Tag Archives: Health Policy

A review of health care costs: deck chairs and the Titanic, part 2

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https://stateofreform.com/news/federal/2019/02/breaking-down-health-cares-cost-dilemma-part-ii/

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This article is Part II of a two-part series on the cost of health care and its component parts. Part I explores the recent growth of health care costs in the United States as well as the utilization inputs in the cost equation. Part II breaks down the pricing component of cost, determined by market leverage and the cost of delivering services. 

The Titanic

This brings us to the second category of costs: the Titanic. Or, to use our equation here of THC = U x P, the Titanic I’m talking about is the pricing component of cost.

In other words, health care leaders should do everything they can to make sure that utilization is the right care at the right time in the right setting. This makes a meaningful difference in the quality of our health care system.

But, if we focus on health care utilization alone, the health care system is still going to sink under the weight of costs. Our efforts will still be deck chairs on the Titanic.

To keep our ship afloat, we have to address the pricing input of our cost equation.

Like our cost equation above, pricing also has a simple equation of two inputs that determine price. According to a seminal study out of Massachusetts, which has been reaffirmed in additional studies (and by the experience of many network relations vice presidents across America’s health plans), this equation is straightforward.

Pricing is determined by a combination of market leverage (ML) and service delivery costs (SDC), where market leverage is 75 percent of the pricing structure and the cost of delivering the service is 25 percent.

This is true for either the plan or the provider, depending on where market leverage exists. This equation looks like this: P = ML(.75) + SDC(.25).

If we put this together, the math equation would look like this: THC = U x (ML(.75) + SDC(.25)).

Here’s how the study put it:

Price variations are correlated to market leverage as measured by the relative market position of the hospital or provider group compared with other hospitals or provider groups within a geographic region or within a group of academic medical centers. 

While addressing the utilization component of the cost-growth problem is essential, any successful reform initiative must take into account the significant role of unit price in driving costs. Bending the cost curve will require tackling the growth in price and the market dynamics that perpetuate price inflation and lead to irrational price disparities.

But here is what the numbers say: between 2004 and 2017, adjusting for age and sex factors, 68 percent of the growth in overall national health care expenditures came from increases in medical prices. Only 32 percent of growth came from utilization of services.

In other words, pricing is more than twice as important as utilization in the growth of health care costs – costs that are increasing more rapidly than ever.

 

 

Put graphically, while we have two inputs into total health care costs or expenditures, it’s incorrect to think of them as weighted equally, as demonstrated in image 1 above. It’s more accurate to think of these two pieces weighted as shown in image 2. And, if we are honest about the role of market leverage in health care pricing, market leverage alone is more than half of the overall problem in health care costs – more than all of the service delivery costs and utilization combined.

 

Keeping the Titanic afloat

Let’s restate the challenge we face here in our trans-Atlantic metaphor. Cost is the biggest problem in health care today. Those costs are made up by pricing and utilization, where pricing is more than twice as impactful in cost growth as utilization, and where market leverage is three times more impactful to pricing than are service delivery costs.

In order to keep our health care system afloat, we must address costs. And to address costs, we must address pricing.  And to address pricing, we must address market leverage.

If we move every deck chair around, but fail to address the cost consequences of market leverage, our ship will sink.

In our capitalist economy, we view consolidated market leverage as a market failure. It’s why we have antitrust statutes and an active regulatory regime to manage and push back against consolidation. Where the market failure is in the area of a public good, the American political system has often regulated those consolidated markets like public utilities or quasi-public entities.

Think of energy and Enron, of railroads and BNSF, of telephones and Ma Bell.

As health care nears 20 percent of the US economy, and where even urban states like California suffer from a “staggering” concentration of market leverage among health care providers, the lesson for health care policymakers and senior health care executives is this: If you want to get your hands around cost, you’re going to have to address market leverage to do that. Everything else is just deck chairs.

 

 

A review of health care costs: deck chairs and the Titanic, part 1

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https://stateofreform.com/news/federal/2019/02/deck-chairs-and-the-titanic-part1/?utm_source=State+of+Reform&utm_campaign=ccf3275364-5+Things+CA+July+2_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_37897a186e-ccf3275364-272256165

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This article is Part I of a two-part series on the cost of health care and its component parts. Part I explores the recent growth of health care costs in the United States as well as the utilization inputs in the cost equation.

Part II will break down the pricing component of cost, determined by market leverage and the cost of delivering services. 

 

If you ask policymakers, industry leaders, and health care consumers, many will tell you that their number one concern with health care today is the cost.

For the most part, as a society we’ve moved past the days when access or quality were of primary concern to stakeholders. I would wager it’s not because those issues aren’t important.  Everyone knows we have wild challenges still with access and quality.

Rather, the acuity of the cost problem has risen so much, so quickly, that cost as an issue overshadows everything else.

This is a big topic, but it’s not really that hard to understand. Health care costs are actually a simple story.

There are only two categories of health care costs in America today. There are the deck chairs, and there is the Titanic.

Context matters, so let’s start there

Here’s one data point, but it’s largely the same point everywhere you look in health care.

These are average annual premiums for single and family coverage in the employer-based market. Those costs have doubled in the last 14 years, reflecting an average annual growth rate of roughly 5 percent since 2004.

 

 

Here’s another data point. According to CMS in an article in Health Affairs, “health care spending growth averaged 4.3 percent per year during 2008–17, compared to an average annual rate of 7.3 percent over the 1998–2007 period.” That might seem like costs are slowing, but it’s not the whole story.

Remember the “Great Recession?” It was the period of time when the economy almost fell apart. So, measuring health care spending growth should be done within some context of the overall economy.

For this, we can use a standard inflation calculator of the overall economy to compare its growth to the growth of health care costs. When viewed this way, health care inflation grew at a multiple of 2.7x the broader economy’s inflation rate between 1998-2007 and a multiple of 3.0x during 2008-2017.

So, not only are costs high in health care today, but they are growing faster than ever compared to overall inflation in the US economy.

 

Moving around the Titanic’s deck chairs

Let’s explore this metaphor a bit.

The Titanic is a big ship with a big deck. And so there are lots and lots of deck chairs to move around. And moving them around can cause authentic improvement to the quality of the experience.

A view out over the bow at a setting sun is a much better view than the one provided by a chair facing the steam funnel. Sometimes, chairs facing other chairs can foster comity and community through conversation. Sometimes, having alone time to ponder the stars in the night sky from the ship deck is nice.

How the chairs are deployed has a meaningful impact on the user’s experience of sailing on the Titanic.

I run with this analogy because there are a lot of things we do in health care today that meaningfully improve the experience, outcome and cost of health care.

You can probably name 10 such efforts without blinking an eye: improved care coordination, tele-health, community health workers, shared risk payment methods, integration of behavioral health, access to oral health, strong vaccination standards, online forums for shared patient experiences, good bedside manners, etc., etc.

All of these initiatives, as well as others, improve care and the user experience. They all can address cost in various ways, too. They can reduce hospital utilization, allow patients to access care remotely, reduce re-admissions or complications from drug interactions. There is a lot to like here that is meaningful and worth our time as a society to implement.

Put differently, in the cost equation where total health care cost equals utilization times prices (THC = U x P), I would categorize these initiatives as part of the utilization input of the cost equation. All of these initiatives address how we access and use health care in our system today.

But, at the end of the day, these are deck chairs.

 

 

The Public On Next Steps For The ACA And Proposals To Expand Coverage

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https://www.kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kff-health-tracking-poll-january-2019/

Key Findings:

  • Half of the public disapproves of the recent decision in Texas v. United States, in which a federal judge ruled that the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional and should not be in effect. While the judge’s ruling is broader than eliminating the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions, this particular issue continues to resonate with the public. Continuing the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions ranks among the public’s top health care priorities for the new Congress, along with lowering prescription drug costs.
  • This month’s KFF Health Tracking Poll continues to find majority support (driven by Democrats and independents) for the federal government doing more to help provide health insurance for more Americans. One way for lawmakers to expand coverage is by broadening the role of public programs. Nearly six in ten (56 percent) favor a national Medicare-for-all plan, but overall net favorability towards such a plan ranges as high as +45 and as low as -44 after people hear common arguments about this proposal.
  • Larger majorities of the public favor more incremental changes to the health care system such as a Medicare buy-in plan for adults between the ages of 50 and 64 (77 percent), a Medicaid buy-in plan for individuals who don’t receive health coverage through their employer (75 percent), and an optional program similar to Medicare for those who want it (74 percent). Both the Medicare buy-in plan and Medicaid buy-in plan also garner majority support from Republicans (69 percent and 64 percent­).
  • Moving forward, half of Democrats would rather see the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives focus their efforts on improving and protecting the ACA (51 percent), while about four in ten want them to focus on passing a national Medicare-for-all plan (38 percent).

 

Health care spending is more than just the parts you see

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https://www.axios.com/understanding-health-care-spending-46e21c47-79ee-474b-80ff-778a705cdcae.html

Illustration of a red cross spinning to reveal money

People focus on the health costs that are most tangible and sometimes outrageous to them: their deductibles, and drug costs, and surprise medical bills, and the annual increase in the share of the premium they pay. But there’s more that gets less attention because it’s not as visible to them.

Why it matters: To really understand how Medicare for All or any other big change in health care financing would affect them, people need to understand how they would impact their overall family health budgets. Few people think about the other health costs they pay: their taxes to support health care, or what their employers are paying towards premiums (which is depressing their wages).

Between the lines: Consider this hypothetical example of a total family health “budget”:

  • The Browns, a family of four with at least one member in poor health and a $50,000 income, have standard employer coverage much like 156 million other Americans. They spend $9,250 per year (19% of their income) on health.
  • This includes $3,950 (8% of their income) in out-of-pocket health spending, $3,900 (8% of their income) in health insurance premiums, and, although they are almost certainly not aware of it, approximately $1,400 (3% of their income) in state and federal taxes that fund health programs.
  • The Browns are not taxed on the contributions their employer makes toward health insurance premiums, which economists generally say offset wages. Their employer is contributing an additional $13,050 to their health insurance premiums, as well as $750 in Medicare payroll taxes.
  • When combined, the Brown’s spending on health care and the money spent by their employer on their behalf totals a considerable $23,050. And remember, they make $50,000.

A few ideas that could help people learn more about their health total care spending and how reform proposals might affect their health spending:

  • The IRS and states could include a simple pie chart on everyone’s tax forms, showing taxpayers where their tax dollars go today.
  • Along with estimating the impact of health reform legislation on the federal budget, or the number of uninsured, the CBO could estimate its impact on typical family budgets, taking into account all of the forms of health spending families have today. Organizations like ours could do this as well.

What to watch: This could be particularly important when analyzing Medicare for All proposals, since they would so significantly alter the financing of health care by shifting it from premiums and out-of-pocket costs to taxes.

  • A Medicare for All plan would likely reduce what the nation spends on health care by lowering payment rates to providers and creating administrative efficiencies. The average family would likely pay less, but how much is hard to say without more details.
  • However, by changing the financing so significantly, there would likely be both winners and losers. Low-income people and sick people might pay less, and higher-income people and those who are healthy could pay more.

The bottom line: We can only get a clear picture of how family finances would be affected by Medicare for All, or any other significant overhaul of the health care system, by looking at the totality of what they pay now.

 

 

A Billion Dollars Won’t Make You Happy, but This Will

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https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/bill-gates-a-billion-dollars-wont-make-you-happy-but-this-will.html?cid=nl029week09day26_3&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Inc%20Must%20Reads&position=1&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=26022019

Gates just opened up about his happiness and what he believes holds many people back from peace of mind.

Yesterday, on his seventh Reddit AMA (that’s “Ask Me Anything,” for the uninitiated), Bill Gates took on a simple but profound question: “Are you happy?” You might think the answer is obvious. The man is a billionaire, after all. Why wouldn’t a phenomenally rich guy like Gates be happy?

And indeed, the Microsoft founder answered with a resounding, “Yes!”

But even as Gates celebrated his own contentment, he also made a point of explaining that it isn’t his billions that make him happy. Instead, it’s something much simpler that, unfortunately, is increasingly out of reach for many Americans.

Gates and science agree: Not worrying about money makes you happier

When another Reddit user asked Gates, “Do you think being a billionaire has made you a happier person than if you were just a middle class person?” he offered a forthright “Yes.”

But it isn’t the trampoline room in his house or the fact he frequently flies via private jet that makes the difference. Instead, it’s the freedom to not stress about money. “I don’t have to think about health costs or college costs. Being free from worry about financial things is a real blessing. Of course, you don’t need a billion to get to that point,” he explains.

Gates reads a lot of research so he’s no doubt aware that science is on his side on this point. Study after study shows that making more will increase your happiness about up to the point where you can stop worrying about covering essentials and absorb the shocks and setbacks life inevitably throws your way. After that, having strong relationships and more time are greater predictors of well being.

The trouble with Gates’s happiness advice

So far, Gates’s thoughts on money and happiness seem sensible and straightforward. But there’s one big complication when it comes to the relationship between finances and well being. As Gates acknowledges, getting to that magic point where you can stop worrying about money and cover basics like college and health care is becoming harder and harder for most Americans.

“We do need to reduce the cost growth in these areas so they are accessible to everyone,” he adds in his answer.

Later, he elaborates on the problem of health care costs in America. When a Redditor asks, “Is there something that is incredibly important in your opinion that hasn’t garnered as much interest generally as it should have?” he replies: “In the US I would say getting bipartisan consensus on how to reduce health care costs is a critical issue that doesn’t get enough focus.”

The numbers (as usual) bear him out. The average cost of health insurance, adjusted for inflation, has increased ninefold since the 1960s. Total spending on health care rose from $74.6 billion in 1970 to $3.5 trillion in 2017. Meanwhile, the cost of an undergraduate degree at a public school rose 213 percent just from the late ’80s.

These statistics put a grim spin on Gates’s answer. Sure, you don’t need a billion dollars to be happy. You don’t even need a million dollars. (And no, don’t write me enraged tweets–no one, including Gates, who also writes about his joy in his kids, is saying money is everything when it comes to happiness.) But it is super helpful not to worry that, if your child gets sick, you won’t be able to afford her medicine. And that sadly, is too high a bar for many Americans.

What’s to be done about this? Unfortunately, this isn’t one of those columns where I can offer you an easy takeaway, except maybe to call your congresspeople and express outrage about the situation. Because Gates and a ton of research are right: In America, it’s getting a lot harder to reach the point where money isn’t a drag on happiness.

 

Insurers don’t pay full price for medicines, why do you?

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https://www.letstalkaboutcost.org/

Image result for health insurance drug discounts

A new study found net prices for medicines grew just 1.5% last year. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel that way for you. Forty percent of a medicine’s list price is given as a rebate or discount to the government and middlemen, like insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).

These rebates and discounts exceed $150 billion annually, but insurers don’t always share these savings with you.

Visit LetsTalkAboutCost.org to find out more.

 

 

UPMC fires back at state AG, seeks to join BCBS antitrust lawsuit

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https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/upmc-fires-back-at-state-ag-seeks-to-join-bcbs-antitrust-lawsuit/548993/

Image result for upmc building

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center filed a counter lawsuit on Thursday against the Pennsylvania attorney general, who is seeking to force the healthcare giant into contracting with rival Highmark. The system is also seeking to insert itself in a broader lawsuit over the ways Blues operate.

The flurry of filings taps into big questions over payer competition and underscores tensions seen throughout the country between insurance companies and providers as they negotiate contracts, particularly in highly concentrated markets. States have stepped up their enforcement of consumer protections against rising healthcare costs — but UPMC is saying its regulators have greatly overstepped their bounds. 

Earlier this month, Shapiro alleged Pittsburgh’s dominant medical provider wasn’t living up to its charitable mission as a nonprofit, accusing the health system of “forsaking its charitable obligations” in exchange for “corporate greed.”

The legal duel stems from a contract dispute between UPMC and its rival Highmark. Until June 30, the two have a legal agreement protecting consumer access to the other’s network through a consent decree. UPMC refuses to modify the decree and contract with Highmark, which risks in-network access to UPMC hospitals for Highmark members.

In response to the attorney general’s initial complaint, UPMC alleges that Shapiro’s attempt to renew and modify an expiring agreement between the Pittsburgh health system and Highmark is “unprecedented and unwarranted.”  The modification would, among other things, remove the majority of UPMC’s board of directors and force the integrated system to contract with any payer. 

The state AG responded on Friday, accusing UPMC of ignoring its mission and noting it would not be intimated by the healthcare behemoth.

“With their filings today, UPMC has shown they intend to spend countless hours and untold resources on a legal battle instead of focusing on their stated mission as a non-profit charity — promoting the public interest and providing patient access to affordable health care,” said Attorney General’s Office spokesman Joe Grace.

In its notice to the AG, UPMC lays out five examples it calls frivolous enough to get Shapiro’s motion dismissed — including previous testimony delivered by Deputy Attorney General Jim Donahue in 2014, when he told state representatives there is “no statutory basis” to make the two companies contract with each other without setting a dangerous economic precedent.

“If we force the resolution in this case, we really could not avoid trying to force a similar resolution in all those other situations, and that is simply and unworkable method of dealing with these problems,” Donahue said at the time. “We’d be putting our finger on the scale, so to speak … and we’re not sure what those effects would be.”

One effect is a class action lawsuit, which UPMC filed separately Thursday. It alleges Shapiro has violated at least four federal laws: Medicare Advantage statutes protecting competition, the Affordable Care Act’s nonprofit payer regulations and the Sherman Act and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

“Purporting to act in his official capacity, General Shapiro has illegally taken over nonprofit healthcare in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” UPMC’s class action states. “Without rulemaking, legislation or public comment, General Shapiro has announced new ‘principles’ that radically (and often in direct contravention of existing federal and state law) change how nonprofit health insurers and providers operate, now rendering the Attorney General the arbiter of how nonprofit health organizations should envision and achieve their mission.”

UPMC says Blues system bad for business

Separate from its battle with the state attorney general, UPMC is attempting to jump in the middle of a legal antitrust battle over how Blue Cross Blue Shield plans operate. UPMC is seeking both a preliminary injunction and a motion to intervene in the years-long federal case in Alabama.

UPMC is asking the Alabama court to stop the Blues plans from enforcing their own market allocation agreements that prevent UPMC from contracting with other Blues plans, according to the filing. UPMC says a significant chunk of its patients have a Blue Cross Blue Shield plan from a different provider other than Highmark.

Joe Whatley, co-lead counsel for provider plaintiffs in the Alabama case, told Healthcare Dive UPMC “presents a good example of how the Blues are abusing their illegal agreement for their benefit and to harm healthcare providers throughout the country.”

UPMC argues that it would contract with other Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, separate from Highmark, but cannot due to the way Blues operate — or limit how they compete with one another. BCBS plans tend to stake out their own geographic areas and avoid competition with one another, a practice the Alabama court has already found is in violation of antitrust laws. A BCBS appeal to the Alabama judge’s opinion was already struck down by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late last year.

UPMC is asking the Alabama court for an injunction, or to step in and stop the Blues plans from enforcing or complying with their own market allocation agreements that are preventing UPMC from contracting with other Blues plans, according to the filing. And because the hometown plan, Highmark, does not have a contract with UPMC after June 30, it means that other Blues plan members that have enjoyed in-network access to UPMC will soon lose access after the consent decree expires.

About 24% of UPMC’s hospital patients have a Blue Cross Blue Shield plan other than Highmark.

UPMC contends that it has tried to contract with other Blues but was turned down. “The average non-Highmark Blues patient does not know that UPMC has offered contracts to each of these plans and been turned down because the Blues’ illegal market allocation prevents them entering into such an agreement with UPMC,” according to the filing.

Without an injunction, UPMC alleges it will suffer irreparable harm to its reputation and will lose a significant number of patients who have a non-Highmark Blues plans.

The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office has not responded to Healthcare Dive’s request for comment and UPMC declined to discuss the case further.

 

 

 

 

Coping with Serious Illness in America

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http://features.commonwealthfund.org/coping-with-serious-illness-in-america

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Relying on Family and Friends

The luckiest among us have family and friends to lean on when times get tough. For those who develop a serious illness — an often painful and tumultuous experience — family and friends offer crucial emotional support and help with day-to-day activities. A recent survey of the sickest adults in America, conducted by the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, the New York Times, and the Commonwealth Fund, found that seriously ill adults also rely on their family and friends to organize their health care, helping them navigate an often complex, confusing, and inefficient system.

Focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted by the Commonwealth Fund since 2016 revealed that while taking care of a seriously ill family member or friend can bring meaning and satisfaction to caregivers, it also can become a complex and serious responsibility that burdens them.

Below we describe the many functions caregivers — defined as family and friends who provide care to the seriously ill — serve, as well as the financial, physical, and emotional challenges they face. We offer policy solutions, such as financial protections, employment flexibility, and training to prepare an “invisible workforce” for this deeply meaningful but sometimes overwhelming role.

Any one of us could find ourselves in the role of caregiver if we haven’t already. And our country and economy are likely to benefit when we help ensure caregivers are able to maintain their mental and physical health and stay in the workforce.

Learn more about the Health Care in America: The Experience of People with Serious Illness survey, including methodology and additional findings.

Many Caregivers Say They “Do Everything” for a Family Member or Friend with Serious Illness

Approximately 40 million Americans provide 37 billion hours of care and help each year to family members and friends. Most of the people with serious illness we surveyed (86%) reported that in recent years family and friends helped them deal with their medical or health condition at home.

Illness can make the simple activities of daily living, like cooking, cleaning, and bathing, nearly impossible, especially without assistance. Caregivers reported that helping with these routine tasks can become a huge commitment, and that the demand for care can escalate unexpectedly. “It started out as doing his laundry, getting groceries, but [my uncle’s] problems continued to get worse,” one caregiver explained. “There was really no other family in the area and now basically I do everything for him. I take him to his appointments. I cook his meals. When I leave him it almost feels like I’m leaving a child alone. It’s very scary.”

Even when a nurse or aide provides in-home help to the sick family member or friend, caregivers still need to organize the logistics of care, from scheduling doctors’ visits to taking time off work to provide transportation to the appointments and participate in the visits. Among people with serious illness we surveyed, more than half (55%) reported bringing a family member or friend to every medical appointment they had in recent years.

Our survey respondents also reported that they often relied on their family or friends who were health professionals (34%) for health care advice. These caregivers take on a number of important responsibilities for family members and friends with serious illness, such as helping to find qualified doctors, talking directly to the supervising clinician, and arranging appointments.

The Benefits and Tolls of Caregiving

People who care for a seriously ill family member or friend can benefit psychologically, emotionally, and socially from the experience. Previous studies have found caregiving increases self-confidence, makes caregivers feel closer to their ill family member or friend, and gives them the peace of mind that their family member or friend is well cared for. A daughter who cared for her mother with cancer described the fulfillment it brought her: “It meant a lot that I was able to be there for the person that was always there for me — who raised me and sacrificed for me.”

Despite the fulfillment caregiving can bring, it also can be incredibly burdensome and disruptive. The seriously ill adults we surveyed worry about the challenges their caregivers face. One seriously ill adult we spoke with said the following about her children: “Not only for my sake, but for the sake of my kids and my grandkids, I hope they are able to enjoy their later years and not worry about having to take care of me. I know they’d be glad to do it, but it has an impact on their lives, both short and long term.”

One-third (36%) of the seriously ill we surveyed reported that caregiving created problems for their family member or friend. These include emotional, physical, and financial strains.

Emotional strain

About one in three (31%) seriously ill adults in our survey reported their caregivers experienced emotional stress from caring for them. This is consistent with other studies that find caregivers experience significantly more stress than noncaregivers and have mental health issues like depression at twice the national rate. Caregivers who lack support from friends and family themselves are particularly affected by mental health issues and emotional strain.

Physical health issues

A quarter (25%) of the seriously ill adults we surveyed reported that their family or friend caregiver experienced physical strain from having to bathe, dress, and even lift them, to name a few issues. Other studies have shown just how powerful the physical toll of caregiving can be. Caregivers, compared to noncaregivers, are twice as likely to report chronic conditions like heart disease or diabetes, are more likely to view their health as fair or poor, and are even more likely to die. These physical consequences seem to be in part because of caregivers having limited time and resources to spend on their own health. They also may engage in unhealthy behaviors like drinking, eating poorly, and postponing their own doctors’ visits.

Financial problems

Nearly one in four (23%) seriously ill adults reported their caregiver experienced financial problems because of caregiving. Moreover, more than half (57%) of the seriously ill adults we surveyed said the costs of their medical care were a direct burden to their family. As seriously ill adults themselves face financial strain because of their condition, family members and friends may be left to pick up unpaid medical bills. Beyond paying directly for medical care, a study by AARP found that family caregivers spend on average close to $7,000 a year taking care of their family member, or about 20 percent of their annual income.

Employment disruption

Compounding the financial burden, caregiving can get in the way of work; 15 percent of the seriously ill we surveyed said their caregivers lost or had to change jobs because of their caregiving responsibilities. A recent study found that nearly half of working caregivers said caregiving interfered with their job, and another 40 percent of those who were not working at the time of the study had quit their jobs or retired early because of caregiving. As one caregiver from our focus groups said, “My mother with Alzheimer’s lives with me. I manage all her affairs. I pretty much shut my life down to stop working and take care of her.” This need to drop out of the workforce is particularly concerning because the primary protection for working caregivers, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), offers only three months of unpaid leave. Moreover, it means the U.S. has fewer productive workers than it would if services were in place to support caregivers.

Support for “The Invisible Workforce”

There are several ways in which we as a nation could support this “invisible workforce” of caregivers — a group unseen, yet critical to the provision of care.

  • Education, training, and mental health support.Education and training on effective caregiving could help to improve both caregiver and patient outcomes. A recent study found that reviewing how to take care of their family member or friend before discharge from an inpatient hospital stay lowered the cost of postdischarge care and reduced readmissions. In addition, mental health support from behavioral health providers and others could offset the emotional and physical challenges caregivers experience. For example, a managed care plan in New Jersey, Amerigroup, hosts caregiver events where they provide educational workshops on illnesses and offer relaxation exercises to help caregivers cope.
  • Redesign health care for the seriously ill to make it less burdensome for patients and caregivers. Expanding the availability and affordability of respite care — which gives caregivers a temporary break — along with home care services, transportation, and care coordinators, would mean less responsibility for family and friends. AmeriHealth Caritas, for example, covers additional respite care beyond the state minimum to improve quality of life for enrollees and tackle caregiver burnout.
  • Financial support. Policies requiring paid leave for those working and taking care of sick family could protect them from some financial consequences and help keep them in the workforce longer term. In addition, federal and state policymakers could offer tax benefits, provide direct compensation, or allow family and friend caregivers to claim Social Security benefits for the time they spend caring for the seriously ill to offset financial costs. Lastly, payers can directly compensate caregivers for their time. For example, Medicaid long-term-care plans offer payment to caregivers for direct care, but the specific benefits and criteria vary from state to state. Paying informal caregivers could even save the health care system money long term by preventing more costly care later on.

Caregiving in America is not easy for the friends and family who provide this undervalued, unpaid, and even unrecognized service for both the person with serious illness and our society. To keep family and friend caregivers healthy and in the workforce, health systems, payers, and policymakers could expand training, increase insurance coverage for home-based services, and implement policies to financially protect caregivers.

 

 

Analysis Shows One-in-Five U.S. Rural Hospitals at High Risk of Closing Unless Financial Situation Improves

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https://www.navigant.com/news/corporate-news/2019/rural-hospitals-analysis

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/1-in-5-rural-hospitals-at-high-risk-of-closing-analysis-finds.html?origin=cioe&utm_source=cioe

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Twenty-one percent of U.S. rural hospitals are at high risk of closing unless their finances improve, according to an analysis from management consultancy firm Navigant.

The study also found 64 percent, or 277, of high financial risk rural hospitals are considered essential to their communities.

The analysis — which examined the financial viability (operating margin, days cash on hand and debt-to-capitalization ratio) and community essentiality of more than 2,000 of the nation’s rural hospitals — suggests 21 percent or 430 rural hospitals in 43 states are at high risk of closing. These hospitals represent 21,547 staffed beds, 707,000 annual discharges, 150,000 employees and $21.2 billion total patient revenue, according to Navigant.

Of the 43 states, 34 have five or more rural hospitals at risk. 

Navigant cited payer mix degradation; declining inpatient care driving excess capacity; and inability to leverage innovation as factors putting the hospitals at risk. Medicare payment reductions, the age of many rural facilities and a lack of capital to invest in updated, innovative technology were specifically cited.

“While the potential for a rural hospital crisis has been known for years, this predictive data sheds light on just how dire the situation could become,” the study authors concluded. “Now, by being able to accurately assess the economic health of all rural hospitals in America, there is no choice but to pay attention. Local, state and federal political leaders, as well as hospital administrators, must act to protect the well-being of rural hospitals nationwide and the communities they serve.”

Read more about the analysis here. 

 

Asking the wrong question about physician consolidation

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https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077558719828938?utm_source=The+Weekly+Gist&utm_campaign=41103e2ef1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_02_14_09_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_edba0bcee7-41103e2ef1-41271793&

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A paper out this week from Rice University healthcare economist Vivian Ho is the latest analysis to posit that vertical integration of doctors and hospitals does little to improve care quality. Researchers evaluated 29 primarily hospital-focused quality and patient satisfaction measures and found that higher levels of vertical integration were associated with improved performance on just a small number of metrics—and increased market concentration was associated with lower scores on all patient satisfaction measures.

Before concluding that vertical integration generates little improvement in quality, it’s worth looking a little deeper at the methodology of this study, as well as the larger drivers of hospital-physician integration. Researchers used a blunt measure of vertical integration, combining health systems’ self-reported physician alignment model with a standard index of hospital market concentration (on the theory that lower hospital-to-hospital competition indicates greater vertical integration). The performance measures examined are hospital-focused, ignoring outpatient care quality, as well as the nuance of whether the “integrated” physicians in any market are responsible for the outcomes measured (employing primary care doctors and orthopedic surgeons would have little impact on measures of hospital treatment of heart attacks).

In a press release, the author notes: “If patient welfare doesn’t improve after integration, there may be other reasons why physicians and hospitals are forming closer relationships—perhaps to raise profits.” That’s right: there are many motives for vertical integration. Surely profitability has been a driver, as well as the rising complexity and deteriorating economics of running an independent practice. In the real world, physician alignment strategies are rarely driven by the primary goal of improved quality. However, many health systems have begun to recognize that closer financial alignment is a necessary (but far from sufficient) requirement to enable real progress on quality improvement. Regardless of alignment approach, though, quality improvement results from the hard work of care process redesign and cultural change, not as the inevitable result of vertical integration. Success stories are still too few and far between, but we believe there is value in leveraging vertical integration to make this work easier. Condemning vertical integration seems a harsh verdict; a more appropriate criticism would be that much of the heavy lifting of care redesign is yet to begin.