Purdue Pharma, facing thousands of lawsuits and bankruptcy, wants to pay ‘certain employees’ $34 million in bonuses

Posted on by • Posted in Bankruptcy, Employee Bonus, Executive Bonus, Opioid Epidemic, Pharmaceutical Industry • Leave a comment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/09/19/purdue-pharma-facing-thousands-lawsuits-bankruptcy-wants-pay-certain-employees-million-bonuses/?fbclid=IwAR0r6Psj2gpALR0iJZAv4o8ZYLxPDv6UjGZKLvxMwVIlUF9kOcl1LY5sGlM

People enter the U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y., Tuesday, before a bankruptcy hearing for Purdue Pharma. The company is asking a bankruptcy judge to allow it to pay $34 million in bonuses to "certain employees."

Officials at troubled drugmaker Purdue Pharma say “certain employees” should be paid more than $34 million in bonuses for meeting and exceeding goals over the last three years, even though the company is facing thousands of lawsuits over its role in the nation’s opioid crisis and earlier this week filed for bankruptcy.

In a legal filing, attorneys for Purdue Pharma asked a judge to authorize millions in payments to employees who have met “target performance goals.”

It is not clear from the company filings why employees would be eligible for bonuses, because, while the bonuses are supposed to be partly contingent on the company’s financial performance, the company has filed for bankruptcy.

At a bankruptcy court hearing in White Plains, N.Y., on Tuesday, Paul K. Schwartzberg, an attorney for the U.S. Trustee, raised objections to some of the bonuses. While it is typical for companies in bankruptcy to try to pay employees as a firm seeks to regain its financial footing, the Purdue Pharma bonuses go “way beyond” what is typical, he said.

The company is widely blamed for fueling the opioid epidemic because of allegedly misleading sales tactics it used to push physicians to prescribe millions of doses of its OxyContin painkiller. It faces thousands of lawsuits from cities, states and others affected by the opioid crisis, which claimed more than 200,000 lives in the past two decades.

“That $34 million is owed to the victims of the opioid epidemic, and every last cent should be spent on addiction science, treatment and recovery,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Purdue and the Sacklers still don’t seem to comprehend the pain and suffering they have caused. While I am sympathetic to the workers at Purdue, many of whom live in my hometown and state and had nothing to do with the egregious actions of their employer, this not business as usual.”

The attorneys for Purdue Pharma did not specify which of its 700 employees would be eligible for the bonuses, except that the incentives would not be available to “insiders” or any top executives involved in the company’s “strategic decision-making.” But other senior managers, who are often offered such incentive plans, could be eligible for the bonuses.

The number of employees eligible for the bonuses and the amounts of their rewards are unknown. But if the $34 million in bonuses were distributed equally to each of the 700 employees, each would receive about $50,000.

Company attorneys say the incentives are needed to retain key employees as it seeks to transform itself into a public trust aimed at delivering addiction remedies. Since 2018, about a quarter of the company’s “top tier” employees have left, they said.

“These employees have highly coveted skills in the industry and the company is not an easy place to work right now,” Eli J. Vonnegut, an attorney representing Purdue Pharma, said at the bankruptcy hearing. It “would be very difficult to attract new talent were the company to lose its current employees. With all the negative publicity, many employees are concerned about the economic risks that they are taking by staying at Purdue.”

The employee bonuses are part of the company’s long-standing incentive programs, according to the company. It is asking the bankruptcy court’s permission to pay out $26.5 million under its “Annual Incentive Plan,” which covers one year of company and employee performance, and another $7.9 million under its long-term rewards plan, which covers the last three years.

Under both programs, the size of the bonuses would depend on employees’ work and the company’s performance.

The company filing described the bonuses as something that employees “have come to rely on as a part of their annual compensation.”

The company is also seeking $1.5 million a month to cover anticipated legal expenses of employees. More than 270 former employees already have been witnesses or defendants in pending litigation, the company said.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert D. Drain is expected to consider the bonuses in October.

“These people are highly compensated,” Schwartzberg said. “They can wait” until then.

 

 

 

Report: Climate changes costing U.S. billions in health spending

Posted on by • Posted in Climate Change, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Health Policy, Medicaid, Medicare, Public Good, Public Health, Public Safety • Leave a comment

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals-health-systems/report-climate-changes-costing-u-s-billions-health-spending?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT1dJNE5tUTFZV0k1TVdRNCIsInQiOiJMakFtS1IzZmxaRDlQNUtjdFdMUHVYUFdBd1wvXC9EZFR3ekhHU3ZsYVNib2t3bTlEb0Z2bklLZndEZXFOTjZ1RVZ0bURYMXI5dGFNcW92SXFYV25HTVh4d01tNEY4YkVCUnBMamhpbllXSytVTW5ybGJ1OTh0UjJmVDRmSWJ6c1wveCJ9&mrkid=959610

From deaths and injuries caused by extreme heat and stronger storms to longer growing seasons linked to an increased risk of mosquito- and tick-borne illnesses and wildfires, the healthcare impacts of climate change are costing the U.S. billions, a new analysis found.

Case in point: An analysis of a single year—2012—by researchers at the Natural Resource Defense Council and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) estimated a total of 10 climate-sensitive events in the U.S. that ultimately cost $10 billion. 

That estimate stems from costs associated with 917 deaths, 20,568 hospitalizations and 17,857 emergency room visits, researchers said in the study published in the journal GeoHealth.

Among the costs connected to “climate-sensitive events” in 2012, researchers pointed to:

  • $252 million in Wisconsin: A heatwave led to several record temperatures were broken over the span of a week in July 2012. Researchers analyzed costs from an estimated 27 deaths, 155 hospitalizations and 1,620 emergency room visits that summer.
  • $1.6 billion in Colorado and $2.3 billion in Washington: Longer fire seasons in the western U.S. have resulted from higher temperatures and changes in seasonal rainfall patterns. Researchers examined costs from direct wildfire deaths and impacts attributed to wildfire smoke in 2012. There were 174 deaths, 256 hospitalizations and 1,432 emergency room visits in Colorado and 245 deaths, 371 hospitalizations and 1,897 emergency room visits in Washington.
  • $3.1 billion in New Jersey and New York: Hurricane Sandy caused severe flooding and power outages for more than 20 million customers. Sea level rise is believed to have amplified the storm surge. Researchers estimate there were 273 hurricane-related deaths, 6,602 hospitalizations and 4,673 emergency room visits.

Researchers said mortality costs were estimated using a mortality risk valuation implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in regulatory impact analyses, with each life lost valued at $9.1 million in 2018 dollars. They also factored direct morbidity costs for each event using hospital admissions and emergency department visits from the federal Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project data well as costs associated with outpatient visits, home health care costs and prescribed drugs from the federal Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.

They acknowledged several limitations of the study. For instance, they said, “despite record-setting weather conditions across the U.S. in 2012, our analysis was restricted to case studies for which there was adequate documentation of health impacts,” they said.

They only included mental health impacts from Hurricane Sandy despite evidence that other events like wildfires can also adversely impact mental health. They also said extreme heat and Lyme disease are routinely underreported health effects that could result in conservative estimates.

“As such, the $10 billion total we calculated is likely a conservative estimate of health-related costs for these studies,” researchers said in this study.

Still, these costs are not just theoretical, but tangible costs that should be factored into the policy conversation, said Wendy Max, co-director of the Institute for Health & Aging at UCSF.

“We wanted to look at who bears this cost and we found two-thirds of the cost are borne by the Medicaid and Medicare programs,” Max said. “In an era of concern about healthcare costs, this is an important message: Climate change is adding to the public healthcare cost burden. That’s a message we’re hoping will resonate with policymakers.”

 

 

 

Report: 3 in 4 hospital markets are now ‘highly concentrated’

Posted on by • Posted in American Hospital Association (AHA), Antitrust, Harvard Global Health Institute, Health Policy, Health System, Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, High Deductible Health Plans, High Premiums, High Prices, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Out of Pocket Expenses, Out-of-Network, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Urban Institute • Leave a comment

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals-health-systems/report-three-four-hospital-markets-are-now-highly-concentrated?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT1dJNE5tUTFZV0k1TVdRNCIsInQiOiJMakFtS1IzZmxaRDlQNUtjdFdMUHVYUFdBd1wvXC9EZFR3ekhHU3ZsYVNib2t3bTlEb0Z2bklLZndEZXFOTjZ1RVZ0bURYMXI5dGFNcW92SXFYV25HTVh4d01tNEY4YkVCUnBMamhpbllXSytVTW5ybGJ1OTh0UjJmVDRmSWJ6c1wveCJ9&mrkid=959610

Photo of two men shaking hands in front of a hospital

Nearly 3 in 4 hospital markets around the U.S. are “highly concentrated,” according to a new Healthy Marketplace Index report by the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI).

Researchers examined more than 4 million commercial inpatient hospital claims between 2012 and 2016 and found 81 out of 112 (72%) were considered “highly concentrated” using the Department of Justice’s Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). That’s up from 67% in 2012. 

“Increasingly concentrated hospital markets have been linked to the rising cost of hospital care by nearly every expert in the field,” said Niall Brennan, president and CEO of HCCI, in a statement.

Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the report found:

  • 69% of markets studied experienced an increase in concentration.
  • Metro areas with smaller populations tended to have higher concentration levels. For instance, Springfield, Missouri; Peoria, Illinois; Cape Coral, Florida; and both Durham and Greensboro, North Carolina, had the most concentrated markets in the U.S.
  • Larger metropolitan areas including New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago had the lowest levels of concentration.
  • Some of the less concentrated metros in 2012 like Trenton, New Jersey, experienced larger increases in concentration over time.

“Our findings add to the growing consensus that most localities have highly concentrated hospital markets, and this is becoming increasingly true over time,” Bill Johnson, Ph.D., a senior researcher at HCCI and an author of the report, said in a statement. “The increased concentration we observed can be driven by many factors such as hospital closures, mergers, and acquisitions, changes in hospital capacity, patient preference, or changes in patients’ insurance networks.”

Previous, HCCI reports found inpatient hospital prices were rising in nearly every metro area studied. This new study found a positive relationship—but not a causal relationship—between price increases and increases in hospital market concentration. Those findings align with similar findings correlating consolidation with rising healthcare prices including from the Harvard Global Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Urban Institute.

However, the American Hospital Association recently released its defense of consolidation in a report that argues mergers can improve costs by increasing scale, improving care coordination, reducing capital costs and improving clinical standardization.

 

 

 

Judge strikes down Trump administration’s site-neutral payments rule

Posted on by • Posted in American Hospital Association (AHA), Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), District Court, District Court of Appeals, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital Industry, Medicare, Medicare Part B, Medicare Rate Setting, Rev Cycle Management • Leave a comment

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals-health-systems/judge-strikes-down-trump-administration-s-site-neutral-payments-rule?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT1dJNE5tUTFZV0k1TVdRNCIsInQiOiJMakFtS1IzZmxaRDlQNUtjdFdMUHVYUFdBd1wvXC9EZFR3ekhHU3ZsYVNib2t3bTlEb0Z2bklLZndEZXFOTjZ1RVZ0bURYMXI5dGFNcW92SXFYV25HTVh4d01tNEY4YkVCUnBMamhpbllXSytVTW5ybGJ1OTh0UjJmVDRmSWJ6c1wveCJ9&mrkid=959610

Gavel court room lawsuit judge

In a huge win for hospitals, a federal judge has tossed the Trump administration’s rule instituting site-neutral payments.

District of Columbia Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled Tuesday that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) overstepped its authority when it finalized a plan to extend a site-neutral payment policy to clinic visits with the goal of paying the same in Medicare for evaluation and management services at physician offices and hospitals.

Hospital groups immediately rebelled against the plan. Within hours of the rule’s finalization in November, the American Hospital Association (AHA) vowed to challenge the change, as it would cut payment rates to hospitals significantly. AHA and the Association of American Medical Colleges formally did so about a month later.

CMS argues that the payment change would save Medicare beneficiaries $150 million per year, lowering average copays from $23 to $9. Those savings, however, are coupled with significant payment cuts to hospitals; the AHA estimated losses of $380 million in 2019 and $760 million in 2020.

In her order, Collyer said that the rule did not meet the standard of a method to control unneeded hospital use, as CMS argued in court filings.

“CMS believes it is paying millions of taxpayer dollars for patient services in hospital outpatient departments that could be provided at less expense in physician offices. CMS may be correct,” the judge wrote. “But CMS was not authorized to ignore the statutory process for setting payment rates in the Outpatient Prospective Payment System and to lower payments only for certain services performed by certain providers.”

Collyner did not require CMS to pay funds lost under policy change so far this year and instead requested a status report by Oct.1 from both parties to determine whether additional briefings are required to decide a suitable resolution.

In a statement, the AHA and AAMC praised the judge’s decision.

“The ruling, which will allow hospitals to maintain access to important services for patients and communities, affirmed that the cuts directly undercut the clear intent of Congress to protect hospital outpatient departments because of the many real and crucial differences between them and other sites of care,” the hospital groups said. “Now that the court has ruled, it is up to the agency to put forth remedies for impacted hospitals and the patients they serve.”

 

 

 

Texas docs, pharmacists charged in alleged opioid pill mill scheme

Posted on by • Posted in Compliance Issues, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), Dept of Justice (DOJ), Fraud, Health System, Hospital, Kickbacks, Medicaid Fraud, Medicare Fraud, Opioid Epidemic, Rev Cycle Management • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/texas-docs-pharmacists-charged-in-alleged-opioid-pill-mill-scheme/563270/

Dive Brief:

  • The U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday it charged 58 people in Texas in connection with their alleged roles in various schemes to defraud government health programs, including distributing and dispensing medically unnecessary opioids, billing Medicaid for non-emergency ambulance services that were never actually provided and paying kickbacks and laundering money through durable medical equipment companies.
  • The allegations involved multiple programs including Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, the Department of Labor-Office of Worker’s Compensation programs as well as private insurance companies.
  • Separately, DOJ brought charges against a total of 34 people for their alleged participation in Medicare and Medicaid fraud schemes in other states, including California, Arizona and Oregon. Seventeen of the people charged in those schemes were doctors or licensed medical professionals.

Dive Insight:

Created in 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force​ has units operating in 23 districts, and has charged nearly 4,000 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $14 billion. It’s a joint effort between DOJ and HHS to deter healthcare fraud.

According to the most recent statistics, from January, the strike force has brought 2,117 criminal actions, secured 2,754 indictments and recovered $3.3 billion in connection with its investigations.

HHS declared the opioid crisis a national emergency in 2017. And the DOJ is increasingly focusing on fraud related to opioids, including going after medical professionals allegedly involved in the unlawful distribution of opioids and other prescription narcotics.

“Sadly, opioid proliferation is nothing new to Americans,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick of the Southern District of Texas said in a statement announcing the charges. “What is new is the reinforced fight being taken to dirty doctors and shady pharmacists,” he said.

The coordinated healthcare fraud enforcement operation across Texas resulted in charges involving networks of “pill mill” clinics that led to $66 million in losses and the distribution of 6.2 million pills, the government said. Sixteen doctors and pharmacists were among those charged.

And that’s on top of last month, when the Health Care Fraud Unit’s Houston Strike Force charged dozens of people in a trafficking network that diverted more than 23 million oxycodone, hydrocodone and carisoprodol pills.

The Texas actions also involved healthcare fraud other than opioid diversion, including fraudulent physician orders for durable medical equipment, fraudulent claims for ambulance services and stealing protected healthcare information.

The separate actions in California, Arizona and Oregon involved schemes that ran the gamut from billing for medically unnecessary compounded drugs, unnecessary cardiac treatments and testing, billing for chiropractic services never provided and a hospice kickback scheme.