Category Archives: Uncategorized

Moody’s: Nursing shortage will pressure hospital margins for years

Posted on by • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/moody-s-nursing-shortage-will-pressure-hospital-margins-for-years.html

Image result for nursing shortage

 

U.S. nonprofit hospital margins will be negatively affected by an extreme nursing shortage for at least the next three to four years, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service.

To attract and retain nursing talent, many hospitals are increasing compensation and offering sign-on bonuses and attractive fringe benefits. However, these incentives are putting expense pressure on hospitals.

“Labor is the largest hospital expense and is increasing faster than total expense growth while outpacing revenue growth,” Safat Hannan, a Moody’s analyst, said. “The lack of qualified nurses will compound these expense pressures and negatively affect hospital margins.”

The nursing shortage is most prevalent in Florida, Georgia, Texas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and West Virginia, according to the report.

Orthopedic Urgent Care Franchising is THE Opportunity of 2018

Posted on by • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

https://medcitynews.com/?sponsored_content=orthopedic-urgent-care-franchising-opportunity-2018-2&utm_campaign=MCN%20Daily%20Top%20Stories&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=61259603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9KZbK2I0aYCjcH-L8_oANZXZSsq2K8jondsl8vHF0rHfcb8_zR65kRtQV-cDsnd_VomLuc-G2in5Y4wJcsFWrR8zgKJg

Image result for Orthopedic Urgent Care Franchising is THE Opportunity of 2018

Healthcare Executives, Physicians, and Healthpreneurs dealing with hospital spending cuts, reduced insurance reimbursements, and reduced market share are looking for solutions to earnings loss which is giving rise to the innovations in specialized focused urgent care.

The economic pressures coupled with the need for lifestyle balance cause many in the healthcare industry to look for alternatives and franchising is leading this nationwide healthcare overhaul.

With approximately 9,000 urgent care centers in the United States offering generalized care, OrthoNOW is the only franchised care center of its kind in the United States — a unique position to gain market share in this highly fragmented industry.

OrthoNOW’s focus is on sports medicine and the treatment and prevention of the full range of orthopedic injuries, all on a walk-in basis. Services include treatment of injuries to the hand, wrist, foot, ankle, knee, spine and shoulder, as well as preventative consultation and regimens by experts in orthopedics.

Strong interest in the brand is being fueled by CDC estimates that injuries have a $671 billion annual impact on the U.S. economy — orthopedic medicine contributes $48 billion to the GDP and urgent care centers produce an additional $30 billion in revenue. Further, 160 million patients seek out urgent care each year; 48 million of those patients will require orthopedic care who, without access to, are referred to the local emergency room only to be redirected to a specialist following a long and expensive visit.

“OrthoNOW offers an innovative turn-key solution with a comprehensive support system built in. Our corporate staff consists of veteran business, medical and franchise professionals who work closely with our franchisees and provide ongoing support. Thus, our operations are efficient and effective,” says Christine Dura, Chief Development Officer. “We have more than 1,000 territories available, and we are aggressively targeting proven multi-unit operators and Regional Developers who understand the power of scalability.”

Have you ever wondered how owning a proven franchise model in healthcare could change your financial future? OrthoNOW’s power-packed 30 minute webinar is the place to start. Get expert answers to your most pressing questions. Some will watch and miss the opportunity. Some may even try a solution on their own. Regardless, their proven model leads the charge in delivering the healthcare solutions many Americans need NOW.

Answer the call of millions of Americans in need of expert and affordable healthcare. Join OrthoNOW’s webinar on February 28, 2018, which covers the four big questions in franchising:

  • Am I the right fit?
  • What is my investment?
  • How much money can I make?
  • Why OrthoNOW?

Pharma karma catches up: Shkreli sentenced to 7 years

Posted on by • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

Pharma karma catches up: Shkreli sentenced to 7 years

The man who embodied the phrase “pharma bro” and once urged his fans to pull a hair from Hillary Clinton’s head at a book signing has had a visit from pharma karma. The judge in Martin Shkreli’s fraud case, Kiyo Matsumoto, has sentenced the poster man for pharmaceutical company greed to seven years. Estimates are that Shkreli, 34, might get out in a couple of years if his behavior is good.

At his sentencing hearing, Shkreli apparently, and rather uncharacteristically, expressed contrition and shed enough tears that the judge called for the court officer to bring the defendant a box of tissues. Shkreli, in making his plea for leniency, tearfully told the judge that “the one person to blame for me being here today is me.” The judge apparently was unmoved, although the sentence is less than the 15 years the prosecution requested.

Shkreli drew the time after a jury found him guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and 2 counts of securities fraud. The same jury found him not guilty on an additional five counts, raising some hope from his legal team that his sentence would be light. The crimes, related to stock manipulation of shares in Retrophin, one of Shkreli’s companies, and ripping off hedge fund backers, could have carried a sentence of up to 20 years.

In February 2018, Matsumoto found that losses resulting from Shkreli’s crimes tallied up to $10.4 million.

Although he’s probably best known for overseeing a 5,000 percent price hike of a toxoplasmosis drug for HIV-positive patients, Shkreli’s post-pharmaceutical shenanigans caught a much attention as his venality while helming Turing Pharmaceuticals. He dropped $2 million on the sole copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which the judge has included in his assets. He harassed a journalist on Twitter, getting himself suspended, and seemed to want to fashion himself into the Snark King of Social Media.

His posturing ended up being his downfall.

While awaiting sentencing, Shkreli boasted that he would end up serving hardly any time and what time he did serve would be in the relatively posh environs of a “Club Fed” prison for white collar criminals. But after he exhorted Facebook followers to pluck a hair from Clinton’s head and offered $5000 per sample, the judge who sentenced him revoked Shkreli’s bail and ordered him to be placed in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, a far different experience for the pharma bro.

Although Shkreli is at the center of his own story, some believe that the industry overall is not blame-free. STAT journalist Adam Feuerstein has pointed out that the pharmaceutical industry can’t entirely disown Pharma Bro and his behavior, noting that Shkreli “was doing what lots of other biotech and pharma CEOs did, and still do to various degrees. Legally.”

 

Healthcare Triage: Why Does the U.S. Spend So Much on Healthcare? High, High Prices.

Posted on by • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , • Leave a comment

Healthcare Triage: Why Does the U.S. Spend So Much on Healthcare? High, High Prices.

Image result for Healthcare Triage: Why Does the U.S. Spend So Much on Healthcare? High, High Prices.

 

American healthcare spending is still WAY higher than pretty much all other industrialized countries. But not that long ago, things were different. The US didn’t spend nearly as much in this realm. What changed? Demographics? More sickness? Nah. Spoiler alert, prices have risen much, much faster than the rate of inflation. We’ve got a few suggestions for getting it under control.

 

Knock it off, Idaho. (But carry on, Idaho.)

Posted on by • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , • Leave a comment

Knock it off, Idaho. (But carry on, Idaho.)

Image result for idaho potatoes

Credit where credit is due: the Trump administration announced yesterday that it won’t look the other way if Idaho flouts the Affordable Care Act. The ACA “remains the law and we have a duty to enforce and uphold the law,” CMS administrator Seema Verma explained in a letter to Idaho’s governor and its insurance director.

Maybe it’s a mark of how low we’ve sunk that I’m surprised, happy, and relieved to see the Trump administration acknowledge that the law is the law. But politics ain’t beanbag, and Azar and Verma were under immense pressure to allow Idaho to regulate its health insurers without regard to the ACA. That they chose to push back is a testament to their integrity.

Not that the ACA is out of the woods. In her letter, Verma notes that HHS has issued a proposed rule to allow for the sale of short-term health plans that would offer coverage for up to 364 days in a year. By statute, “short-term, limited duration insurance” are exempted from the ACA’s rules. If the rule is finalized, Verma believes that Idaho could allow for the sale of exactly the same noncompliant plans, so long as those plans trim their coverage by one day. Idaho can’t ignore the ACA, but it can bypass it.

Can this be right, though? Can it really be against the law to sell a noncompliant health plan that offers coverage for the whole year, but completely OK to sell the exact same plan if it covers someone for the whole year less one day?

I’m skeptical. Health insurance is typically sold on a one-year basis. If 365 days is the relevant baseline, how can you say with a straight face that a 364-day plan is “short term limited duration insurance”? The statute doesn’t define the term, which means that HHS has some discretion to set a standard. But HHS doesn’t have the discretion to interpret the exception to swallow the rule.

Not only does HHS’s proposed interpretation do violence to the language of the statute. Verma’s letter stands as a tacit acknowledgment that Idaho can achieve its goal of subverting the ACA by exploiting a loophole for short-term plans. How can the agency claim that it’s being faithful to the statutory plan if its interpretation would countenance such flagrant disregard of the law?

The best argument I’ve heard in defense of HHS’s proposal is that it would simply restore a rule that was on the books for twenty years before the Obama administration decided, in 2016, to clamp down and limit “short-term, limited duration insurance” to three months. That argument does give me pause: an agency interpretation of longstanding vintage is entitled to some respect.

But the courts have no problem striking down old rules if they’re inconsistent with statutory text. And, for my part, I’m struggling to understand how a plan that’s 0.27% shorter than a typical insurance plan can possibly count as “short-term limited duration insurance.”