Tag Archives: Health Policy

Is A Medicaid Wave In the Making?

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Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states must have an option whether or not to expand Medicaid as authorized in the Affordable Care Act, expansion has been a long, slow slog, state by state, inch by inch.  While blue states had mostly lined up to expand Medicaid by 2013, nearly every purple and red state proved to be a battlefield.  Today, 19 states have yet to expand, with 31 in the “yes” column (plus the District of Columbia) (see table 1).  The last state to expand, #31, was Louisiana in mid-2016.  But, might a mighty Medicaid wave be coming courtesy of the November 6thelections?  The answer is a definite maybe.

Right now, all that’s certain is that Virginia will become state #32 to expand Medicaid in January. The state enacted the 400,000-person expansion last May, albeit with a “work requirement” to be filed with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sometime in 2019.

Maine is certain to become #33 early next year if Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills wins the Governor’s Chair.  In November 2017, Maine voters approved expansion—59-41 percent—in a state ballot initiative.  Departing Republican Governor Paul LePage refused to implement the expansion in spite of strong legislative support to do so, as well as an order from Maine’s highest court.  In previous years, the Legislature failed by only a small number of votes to override LePage’s vetoes (5 times).  Progressive forces expect to pick up state legislative seats on November 6th, so it’s also possible expansion could happen with a new Republican governor, supportive or not.

State Adoption Of ACA Medicaid Expansion (By Year)

 

Medicaid On the Ballot

Activists in three states—Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah—are standing in the wings hoping to be states #34, 35, and 36 depending on the outcomes of state ballot initiatives in each of them on November 6th. Montana has an initiative on the ballot to continue its expansion with dedicated funding.

While Idaho’s departing Governor Butch Otter fought consistently against Medicaid expansion throughout his tenure, he recently changed his position and announced his support for the Medicaid ballot initiative. Republican gubernatorial candidate Brad Little says he will respect the ballot initiative’s outcome—even though the measure does not specify how to finance the 10 percent financing match states will need to pay by 2020 (7 percent in 2019). Two organizations, Idahoans for Healthcare and Reclaim Idaho raised $594,191 by the late September reporting deadline, while the opposition Work, Not ObamaCare has raised $29,999.  Idaho’s Hospital and Medical Associations contributed nearly $200,000 to the “yes” effort.  Recent polling shows 66 percent support, including 77 percent from independents and 53 percent from Republicans.  The yes campaign co-chair is Republican State Representative Christy Perry.

Nebraska previously did not have enough support to overturn a Governor’s veto against expansion.  Nebraska Governor Pete Rickets maintains his opposition as he coasts toward an easy re-election.  But it’s a spirited race for Nebraska Initiative 427, the Medicaid Expansion Initiative that would cover an estimated 90,000 low-income Nebraskans. The lead organization—Insure the Good Life—has raised $1.69 million as of late September to support a yes vote, versus $0 by the opposition Americans for Prosperity. The “yes” camp’s largest contributor is a national progressive political action committee called the “Fairness Project” which also backed the 2017 Maine Medicaid initiative and which has donated $1.19 million.  Other key supporters include the Nebraska Hospital Association, the state health center association, Nebraska AARP and 24 other organizations.

Of the three ballot initiative campaigns, Utah’s is the most compelling.  Proposition 3 would raise the state’s sale tax from 4.70 to 4.85 percent to fully finance the expansion for 150,000 low-income Utah residents.  In 2021, that is projected to raise $88 million to cover the state’s projected $78 million share of the $846 million total expansion cost (the federal government pays the rest).  A February 2018 poll showed 68 percent support among Utah voters.  As in Nebraska, the national Fairness Project is driving the campaign, providing $2.7 of the $2.83 million raised as of late September.  A wide array of health care and religious organizations are public supporters. No organization is registered with the state in public opposition to the initiative, as of late September.

To thwart the proposal, in March, Governor Gary Herbert signed House Bill 472 into law to expand Medicaid for individuals with household incomes no higher than 95 percent of the federal poverty line, as opposed to 138 percent in Proposition 3, as authorized under the ACA.  HB472 would also impose work requirements on many enrollees and would cover 90,000 as opposed to the initiative’s 150,000.  Earlier this year, the Trump Administration rejected a plan similar to HB472 that was advanced by Oklahoma to expand Medicaid eligibility no higher than 100 percent of the federal poverty level.  So it is unclear whether the Trump Administration will allow the Utah HB472 expansion to go forward.

Montana is another state with a Medicaid expansion ballot initiative facing the voters on November 6th, but to continue the existing expansion. The state expanded Medicaid in 2015, though only through 2019. The November 6th ballot will present an initiative, I-185, to continue expansion past 2019 by raising tobacco taxes by $2 a pack as the state’s funding source. Healthy Montana for I-185 backers have raised $4.8 million and are battling the tobacco industry in the form of Montanans Against Tax Hikes (MATH) which has invested at least $12 million to defeat the initiative; 97 percent of the MATH’s money has come from Altria Client Services, maker of Marlboro cigarettes and other smoking products. If voters approve, the expansion will continue without restraints. If the referendum fails, the legislature still could pass a new funding law, likely with a work requirement attached.

Other Election Day Impacts

Of the 14 remaining non-expansion states, the November 6th results may have consequential impact.  If Democratic candidates win currently competitive gubernatorial races in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, and Wisconsin, and pick up legislative seats, that could alter the Medicaid expansion equation.  This would be especially true in Kansas where prior expansion efforts were thwarted by a narrow inability to override gubernatorial vetoes by only three votes. In other states, notably North Carolina with Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, significant Democratic gains in the state legislature may also have a consequential impact.

Some noteworthy features of this issue are worth considering.  First, in many of these remaining states with Republican control, the price of expansion is likely to include work requirements on many newly eligible enrollees—as occurred in Virginia this past year. Unless ruled illegal by the federal courts, this national experiment will more than likely run at least for the duration of Republican control of the executive branch. As is apparent from the track record in Arkansas thus far, this is about values and ideology more than dollars and sense.

Second, after six years of fighting the Medicaid expansion wars, it is clear that most expansion opponents are not going to change their minds.  Not much is left to say that hasn’t been said countless times before.  As we saw in Virginia, a change of mind accompanies a change in occupants of legislative and gubernatorial seats.  And in the four November 6th ballot initiative states, if successful, we should anticipate that one or more of the affected Governors may imitate Maine Governor LePage in seeking to block expansion in spite of voter sentiment.

Third, in spite of all the uproar, it is significant that not one expansion state has gone back on it, or even considered doing so.  The closest an expansion came to a rollback was the election of hard right conservative Matt Bevin as Kentucky’s governor in 2015.  Bevin abandoned his pledge to repeal Kentucky’s ground-breaking and successful Medicaid expansion early in his gubernatorial campaign, and never returned to that stance, turning to mandatory work requirements as the next best thing. 

Much like how the public’s support for banning pre-existing condition exclusions has become calcified in the public’s mind from the battles of 2017 and 2018, similarly the expansion of Medicaid has become hard-wired into public consciousness in the states that adopted it.  

I have yet to read an insider’s account on how and why the U.S. Supreme Court lined up 7 votes to secure their atrocious 2012 ruling to make Medicaid expansion an option for states.  It is true that their decision played a role in compelling Americans to grapple with and understand the rationale and importance for Medicaid expansion.  But at what a damn price!

 

 

 

The ACA Protects People with Preexisting Conditions; Proposed Replacements Would Not

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https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2018/aca-protects-people-preexisting-conditions-proposed-replacements-would-not?omnicid=EALERT%%jobid%%&mid=%%emailaddr%%

Patient with preexisting condition

The Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces open for enrollment today for the sixth time. But this year the marketplace health plans in many states will face some new competition from insurance products that don’t meet the law’s standards, including the ban on denying coverage or charging more based on a person’s preexisting health conditions.

New Trump administration regulations released earlier this year have undermined the coverage protections in the ACA by making it possible for insurers to renew often skimpy short-term health insurance for up to three years, and for small businesses to form associations that sell substandard health plans. One of the reasons insurers can charge low premiums for these plans is that they generally cover less that ACA-compliant plans and insurers can deny them to people with diabetes or a history of cancer, for example. Only healthy people get these plans. And the more healthy people who buy them, the more expensive coverage becomes for people with a history of illness who buy their own insurance and have incomes too high to qualify for marketplace subsidies. In guidance released last week, the administration will allow states to further encourage the sale of these plans by letting people use federal subsidies to buy them.

As a nation, it is important for us to focus our energy on ways to improve people’s health. We are experiencing an unprecedented decline in life expectancy which will ultimately affect our economic health and the ability of Americans to compete in a global workforce. One of the most basic things we can do is preserve the coverage protections for people with health problems that have been law for more than four years, rather than poke holes in them. Americans say they support this idea. Recent polls have found that majorities of Americans believe that people with health conditions should not be denied affordable health insurance and health care. As a result, House and Senate candidates of both parties are running on their support for protecting coverage for people with preexisting conditions. But some of those very candidates voted to repeal the ACA last year.

The ACA has dramatically improved the ability of people with preexisting conditions to buy coverage. In 2010, before the law passed, we conducted a survey that found 70 percent of people with health problems said it was very difficult or impossible to buy affordable coverage, and just 36 percent said they ended up purchasing a health plan. By 2016, the percentage of people who had trouble buying an affordable plan had dropped down to 42 percent — still high but much improved — and 60 percent ultimately bought a plan.

While the congressional ACA repeal bills failed last year, a Republican Congress could try again next year. And in the meantime, the law’s preexisting conditions protections and other provisions face another threat from a lawsuit brought by Republican governors and attorneys general in 20 states. The U.S Department of Justice has agreed with the plaintiff states in part, and refused to defend the law’s preexisting condition protections. The court decision is pending. Should the states win, an estimated 17 million people could become uninsured.

Some congressional candidates from these states and others are pointing to their support for Republican proposals, such as the “Ensuring Coverage for Patients with Pre-Existing Conditions Act,” as proof they support coverage for preexisting conditions. This bill would prevent insurers from refusing or varying premiums based on preexisting conditions. But, unlike the ACA, this bill would allow insurers to sell plans that entirely exclude coverage for care pertaining to the preexisting conditions themselves. The reality is that this bill would not protect sick Americans, or those who may become ill in the future, from high out-of-pocket health care costs.

Several million people will be going to the marketplaces in the next few weeks to sign up for coverage since they do not have it through an employer. At this time, not one of them who buys a plan in the marketplace has to fear that an insurance company will deny them coverage or charge them a higher premium because of their health. The efforts to undermine the individual market and invalidate the ACA’s consumer protections are real-life threats for people who depend on this insurance for their health care. The nation cannot move forward with tackling our most pressing health care problems if we continue to debate a core protection of the ACA that most Americans support.

 

 

IN SEARCH OF INSURANCE SAVINGS, CONSUMERS CAN GET UNWITTINGLY WEDGED INTO NARROW-NETWORK PLANS

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Wedged Into Narrow-Network Plans

Despite federal rules requiring plans to keep up-to-date directories, consumers may lack access to clear information about which health plans have ‘narrow networks’ of providers or which hospitals and doctors are in or out of an insurer’s network.

As a breast cancer survivor, Donna Catanuchi said she knows she can’t go without health insurance. But her monthly premium of $855 was too high to afford.

“It was my biggest expense and killing me,” said Catanuchi, 58, of Mullica Hill, N.J.

A “navigator” who helps people find coverage through the Affordable Care Act found a solution. But it required Catanuchi, who works part time cleaning offices, to switch to a less comprehensive plan, change doctors, drive farther to her appointments and pay $110 a visit out-of-pocket — or about three times what she was paying for her follow-up cancer care.

She now pays $40 a month for coverage, after she qualified for a substantial government subsidy.

Catanuchi’s switch to a more affordable but restrictive plan reflects a broad trend in insurance plan design over the past few years. The cheaper plans offer far narrower networks of doctors and hospitals and less coverage of out-of-network care. But many consumers are overwhelmed or unaware of the trade-offs they entail, insurance commissioners and policy experts say.

With enrollment for ACA health plans beginning Nov. 1, they worry that consumers too often lack access to clear information about which health plans have “narrow networks” of medical providers or which hospitals and doctors are in or out of an insurer’s network, despite federal rules requiring plans to keep up-to-date directories.

“It’s very frustrating for consumers,” said Betsy Imholz, who represents the advocacy group Consumers Union at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. “Health plan provider directories are often inaccurate, and doctors are dropping in and out all the time.”

These more restrictive plans expose people to larger out-of-pocket costs, less access to out-of-network specialists and hospitals, and “surprise” medical bills from unforeseen out-of-network care.

More than 14 million people buy health insurance on the individual market — largely through the ACA exchanges, and they will be shopping anew this coming month.

TREND APPEARS TO BE SLOWING

For 2018, 73 percent of plans offered through the exchanges were either health maintenance organizations (HMOs) or exclusive provider organizations (EPOs), up from 54 percent in 2015.

Both have more restrictive networks and offer less out-of-network coverage compared with preferred provider organizations (PPOs), which represented 21 percent of health plans offered through the ACA exchanges in 2018, according to Avalere, a health research firm in Washington, D.C.

PPOs typically provide easier access to out-of-network specialists and facilities, and partial — sometimes even generous — payment for such services.

Measured another way, the number of ACA plans offering any out-of-network coverage declined to 29 percent in 2018 from 58 percent in 2015, according to a recent analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

For example, in California, HMO and EPO enrollment through Covered California, the state’s exchange, grew from 46 percent in 2016 to 70 percent in 2018, officials there said. Over the same period, PPO enrollment declined from 54 percent to 30 percent.

In contrast, PPOs have long been and remain the dominant type of health plan offered by employers nationwide. Forty-nine percent of the 152 million people and their dependents who were covered through work in 2018 were enrolled in a PPO-type plan. Only 16 percent were in HMOs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual survey of employment-based health insurance.

The good news for people buying health insurance on their own is that the trend toward narrow networks appears to be slowing.

“When premiums shot up over the past few years, insurers shifted to more restrictive plans with smaller provider networks to try and lower costs and premiums,” said Chris Sloan, a director at Avalere. “With premium increases slowing, at least for now, that could stabilize.”

Some research supports this prediction. Daniel Polsky, a health economist at the University of Pennsylvania, found that the number of ACA plans nationwide with narrow physician networks declined from 25 percent in 2016 to 21 percent in 2017.

Polsky is completing an analysis of 2018 plans and expects the percent of narrow network plans to remain “relatively constant” for this year and into 2019.

“Fewer insurers are exiting the marketplace, and there’s less churn in the plans being offered,” said Polsky. “That’s good news for consumers.”

Insurers may still be contracting with fewer hospitals, however, to constrain costs in that expensive arena of care, according to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. It found that 53 percent of plans had narrow hospital networks in 2017, up from 48 percent in 2014.

“Narrow networks are a trade-off,” said Paul Ginsburg, a health care economist at the Brookings Institution. “They can be successful when done well. At a time when we need to find ways to control rising health care costs, narrow networks are one legitimate strategy.”

Ginsburg also notes that there’s no evidence to date that the quality of care is any less in narrow versus broader networks, or that people are being denied access to needed care.

Mike Kreidler, Washington state’s insurance commissioner, said ACA insurers in that state “are figuring out they can’t get away with provider networks that are inadequate to meet people’s needs.”

“People have voted with their feet, moving to more affordable choices like HMOs but they won’t tolerate draconian restrictions,” Kreidler said.

The state is stepping in, too. In December 2017, Kreidler fined one insurer — Coordinated Care — $1.5 million for failing to maintain an adequate network of doctors. The state suspended $1 million of the fine if the insurer had no further violations. In March 2018, the plan was docked another $100,000 for similar gaps, especially a paucity of specialists in immunology, dermatology and rheumatology. The $900,000 in potential fines continues to hang over the company’s head.

Centene Corp, which owns Coordinated Care, has pledged to improve its network.

Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Jessica Altman said she expects residents buying insurance in the individual marketplace for 2019 to have a wider choice of providers in their networks.

“We think and hope insurers are gradually building more stable networks of providers,” said Altman.

NEW STATE LAWS

Bad publicity and recent state laws are pushing insurers to modify their practices and shore up their networks.

About 20 states now have laws restricting surprise bills or balance billing, or which mandate mediation over disputed medical bills, especially those stemming from emergency care.

Even more have rules on maintaining accurate, up-to-date provider directories.

The problem is the laws vary widely in the degree to which they “truly protect consumers,” said Claire McAndrew, a health policy analyst at Families USA, a consumer advocacy group in Washington, D.C. “It’s a patchwork system with some strong consumer protections and a lot of weaker ones.”

“Some states don’t have the resources to enforce rules in this area,” said Justin Giovannelli, a researcher at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University. “That takes us backward in assuring consumers get coverage that meets their needs.”

 

 

HHS set to implement long-delayed 340B final rule in January

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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/finance/hhs-set-to-implement-long-delayed-340b-final-rule-jan-1?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTkdKbFptRXdPV1pqTnpJMCIsInQiOiJ2ZjdFZXBBODZKcnQ3R2h2bnJTWHB0cFFcL013WTQrSlljK1A5V1YxUWxreSt2M0ZLUU1qV2ZaaUM4M3J1N3o3RVpJdlJGVlpjb1dNeGExejk3TE00RVVaYTl5NVwvaCt4YVNnTXFmYUliSVBhbTQyaHhQc0x1ZTZlTjRmVnBpWXYxIn0%3D&mrkid=959610

Image result for 340b drug pricing program

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a response from 340B Health and the American Hospital Association.

HHS is planning an about-face on the long-delayed rule that would set price ceilings and monetary penalties in the 340B program, moving up its start date by several months. 

The Department of Health and Human Services issued a notice (PDF) saying that it intended to finally implement the rule on Jan. 1, cutting off seven months of time from a previously announced July 1 start date.

The rule—which would set price ceilings for drugs and punish pharmaceutical companies that knowingly overcharge 340B hospitals—has been delayed five times by the Trump administration, most recently in June. The final rule was first issued in January 2017. 

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) said the delays were necessary as it needed more time to implement the rule properly and wanted to fully explore possible alternatives or supplemental regulations.

The most recent delay was fueled in part because HHS has made addressing the rising cost of drugs a key priority, and officials were concerned that implementing the rule could impact actions taken under the “American Patients First” plan.

The start date was moved up to Jan. 1, HRSA said in the notice, because it “determined that the finalization of the 340B ceiling price and civil monetary penalty rule will not interfere with the department’s development of these comprehensive policies.” 

Four national healthcare organizations sued HHS in September over the delays to the final rule. The American Hospital Association (AHA), America’s Essential Hospitals (AEH), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and 340B Health all signed on to the suit, which claims that the repeated delays violate the Administrative Procedure Act. 

Since the rule was first proposed in 2015, there has been ample time to notify stakeholders and tweak the plan, the groups argued.

“The department’s proffered rationales for their successive delays have shifted and been inconsistent,” according to the lawsuit. 

340B Health said in a statement emailed to FierceHealthcare that the group is “encouraged” to see HHS responding to the suit.

“These rules were ordered by Congress more than eight years ago based on clear, documented evidence of overcharging by drug companies of 340B hospitals, clinics, and health centers,” interim CEO Maureen Testoni said. “The time for delay is over and now it is time for action.”

AHA echoed the sentiment, saying it hopes HHS “sticks by the commitment” to roll out the rule.

“The rule also requires that HHS make pricing information available online to 340B hospitals and other providers,” General Counsel Melinda Hatton said in a statement. “We strongly encourage HHS to publish that website promptly, which is critical to enforcement of the 340B program, as soon as possible after January 1.”

HHS has also taken aim at the 340B program by significantly slashing its payment rate. In a rule that took effect at the beginning of fiscal year 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services cut the rate from up to 6% above the average sales price for a drug to 22.5% less than the average sales price.

All told, the change will cut $1.6 billion in drug discount payments. AHA, AEH and AAMC are also challenging that policy in court. 

 

Hospital bankruptcies continue to skyrocket: 3 things to know

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/hospital-bankruptcies-continue-to-skyrocket-3-things-to-know.html?origin=ceoe&utm_source=ceoe

Image result for hospital bankruptcy

More than 20 hospitals have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy since 2016, according to an Oct. 30 report from the law firm Polsinelli.

The Polsinelli-TrBK Distress Indices Report details how healthcare trends have affected the U.S. economy. Researchers determined that while the economy, specifically Chapter 11 bankruptcies across all industries and the real estate industry, have remained stable during the past several quarters, healthcare exhibited consistently high levels of distress during eight of the last 11 quarters.

To compile the report, researchers use Chapter 11 bankruptcy data as a proxy for measuring financial distress in the overall U.S. economy and breakdowns of distress specifically in real estate and healthcare.

Here are three things to know from the report:

1. Southwestern states have been hit the hardest by healthcare bankruptcy filings. For example, increased competition, insurance payer pressure and overexpansion contributed to Neighbors Legacy Holdings in Houston, a freestanding emergency facility operator with more than 30 facilities, to file for bankruptcy earlier this year.

2. While general Chapter 11 bankruptcies have decreased 53 percent from the 2010 benchmark, healthcare industry distress increased by 305 percent during the same period.

3. The law firm’s Health Care Services Distress Research Index was 405 for the third quarter of 2018, an increase of 65 points from the second quarter of 2018. The third-quarter figures represent a year-over-year increase of 82 points.

To learn more, click here.

Exclusive poll: What voters want from “Medicare for All”

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https://www.axios.com/medicare-for-all-poll-midterm-elections-e7b93daf-b261-42f7-85ca-8d1bcb2eb1f0.html

Voters like some form of “Medicare for All” but are divided over what it should look like, according to our latest Axios/SurveyMonkey poll — which is about the same situation Democratic candidates are in.

The big picture: Many of Democrats’ leading 2020 prospects, and a host of candidates in the midterms, have embraced “Medicare for All,” but there’s a big variation in the policies they propose under that banner.

Between the lines: We asked our poll respondents two related questions — what they think candidates mean by “Medicare for All,” and what they want that policy to mean, if they support it at all.

By the numbers: Overall, 52% of those surveyed said they think “Medicare for All” refers to a single, government-run health care program covering everyone. That’s what Sen. Bernie Sanders, who popularized the term “Medicare for All,” has proposed.

  • Republicans were more confident in that assessment than Democrats: 61% of Republicans said Medicare for All is single-payer, compared with 51% of Democrats. A plurality of independents — 42% — said they don’t think candidates are talking either single-payer or an optional program that would compete with private insurance.

Voters were more divided over what they want “Medicare for All” to be, given the same choices.

  • 34% said they would favor a single-payer system; 33% said they would prefer an optional public plan alongside private insurance; 30% wanted neither.
  • Democrats were far more open to a single-payer system than Republicans and independents.
  • Of the five voter subgroups Axios is following in the midterm elections, African-American women and young adults were most interested in some form of “Medicare for All,” while rural voters were least interested.

Add it up, and most people — 67% — seem to be on board with either single-payer or a public option, suggesting that “Medicare for All” is popular, but that’s partly because of its multiple meanings.

Yes, but: The 2020 Democratic primary will likely bring the issue into much sharper focus.

  • In the midterms, every Democrat can pick the definition that works best for their race. But with so many candidates running for the same office in 2020, putting a finer point on “Medicare for All” will be a big part of the larger Democratic debate.

 

 

 

Feds are ready to claw back billions from Medicare insurers

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https://www.axios.com/cms-clawback-medicare-advantage-audits-health-insurance-92edb13e-5abd-4527-8503-c0c74b501d58.html

A person picks up a medical chart from a long row in a cabinet.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is ready to charge ahead with broad audits of Medicare Advantage plans, which could result in companies paying back billions of taxpayers dollars to the federal government.

The big picture: The threat of these federal audits has existed for several years, but the audits haven’t led to large clawbacks yet. CMS now has an estimate of those improper payments to insurers: almost $14.4 billion in 2017, or 7% of Medicare Advantage spending from that year.

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How it works: The federal government pays Medicare Advantage companies monthly amounts based on how sick their enrollees are. Insurers code the conditions people have, and the more health problems someone has, the more insurers get paid.

  • But regulators are conducting “risk adjustment data validation” (RADV) audits that compare patient medical codes submitted by health insurers with the actual codes that doctors put in patient medical records.
  • The goal is to see if Medicare Advantage insurers are exaggerating people’s health conditions to get higher payments.
  • An investigation from the Center for Public Integrity detailed how the industry has manipulated these so-called “risk scores.”

Driving the news: New proposed regulations lay out the federal government’s legal authority for the audits.

  • CMS says it will audit the diagnoses of about 200 people in any given health plan and then extrapolate the results across the insurer’s entire Medicare Advantage population — leading to potentially large clawbacks for insurers that improperly code conditions.
  • An accompanying federal analysis separately found that coding errors in the traditional Medicare program have no bearing on how Medicare Advantage insurers are paid, and thus RADV audits should not adjust for those discrepancies. The analysis, in essence, pokes a hole in a recent federal ruling that favored insurers.

The bottom line: CMS appears ready to step on the gas and recoup money it believes the industry has bilked from taxpayers. Health insurers have long been frightened of RADV audits — every major publicly traded insurer lists the audits as a top “risk factor” in their annual filings to investors.

  • “CMS has a strong requirement to ensure accuracy of payments because of the magnitude of dollars flying around,” said Jessica Smith, a consultant at Gorman Health Group who studies risk adjustment.

Between the lines: Health insurers have successfully fought off or watered down these audits since they were first proposed. The industry almost certainly will work to weaken any final regulation.

  • America’s Health Insurance Plans — the industry’s leading lobbying group, which has made Medicare Advantage a priority as more insurers rely on the program for revenue — has already warned the audits must be “sound” and “legally appropriate.”

 

 

The health care issues voters care about in the 2018 midterms

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https://www.brookings.edu/podcast-episode/the-health-care-issues-voters-care-about-in-the-2018-midterms/?utm_campaign=Economic%20Studies&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=67092006

Image result for The health care issues voters care about in the 2018 midterms

Editor’s Note: The Brookings Cafeteria podcast will release new episodes on the issues shaping the 2018 midterms every Tuesday and Friday leading up to Election Day. You can follow the series where we list all episodes of the Cafeteriapodcast, and visit our 2018 Midterms page for more research and analysis on the upcoming elections.

Matthew Fiedler, a fellow in the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy, addresses the health policy issues on voters’ minds as the 2018 midterm elections approach. He reviews the Trump administration’s changes to the Affordable Care Act, why Democratic candidates are placing more emphasis on health policy in their races than are Republicans, the topic of Medicaid expansion, and what repeal of the individual mandate could mean for health care in 2019 and beyond.

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A Sense of Alarm as Rural Hospitals Keep Closing

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The potential health and economic consequences of a trend associated with states that have turned down Medicaid expansion.

Hospitals are often thought of as the hubs of our health care system. But hospital closings are rising, particularly in some communities.

“Options are dwindling for many rural families, and remote communities are hardest hit,” said Katy Kozhimannil, an associate professor and health researcher at the University of Minnesota.

Beyond the potential health consequences for the people living nearby, hospital closings can exact an economic toll, and are associated with some states’ decisions not to expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Since 2010, nearly 90 rural hospitals have shut their doors. By one estimate, hundreds of other rural hospitals are at risk of doing so.

In its June report to Congress, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission found that of the 67 rural hospitals that closed since 2013, about one-third were more than 20 miles from the next closest hospital.

A study published last year in Health Affairs by researchers from the University of Minnesota found that over half of rural counties now lack obstetric services. Another study, published in Health Services Research, showed that such closures increase the distance pregnant women must travel for delivery.

And another published earlier this year in JAMA found that higher-risk, preterm births are more likely in counties without obstetric units. (Some hospitals close obstetric units without closing the entire hospital.)

Ms. Kozhimannil, a co-author of all three studies, said, “What’s left are maternity care deserts in some of the most vulnerable communities, putting pregnant women and their babies at risk.”

In July, after The New York Times wrote about the struggles of rural hospitals, some doctors responded by noting that rising malpractice premiums had made it, as one put it, “economically infeasible nowadays to practice obstetrics in rural areas.”

Many other types of specialists tend to cluster around hospitals. When a hospital leaves a community, so can many of those specialists. Care for mental health and substance use are among those most likely to be in short supply after rural hospital closures.

The closure of trauma centers has also accelerated since 2001, and disproportionately in rural areas, according to a study in Health Affairs. The resulting increased travel time for trauma cases heightens the risk of adverse outcomes, including death.

Another study found that greater travel time to hospitals is associated with higher mortality rates for coronary artery bypass graft patients.

In many communities, hospitals are among the largest employers. They also draw other businesses to an area, including those within health care and others that support it (like laundry and food services, or construction).

A study in Health Services Research found that when a community loses its only hospital, per capita income falls by about 4 percent, and the unemployment increases by 1.6 percentage points.

Not all closures are problematic. Some are in areas with sufficient hospital capacity. Moreover, in many cases hospitals that close offer relatively poorer quality care than nearby ones that remain open. This forces patients into higher-quality facilities and may offset negative effects associated with the additional distance they must travel.

Perhaps for these reasons, one study published in Health Affairs found no effect of hospital closures on mortality for Medicare patients. Because it focused on older patients, the study may have missed adverse effects on those younger than 65. Nevertheless, the study found that hospital closings were associated with reduced readmission rates, which is regarded as a sign of increased quality. So it seems consolidating services at larger hospitals can sometimes help, not harm, patients.

“There are real trade-offs between consolidating expertise at larger centers versus maintaining access in local communities,” said Karen Joynt Maddox, a cardiologist and health researcher with the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and an author of the study. “The problem is that we don’t have a systematic approach to determine which services are critical to provide locally, and which are best kept at referral centers.”

Many factors can underlie the financial decision to close a hospital. Rural populations are shrinking, and the trend of hospital mergers and acquisitions can contribute to closures as services are consolidated.

Another factor: Over the long term, we are using less hospital care as more services are shifted to outpatient settings and as inpatient care is performed more rapidly. In 1960, an average appendectomy required over six days in the hospital; today one to two days is the norm.

Part of the story is political: the decision by many red states not to take advantage of federal funding to expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act. Some states cited fiscal concerns for their decisions, but ideological opposition to Obamacare was another factor.

In rural areas, lower incomes and higher rates of uninsured people contribute to higher levels of uncompensated hospital care — meaning many people are unable to pay their hospital bills. Uncompensated care became less of a problem in hospitals in states that expanded Medicaid.

In a Commonwealth Fund Issue Brief, researchers from Northwestern Kellogg School of Management found that hospitals in Medicaid expansion states saved $6.2 billion in uncompensated care, with the largest reductions in states with the highest proportion of low-income and uninsured patients. Consistent with these findings, the vast majority of recent hospital closings have been in states that have not expanded Medicaid.

In every year since 2011, more hospitals have closed than opened. In 2016, for example, 21 hospitals closed, 15 of them in rural communities. This month, another rural hospital in Kansas announced it was closing, and next week people in Kansas, and in some other states, will vote in elections that could decide whether Medicaid is expanded.

Richard Lindrooth, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Public Health, led a study in Health Affairs on the relationship between Medicaid expansion and hospitals’ financial health. Hospitals in nonexpansion states took a financial hit and were far more likely to close. In the continuing battle within some states about whether or not to expand Medicaid, “hospitals’ futures hang in the balance,” he said.

 

 

DIALYSIS GIANT DAVITA DEFENDS ITSELF IN COURT AND AT THE POLLS

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Dialysis, The Courts, and The Polls

Proposition 8 would wipe out DaVita’s earnings in California, according to recent investment firm reports. Passing the initiative ‘would be so devastating,’ to the tune of $450 million a year, that DaVita ‘would likely walk away from the state altogether.’

It’s been a year of playing defense for DaVita Inc., one of the country’s largest dialysis providers.

A federal jury in Colorado this summer awarded $383.5 million to the families of three of its dialysis patients in wrongful death lawsuits. Then this month, the Denver-based company announced it would pay $270 million to settle a whistleblower’s allegation that one of its subsidiaries cheated the government on Medicare payments.

But its biggest financial threat is a ballot initiative in California that one Wall Street firm says could cost DaVita $450 million a year in business if the measure succeeds.

Despite these recent hits, the company continues to rake in profits and receive favorable ratings from stock analysts. Its shares are trading at about $65 a share, only about 19 percent below a 52-week high set in January. That’s largely because DaVita controls about one-third of a growing market, health experts say.

“They don’t really have many rivals, and they perform a necessary, lifesaving service,” said Leemore Dafny, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. “If you’re producing something people want to buy and you’re the only one making it, people are going to buy it.”

Patients with chronic kidney failure often need dialysis to filter the impurities from their blood when their kidneys can no longer do that job.

And as Americans live longer and get heavier, more people become diagnosed with kidney disease and possibly need dialysis. In 2015, 124,114 new patients received dialysis, up from 94,702 in 2000, a 31 percent increase, according to the U.S. Renal Data System.

DaVita is one of the largest dialysis providers in the country, operating more than 2,500 clinics nationwide. In California, the company operates 292 clinics, half of all chronic dialysis clinics in the state.

Its parent company, DaVita Inc., reported $10.9 billion in revenue last year and $1.8 billion in profits, almost all of which came from its dialysis business.

This year, company officials project the dialysis group will bring in $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion in profits. It’s a big turnaround for a corporation that could barely make payroll in 1999, when it was under review by the Securities and Exchange Commission for questionable accounting practices. Its success has largely been credited to CEO Kent Thiry, a colorful personality who has dressed up as a Musketeer and ridden a horse into corporate meetings to rally workers.

Now those big profits — generated from treating sick patients — has put a target on the company’s back, as well as that of its biggest competitor, Fresenius Kidney Care.

The Service Employees International Union succeeded this year in placing Proposition 8 on California’s Nov. 6 ballot, which would limit dialysis center commercial revenues to 115 percent of patient care costs. The ballot fight pits a well-funded industry against labor and the California Democratic Party.

DaVita declined to make anyone available for this article, but in a statement said Proposition 8 “will limit patients’ access to life-saving dialysis treatments, jeopardizing their care.”

Last year, roughly two-thirds of DaVita’s dialysis revenue came from government-based programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid. But that isn’t enough to cover its costs, according to the company’s 2017 annual report, which states that DaVita loses money on each Medicare treatment it provides. (Medicare covers dialysis for people 65 and older, and for younger patients after private insurance has provided coverage for 30 months.)

Instead, DaVita generates profits from commercial health plans, which it acknowledges pay “significantly higher” rates than government programs. The ballot measure targets those higher rates, which Dafny describes as “their bread and butter.”

The prospect of the measure passing led DaVita to delay or cancel plans to open new clinics in California despite growing patient demand, Javier Rodriguez, chief executive officer of DaVita Kidney Care, told investors on a call in May, according to the online equity research website Seeking Alpha.

A few months later, Rodriguez declined to provide a dollar amount when asked how the initiative would impact the company. Rather, he warned investors that it would become “unsustainable” for the industry to treat the estimated 66,000 dialysis patients in California, should the measure succeed.

Wall Street analysts agree that Proposition 8 would wipe out DaVita’s earnings in California, according to recent reports issued by investment firms J.P. Morgan and Baird. Passing the initiative “would be so devastating,” to the tune of $450 million a year, that DaVita “would likely walk away from the state altogether,” according to a March Baird report.

DaVita has poured $66.6 million into the opposition campaign as of Oct. 25, and rival Fresenius has contributed $33.6 million. That dwarfs $17.3 million in union contributions in support of the measure, according to campaign records filed with California’s secretary of state office.

Both Wall Street firms conclude that Proposition 8 is likely to fail, citing the industry’s massive spending and the union’s record of failure at the polls on other issues.

The company’s legal troubles don’t worry stock analysts, either; Baird’s October report on DaVita’s financial performance dedicates just two sentences to them. It notes that DaVita “is subject to numerous ongoing government investigations and inquiries, similar to most large-scale, high-profile Medicare providers.”

There are no specific references to the Colorado jury award this summer, which the company is appealing, over the death of three patients who died of cardiac arrest after treatment at DaVita clinics. Nor was there concern about this month’s $270 million settlement over Medicare billing.

That’s because those incidents are seen by investors as the cost of doing business — one-time hits that don’t affect a company’s earnings power in the future, said Matthew Gillmor, a senior research analyst at Baird.

“Almost all companies I follow, at some point, have had to pay a fine to the government,” Gillmor said.

Thiry, DaVita’s CEO, acknowledged that settlements, which aren’t good public relations, are a reality for large corporations, when The Denver Post asked him last year about the company’s previous legal battles.

“If, in a trial, you are found to be wrong on even a small part of the case, it could mean that you are excluded from Medicare, which typically would mean bankruptcy for your company,” Thiry said. “So, you are essentially forced to settle.”