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Cartoon – Bipartisan Healthcare Reform
Coverage expansion and primary care access
When you have a health problem, your first stop is probably to your primary care doctor. If you’ve found it harder to see your doctor in recent years, you could be tempted to blame the Affordable Care Act. As the health law sought to solve one problem, access to affordable health insurance, it risked creating another: too few primary care doctors to meet the surge in appointment requests from the newly insured.
Studies published just before the 2014 coverage expansion predicted a demand for millions more annual primary care appointments, requiring thousands of new primary care providers just to keep up. But a more recent study suggests primary care appointment availability may not have suffered as much as expected.
The study, published in April in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that across 10 states, primary care appointment availability for Medicaid enrollees increased since the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions went into effect. For privately insured patients, appointment availability held steady. All of the gains in access to care for Medicaid enrollees were concentrated in states that expanded Medicaid coverage. For instance, in Illinois 20 percent more primary care physicians accepted Medicaid after expansion than before it. Gains in Iowa and Pennsylvania were lower, but still substantial: 8 percent and 7 percent.
Though these findings are consistent with other research, including a study of Medicaid expansion in Michigan, they are contrary to intuition. In places where coverage gains were larger — in Medicaid expansion states — primary care appointment availability grew more.
“Given the duration of medical education, it’s not likely that thousands of new primary care practitioners entered the field in a few years to meet surging demand,” said the Penn health economist Daniel Polsky, the lead author on the study. There are other ways doctor’s offices can accommodate more patients, he added.
One way is by booking appointment requests further out, extending waiting times. The study findings bear this out. Waiting times increased for both Medicaid and privately insured patients. For example, the proportion of privately insured patients having to wait at least 30 days for an appointment grew to 10.5 percent from 7.1 percent.
The study assessed appointment availability and wait times, both before the 2014 coverage expansion and in 2016, using so-called secret shoppers. In this approach, people pretending to be patients with different characteristics — in this case with either Medicaid or private coverage — call doctor’s offices seeking appointments.
Improvement in Medicaid enrollees’ ability to obtain appointments may come as a surprise. Of all insurance types, Medicaid is the least likely to be accepted by physicians because it tends to pay the lowest rates. But some provisions of the Affordable Care Act may have enhanced Medicaid enrollees’ ability to obtain primary care.
The law increased Medicaid payments to primary care providers to Medicare levels in 2013 and 2014 with federal funding. Some states extended that enhanced payment level with state funding for subsequent years, but the study found higher rates of doctors’ acceptance of Medicaid even in states that didn’t do so.
The Affordable Care Act also included funding that fueled expansion of federally qualified health centers, which provide health care to patients regardless of ability to pay. Because these centers operate in low-income areas that are more likely to have greater concentrations of Medicaid enrollees, this expansion may have improved their access to care.
Other trends in medical practice might have aided in meeting growing appointment demand. “The practice and organization of medical care has been dynamic in recent years, and that could partly explain our results,” Mr. Polsky said. “For example, if patient panels are better managed by larger organizations, the trend towards consolidation could absorb some of the increased demand.”
Although the exact explanation is uncertain, what is clear is that the primary care system has not been overwhelmed by coverage expansion. Waiting times have gone up, but the ability of Medicaid patients to get appointments has improved, with no degradation in that aspect for privately insured patients.
Time Crunch Among Hurdles for Bipartisan Senate Push to Bolster ACA
https://morningconsult.com/2017/08/18/time-crunch-among-hurdles-bipartisan-senate-push-bolster-aca/
The leaders of a key Senate committee say they are cautiously optimistic about reaching a deal to shore up the Affordable Care Act’s individual marketplaces, but even with a bipartisan effort, it is far from certain whether they can hash out an agreement in time.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee leaders of both parties have set a self-imposed mid-September deadline for a bipartisan agreement. To keep lingering animosity from the Obamacare repeal fight from seeping into negotiations, Chairman Lamar Alexander has made clear that what he’s seeking is far from comprehensive.
The bill will have to be “small, bipartisan and balanced,” the Tennessee Republican said in a statement Wednesday.
Above all, Democrats want to make sure insurers continue to receive payments that help them cover out-of-pocket costs for some low-income patients. President Donald Trump has threatened to cut off the payments, and the administration has kept insurers on tenterhooks by making them only on a month-to-month basis.
Without the subsidies, known as cost-sharing reductions, some insurers warn they’ll be forced pull out of the ACA markets or hike premiums. The companies need certainty about payments at the latest by Sept. 27, the final deadline for them to decide whether to sell Obamacare plans in 2018.
If the committee can reach agreement next month, it would still be a challenge to get a bill through the full Senate and House before the key deadline for insurers. And Trump would still have to sign a bill into law that extends payments he is loath to continue.
The potential for chaos was highlighted this week when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report estimating average premiums would rise 20 percent next year and the federal deficit would grow by $194 billion by 2026 if the administration stops paying.
While some conservative hard-liners want to cut off the CSRs, Alexander and other top Republicans have shown they’re willing to work with Democrats to have Congress extend the payments.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the panel’s ranking Democrat, on Thursday called for quick action.
“People across the country are facing much higher premiums next year because of uncertainty driven by the Trump Administration, so I hope Republicans will join Democrats to act quickly to protect patients and families from paying more for care they need — and then continue working in a bipartisan way to make health care more affordable, accessible, and higher quality for all,” Murray said in a statement.
Democrats also want some sort of reinsurance program, an idea that has bipartisan support and would help insurers pay for their most expensive enrollees.
But in return for extending CSRs and including reinsurance, Republicans want to give states more authority over their health care systems, and Democrats could balk at some of their proposals.
Alexander has specifically pointed to changing the ACA’s 1332 waiver program, which allows states to opt out of key ACA regulations as long as it doesn’t lead to reduced coverage, skimpier benefits, more expensive insurance or a higher federal deficit.
In remarks to reporters earlier this month, Alexander noted a proposal that would eliminate all of those requirements besides increasing the federal deficit, in order to give states “more of an opportunity to approve insurance plans.” The plan, which was included in Senate Republicans’ health overhaul bill, would also bar the administration from rejecting a waiver as long as it doesn’t increase the federal deficit.
Democrats would likely oppose that proposal, wary of allowing states to undercut key Obamacare requirements without those other conditions in place.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he’s interested in a proposal from Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) to let states replace Obamacare’s most contentious provision — the mandate requiring people to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty — with a system that automatically enrolls individuals in low-cost coverage if they don’t do so on their own.
Backers of this approach argue it would offer comparable coverage to the individual mandate while being less intrusive, allowing people to opt out.
“I think that’s intriguing,” Kaine said earlier this month in a brief interview. “We ought to have that discussion, but you can’t blow the mandate without something to bring people into the program and do what insurance needs to do, which is to spread risk.”
But auto-enrollment has raised concerns among some liberal health care analysts, including over how to implement and administer such a system. The outstanding questions cast doubt on whether it could garner enough backing to be included in the stabilization bill.
Trump needs to stop sabotaging Obamacare — before it’s too late
THE CONGRESSIONAL Budget Office released on Tuesday yet another damning report on health care, this time highlighting the damage President Trump will do if he continues his Obamacare sabotage campaign. Over the next few weeks, during which the government and insurers must sort out what will happen to Obamacare insurance markets next year, everyone in the administration and every member of Congress must recognize that they have no more time to entertain repeal-and-replace fantasies. The fate of the health-insurance markets on which millions of people rely hangs on their willingness to accept reality.
The Trump administration has shown some flexibility. The Department of Health and Human Services last week offered insurers an extra few weeks to file rates for next year. Earlier, Alaska got $323 million in federal money to backstop its individual insurance market in a reinsurance arrangement that could drive down premiums and serve as a model for stabilizing insurance markets across the nation. Though Mr. Trump has repeatedly vowed to let Obamacare collapse, these moves show willingness to bolster, not undermine, the insurance markets that Obamacare created.
Yet the administration has stoked more uncertainty than it has allayed, leaving the health system in peril. The White House has been deciding month-to-month whether to keep important subsidy payments flowing to insurance companies — payments that were simply assumed during the Obama administration. Without these payments, insurers would have to jack up premiums or leave Obamacare markets next year. The CBO estimated Tuesday that average premiums would jump by 20 percent next year if the Trump administration pulled them. Moreover, because of how the payments interact with other elements of the health-care system, the government would end up losing money — $194 billion over a decade.
Though it would be irrational to subvert the health-care system and the budget, Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to do so. His officials also have taken steps in that direction, pulling advertisements meant to encourage people to enroll in health insurance, cutting programs that helped people sign up, railing about Obamacare’s “victims” and generally insisting, against the facts, that the law is a disaster. The administration’s moves to weaken the individual mandate, which requires all Americans to carry health coverage and underpins the Obamacare system, have led insurers to contemplate increasing premiums or leaving the system.
The president wanted and failed to overhaul Obamacare. That does not excuse him from faithfully executing the law. Unless Mr. Trump wants to be blamed for health-care chaos, the administration’s mixed messages must stop. Mr. Trump should commit to keeping the subsidies going permanently, to enforcing the individual mandate and to working with Congress on a bipartisan bill that would bolster insurance markets.
The broad strokes are clear: Democrats would ensure that subsidy payments are made permanent and Republicans would get more flexibility for states in administering Obamacare. More money should also go into reinsurance programs like Alaska’s. Though such a bill might come too late to hold down 2018 premiums, serious legislative activity could persuade insurers to stay in the market, riding out next year with the promise of a more stable situation in 2019.
All of this would be easier if the administration would commit to a strategy of stewardship, not sabotage.
Sutter will shift 10,000 Anthem Medi-Cal enrollees to community health centers
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article167900272.html
In Sacramento and Placer counties, roughly 10,000 adult Medi-Cal enrollees with Anthem Blue Cross are learning this summer that Sutter’s primary-care doctors will no longer see them.
Instead, those patients are being shifted to primary-care doctors at community health centers such as Sacramento’s WellSpace Health or Auburn’s Chapa-De Indian Health, said Dr. Ken Ashley, the medical director for primary care at Sutter Medical Group. He said the change in providers will allow the patients to access more services.
“Some of the things that the (community health centers) can provide with the funding that they are receiving are things that sometimes we struggle to find for our Medi-Cal patients, things like optometry and dental, behavioral medicine,” Ashley said. “I feel like these patients are finally going to receive things I could not provide as their primary-care doctor. I’m OK with our partners helping to take care of these patients.”
Sutter, Dignity Health, UC Davis and other providers have all contributed funding and expertise to expand the network of community health centers, more formally known as federally qualified health centers.
The so-called FQHC’s have long been the primary-care delivery network for uninsured, low-income people across the country, but Sacramento did not have a strong network of the centers until the Affordable Care Act set aside funding to help them grow to meet the needs of an expanding Medicaid population.
That flood of new patients has swamped many primary-care providers and has made it harder for all patients to get appointments through commercial providers, Ashley said. Meanwhile, in meetings with the leaders of local FQHC’s, he and other leaders were hearing how those organizations had expanded services, lengthened hours and had capacity for more patients.
About a year ago at one of the meetings, Ashley said, all the attendees began to feel that, if they could shift Anthem’s adult Medi-Cal enrollees, they would improve the health of the primary-care delivery system for a broad set of customers.
“We’ve been having a difficult time getting all our patients in at the time they would like, where they would like,” Ashley said. “This is one more step to try to help allow the rest of the community to help us take care of all these patients.”
Jonathan Porteus, the CEO of Wellspace Health, also leads the Central Valley Health Network, a group of health centers up and down the Central Valley that manage almost 3 million visits a year. He said that Anthem began earlier this year investigating whether the FQHC’s truly had the capacity to absorb the adult Medi-Cal patients served through Sutter.
“We were notified – we being the federally qualified health centers – that this change was coming and that there was a keen interest to make sure that it was smooth, that people would not be left without access,” Porteus said. “The wisdom of Sutter and others has been to help our region have a network of federally qualified health centers, a true blanket of care for the first time ever. This is one of the early tests.”
Porteus said he knows that people have questions about whether the quality of care at his centers is on par with what they would receive from primary-care doctors. He said he welcomes those questions because they give him an opportunity to tell the WellSpace story.
“The Joint Commission, which is the accrediting body that accredits hospitals and shuts them down if they don’t think they’re good enough, has accredited us to be a patient-centered medical home, has accredited all our behavioral health,” Porteus said. “This is a standard many of our commercial colleagues in this community don’t have. If you went into some of these primary-care practices and asked them if they had Joint Commission accreditation for ambulatory care, they will tell you ‘no.’”
There will unquestionably be upheaval in this process for both doctors and patients, Ashley said.
Sutter’s pediatricians will continue to provide primary-care to Medi-Cal-enrolled children covered by Anthem Blue , and the insurer’s Medi-Cal enrollees also still will be able to access Sutter specialists. Sutter primary-care doctors will continue to see anyone on Regular Medi-Cal recipients whose medical providers are paid directly by the government.
By the Numbers: E-Visits Not Hitting the Mark?
Study shows more work, fewer new patients, little health benefit.
Telemedicine and other “e-visits” are supposed to be a win-win for physicians and patients alike. Doctors could spend less time on simple requests, patients would get frictionless access to their provider.
But a new study published in Management Science finds that all that access hasn’t translated into the outcomes so many had hoped for. Instead, e-visits lead to more office visits and more phone consultations without measurable improvement to patients’ health. And maybe most damaging for physicians’ practices, they’re associated with fewer new patients.
The findings may be surprising, but study leader Hessam Bavafa, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin School of Business, said they make sense when you consider the process of the usual e-visit. Patients can reach out with even the smallest concerns, he said, and that puts doctors in a bind.
“There’s an issue of obligation,” Bavafa told MedPage Today. “If you ignore the signal, who knows what’s going to happen next, right?”
The study used five years of data from a large health system with multiple hospitals and more than 2,000 total beds. It included all primary care encounters for 140,000 patients from 2008 to 2013, including office visits, phone calls, and e-visits, all cholesterol tests, and all blood glucose tests for the physicians with the largest panel sizes. It was limited, however, to those patients who had three or more office visits over the period analyzed, as the study was designed to focus on active healthcare users.
The results were stark. After adopting e-visits — in this instance, essentially an email with a subject line and generic box of text — office visits increased by 6% as physicians met with patients who had reached out online. Physicians also ended up spending 45 more minutes each month on those visits.
Oh, and the extra work of responding to patients requests did not bring extra compensation. “God knows what happens if you start paying doctors for these,” Bavafa said.
And with the increased workload came a corresponding 15% drop in the number of new patients physicians saw.
Bavafa said the findings are a natural consequence of physicians’ limited time: if one patient group is getting more of it, another will feel the squeeze.
But Peter Yellowlees, MD, president of the American Telemedicine Association, said the findings go against his own experience and much of the literature.
He questioned the wisdom of excluding patients who had fewer than three office visits. That eliminated a large group of patients, he pointed out, and may have affected the outcome.
“Effectively they only looked at two-thirds of the patients, which is a bit odd to me,” he said. “It’s perfectly reasonable that those people had problems that could be managed with an occasional email and everything’s fine and they don’t need to come in.”
He also pointed to strong adoption of e-visits in the paper as evidence of their value. The study found fewer than 100 monthly e-visits in 2008. By the end of the period analyzed, that had ballooned to nearly 6,500.
“As a physician, we don’t do things that we don’t think are worthwhile. That level of adoption is strong evidence, from my perspective, that this is a really good idea,” Yellowlees said.
He also wondered whether some other change within the system analyzed could have led to the changes observed. He said the e-visits couldn’t be considered causative.
While he didn’t agree with the findings, he said he was happy to see a study try to examine their impact.
Bavafa, too, was hopeful about the future of e-visits and other telemedicine efforts. Already, he said, some providers are toying with pricing to see if they can affect the way patients communicate with their doctors. The experiments include charging a “subscription” fee for electronic access to doctors, or even a charge for each individual contact.
He compared the current process to Amazon in the 1990s, or taxis as opposed to Uber and Lyft.
“This is the future, we just have to think about how to do it,” he said. “The ideas may not be novel, but it’s about figuring out the whole ecosystem.”
Cartoon – Leadership Without Negative Press
Cartoon – A good leader can…
Cartoon – I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening
HENRY KOTULA 