients, less than what they had expected. So low, that HHS has been trying to encourage providers to apply for such funding.

Timeline of HHS funding

  • AprilHHS​ released $30 billion from the first tranche of money based on a provider’s 2018 Medicare fee-for-service revenue. By the end of April, an additional $20 billion from general distribution was released, for a total of $50 billion.
  • MayMore than $26 billion was sent to rural, skilled-nursing facilities and those hit hard by the virus.
  • JuneHHS released an additional $25 billion earmarked for safety-net providers and those that cater to large populations of Medicaid patients.
  • JulyHHS​ said it would release another $4 billion for safety-net providers and certain specialty rural providers missed in earlier rounds, along with another $10 billion for those in hot spots.

Fears eased over fine print

Some providers declined or returned funding they had received, worried about the fine print or the terms and conditions, like how to appropriately spend the money.

However, HHS has relaxed some of those conditions, easing the fears of some.

For a lot of providers, it was a sigh of relief, causing many to say, “‘Great, we can feel comfortable participating in this program’,” Tim Fry, an attorney with McGuireWoods, told Healthcare Dive.

In particular, HHS recently said that if at the end of this pandemic, providers didn’t use all of the funding for lost revenue or healthcare related expenses, there will be a process to return the money. Initially, providers expressed concern that it was an all-or-nothing program.

Plus, HHS provided clarity on how the money can be used, stipulating that the funds go to healthcare-related expenses or lost revenue attributable to the coronavirus. HHS has provided more guidance and examples of appropriate uses, a relief to many, Fry said.

Earlier, health systems were overwhelmed by the administrative burden and fearful over how to appropriately spend the money without running afoul of new rules.

“We are not infinitely flexible around those requirements, but when we hear from providers of issues that they’re having — and we think we can be reasonably [accommodating], we try to be,” a senior HHS official said.

 

 

 

 

Administration’s talking health care again, with 2020 in mind

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Executive Orders, False Narrative, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Health System, High Drug Prices, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Individual Mandate, Job, Job Loss, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Mixed Message, Opioid Epidemic, Out of Pocket Expenses, Preexisting Conditions, Price Transparency, Public Option, Short Term Health Insurance, Skinny Health Plans, Telemedicine, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/26/trumps-health-care-again-with-2020-election-381473?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Republicans+Roll+Out+%241+Trillion+Coronavirus+Relief+Plan&utm_campaign=TFT+Newsletter+07272020

Tell us: How has Trump handled healthcare in his first 100 days ...

Polls show voters say Joe Biden would handle the issue better. And Trump is running short on options to make concrete changes before November.

President Donald Trump is suddenly talking about health care again.

He signed several executive orders on drug pricing on Friday. He vowed to unveil some new health plan by the end of next week, although he hasn’t provided specifics or an explanation of how he’ll do it. His aides are touting a speech in which Trump will lay out his health care vision. White House counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway has been calling Trump “the health care president.”

Yet it’s unlikely to amount to much in terms of policy ahead of the election. There’s almost no chance Congress will enact any legislation on the issue before November and policy specialists say the executive orders in question will make changes only at the margins — if they make any changes at all. Trump has also previously vowed to roll out a grand health care plan without following through.

That leaves Trump with mostly rhetorical options — even if he insists otherwise — cognizant that voters consistently rank health care as a top priority and say Joe Biden, Trump’s presumptive 2020 rival, would handle the issue better than the president. Meanwhile, Trump is running for reelection having not replaced Obamacare or presented an alternative — all while urging the Supreme Court to overturn the decade-old health law. And millions of Americans are currently losing their health insurance as the coronavirus-gripped economy sputters.

“I think politically, the main objective will be to have something he can call a plan, but it will be smaller than a plan. Just something that he can talk about,” said Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy organization. “But it’s almost inconceivable that anything can be delivered legislatively before the election.”

Trump has long stumped on his pledges to kill Obamacare, the law his predecessor implemented that expanded Americans’ access to health insurance, set baseline standards for coverage, introduced penalties for not having insurance and guaranteed coverage for preexisting conditions. But conservatives say the law introduced too many mandates and drove up costs.

But after winning election in 2016, Trump failed to overturn the law in Congress — or even offer an agreed upon alternative to the law — despite holding the majority in both chambers on Capitol Hill. Democrats then retook the House in the 2018 midterms, essentially ending any chances the law, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, would be repealed.

Even some conservatives said the ongoing failure to present a concrete replacement plan is helping the Democrats politically.

Republicans, said Joe Antos, a health expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, “spent basically 2010 to today arguing that the ACA is no good. After 10 years, clearly there are some problems with starting all over again. I haven’t detected very strong interest, at least among elected officials, in revisiting that.”

But the coronavirus pandemic has added pressure to address health care costs, and Trump has lagged behind Biden on his handling of the issue in polls. Fifty seven percent of registered voters recently polled by Quinnipiac said Biden would do a better job on health care than Trump, while only 35 percent approved of Trump’s handling of health care as president. And on the issue of affordability, a CNBC poll found 55 percent of battleground voters favored Biden and the Democrats, compared with 45 percent who preferred Trump and the Republicans.

“At this point, there are two huge issues, jobs and the economy, and health care, i.e., the coronavirus. If anything that’s simply been magnified,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster and strategist. “Given the fact that it’s one of the top issues, it’s not like there’s a choice but to talk about it. If candidates aren’t making statements and proposing solutions around that, it’s a requirement. Both candidates have to address it.”

Biden has campaigned on expanding Obamacare while also promising to implement a “public option” similar to Medicare, which is government-run health insurance for seniors. On drug pricing, he and Trump embrace some of the same ideas, like allowing the safe importation of drugs from other countries where they are cheaper. Biden also supports direct Medicare negotiation of drug prices, a Democratic priority that Trump supported during the 2016 campaign before reversing course.

“Donald Trump has spent his entire presidency working to take health care away from tens of millions of Americans and gut coverage for preexisting conditions,” said Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman. “If the Trump campaign wants to continue their pattern of highlighting the worst possible contrasts for Donald Trump, we certainly won’t stop them.”

The Trump administration insists it can point to several health care victories during Trump’s term.

Trump frequently notes the removal of the penalty for Americans who do not purchase insurance as a major victory, falsely claiming it is equivalent to overturning Obamacare.

Trump also signed an executive order last year to fight kidney disease to encourage home dialysis and increase the amount of kidney transplants, and he expanded telehealth medicine during the pandemic.

More recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a Trump administration rule expanding the availability of short-term health plans, which Trump has touted as an alternative to Obamacare but Democrats deride as “junk.” The plans are typically cheaper than Obamacare coverage because they don’t provide the same level of benefits or consumer protections for preexisting conditions.

A federal judge in June similarly upheld another Trump administration rule requiring hospitals to disclose the prices they have negotiated with insurers. Price transparency in the health care system has long been a significant issue, with Americans rarely having clarity over how much their treatments will cost ahead of time. Trump called the win “bigger than health care itself,” in an apparent reference to Obamacare. It’s unclear whether transparency will force down health care prices, and hospitals opposing the rule have appealed the judge’s decision.

And on Friday at the White House, Trump held an event to sign four executive orders aimed at slashing drug pricing. The move aimed to tackle a largely unfulfilled signature campaign promise — that he would stop pharmaceutical companies from “getting away with murder.”

“We are ending the sellouts, betrayals and broken promises from Washington,” Trump said Friday.“You have a lot of broken promises from Washington.”

But the orders appeared largely symbolic for now, as they were not immediately enforceable, contained notable caveats and may not be completed before the election anyway. For instance, an order requiring drugmakers to pass along any discounts directly to seniors requires the health secretary to confirm the plan won’t result in higher premiums or drive up federal spending. But the White House had shelved that plan last summer over worries the move might hike seniors’ Medicare premiums ahead of the election and cost taxpayers $180 billion over the next decade.

Conway disputed that Trump had not made progress on issues like drug pricing.

“President Trump is directing the development of therapeutics and vaccines, has delivered lower prescription drug costs, increased transparency in pricing for consumers and is committed to covering preexisting conditions and offering higher quality health care with lower costs and more choices,” she said.

Yet a number of Trump’s other health care initiatives have faced hurdles — especially amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The opioid crisis, which the president had touted as a top priority and campaigned on in 2016, is getting worse. Drug overdose deaths hit a record high in 2019 and federal and state data shows they are skyrocketing in 2020.

“The overdose epidemic will not take a back seat simply because Covid-19 has hit us hard, and that needs to be reflected in policy,” said Andrew Kessler, founder and principal of Slingshot Solutions, a behavioral health consulting firm.

The president’s plan to end HIV by 2030 has similarly receded during the pandemic. And Trump’s proposal on improving kidney care — an issue that affects roughly 15 percent of American adults — is still in its early stages and will not be finalized until next year.