Collaborative Efforts Can Save Money And Improve Care
by Harris Meyer
January 5, 2012 (Kaiser Health News) - Peter Cady, who works 12-hour shifts on his feet at Intel’s plant here, occasionally suffers severe lower back spasms. But he nearly gave up seeking medical help because in the weeks it took to get a doctor’s appointment and a referral to physical therapy, the pain usually subsided.
These days, however, Cady is much happier with his care.
Rather than waiting to see a doctor, Cady and other patients with routine back pain now see a physical therapist within 48 hours of calling, compared with about 19 days previously, Intel says. They complete their treatment in 21 days, compared with 52 days in the past. The cost per patient has dropped 10 percent to 30 percent due to fewer unnecessary doctor visits and diagnostic imaging tests. And patients are more satisfied and return to work faster.
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President Obama Signs the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011
New Law Includes Physician Update Fix through February 2012
January 4, 2012 (CGS) - On December 23, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011 (TPTCCA). This new law prevents a scheduled payment cut for physicians and other practitioners who treat Medicare patients from taking effect immediately. While the negative update for the 2012 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule is now scheduled to take effect on March 1, 2012, the Administration remains strongly opposed to letting this cut take effect. As he has repeatedly made clear, President Obama is committed to a permanent solution to eliminating the Sustainable Growth Rate’s cut. We will continue to work with Congress to achieve this goal.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has also recently implemented several important changes for Medicare providers and beneficiaries, and we would like to remind physicians and practitioners of some of these key changes for 2012. For many of your patients, Medicare costs will go down. Medicare cost-sharing for Part B services will decline in some cases and, for the first time, the Part B deductible will decrease, by $22, to $140.
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National Health Service Corps Critical Access Hospital Pilot Program
January 9, 2012 (Office of Rural Health Policy Community-Based Division Bi-Weekly Announcements) - The Health Resources and Services Administration has released its 2012 guidance for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Program (LRP), which includes a pilot program that expands eligibility to Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) and eligible clinicians working in CAHs: primary care physicians; psychiatrists; nurse practitioners; certified nurse midwives; and physician assistants. The NHSC CAH Pilot Program was created as part of the White House Rural Council (http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/rural-council).
CAHs and interested clinicians should review the 2012 guidance. CAHs that want to become service sites have to be in a Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) and meet other basic program requirements (http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/sites/becomenhscapprovedsite/ index.html). Currently, approximately 64 percent of CAHs are located in HPSAs. Of these, 36 percent have HPSA scores of 14 or more.
Once they are approved as service sites, their clinicians can apply for loan repayment. The NHSC will pay up to $60,000 for an initial 2 years of full‐time clinical practice to clinicians serving at an NHSC‐approved service site with a HPSA score of 14 or higher. Applicants working at NHSC‐approved service sites with HPSA scores of 13 or lower are eligible to receive up to $40,000 for an initial 2 years of full‐time clinical service.
The NHSC will pay up to $60,000 for an initial 4 years of half‐time clinical practice to clinicians serving at an NHSC‐approved service site with a HPSA score of 14 or higher. Applicants working at NHSC‐approved service sites with HPSA scores of 13 or lower are eligible to receive up to $40,000 for an initial 4 years of half‐time clinical service.
Allowing CAHs to be eligible for loan repayment will enhance health care access and flexibility. Most providers working for these hospitals staff clinical settings across the CAH, ranging from outpatient clinics, skilled nursing care and emergency services, as well as providing limited inpatient hospital services.
Please help us get the word out about this program to CAHs and interested clinicians so they can take advantage of this opportunity. The Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP) and the NHSC have conducted Webinars related to this change (http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/downloads/criticalaccesspresentation.pdf). The NHSC has a contact available to answer questions: Lindsey Toohey (ltoohey@hrsa.gov). Additional contacts include your State Offices of Rural Health. You may also Contact your State PCO for assistance, or your ORHP project officer or regional liaison.
For additional program details, please see the 2012 NHSC Loan Repayment Program At-A-Glance Fact Sheet, the NHSC Loan Repayment Program Announcement Flyer and the complete Application and Program Guidance. ORHP believes there will be significant interest among CAHs in becoming NHSC service sites to help address the ongoing access challenges these facilities face. The flexibility for loan repayors to divide service time between inpatient and outpatient care will be attractive to program applicants.
The ICD-10 Transition: Focus on Non-Covered Entities
January 9, 2012 (CMS) - On October 1, 2013, the ICD-9 code sets used to report medical diagnoses and inpatient procedures will be replaced by ICD-10 code sets. To accommodate the ICD-10 code structure, the transaction standards used for electronic health care claims, Version 4010/4010A, must be upgraded to Version 5010 by January 1, 2012. This fact sheet provides noncovered entities with background on the ICD-10 transition, potential benefits to adopting the new coding, and resources for more information.
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Federal health care IT spending set to grow by Angela Petty
January 8, 2012 (The Washington Post) - With money tight, congressional appropriators rarely insist that agencies spend money. Yet the omnibus spending bill passed Dec. 17 approved $100 million for a joint Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs effort to develop digital medical records — even though they missed deadlines for requesting the money.
A recent Deltek report projects that the federal health care information technology market will grow from $4.5 billion in 2011 to $6.5 billion by 2016, far surpassing overall federal IT growth estimates.
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HealthIT.gov Resource: How to Implement EHRs
Step 1 - Assess Your Practice Readiness
The assessment phase is foundational to all other EHR implementation steps, and involves determining if the practice is ready to make the change from paper records to electronic health records (EHRs), or to upgrade their current system to a new certified version.
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Healthcare Created 314K Jobs in 2011
by John Commins
January 9, 2012 (HealthLeaders Media) -
Healthcare created 22,600 jobs in December, finishing a strong year for job growth that saw 314,700 payroll additions in 2011. Healthcare accounted for nearly for nearly one in five new jobs in the overall economy, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.
Hospitals created 9,800 new jobs in December, and 89,100 jobs in 2011, more than double the 37,300 jobs hospitals created in 2010.
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Rural origin plus a rural clinical school placement is a significant predictor of medical students’ intentions to practice rurally: a multi-university study
Authors: Walker JH, DeWitt DE, Pallant JF, Cunningham CE
January 9, 2012 (Rural and Remote Health) - Health workforce shortages are a major problem in rural areas. Australian medical schools have implemented a number of rural education and training interventions aimed at increasing medical graduates’ willingness to work in rural areas. These initiatives include recruiting students from rural backgrounds, delivering training in rural areas, and providing all students with some rural exposure during their medical training. However there is little evidence regarding the impact of rural exposure versus rural origin on workforce outcomes. The aim of this study is to identify and assess factors affecting preference for future rural practice among medical students participating in the Australian Rural Clinical Schools (RCS) Program.
Results: Almost half the students (47%; n=58) self-reported a 'rural background'. Significantly, students from rural backgrounds were 10 times more likely to prefer to work in rural areas when compared with other students (p<0.001). For those preferring general practice, 80% (n=24) wished to do so rurally. Eighty-five per cent (n=105) of students agreed that their RCS experience increased their interest in rural training and practice with 62% (n=75) of students indicating a preference for rural internship/basic training after their RCS experience. A substantial percentage (86%; n=108) agreed they would consider rural practice after their RCS experience.
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Coming soon: exercise by prescription
by Jay Price
January 8, 2012 (Charlotte Observer) -
Evidence of exercise's range of health benefits has become so overwhelming in recent years that the American College of Sports Medicine created a major outreach program called "Exercise is Medicine" that's aimed at making exercise a central part of disease prevention and treatment.
Researchers don't have enough data yet for doctors to write exercise prescriptions with the kind of precision that may one day be possible. On a parallel track to the research into the optimal dose of exercise for each illness and each patient, some scientists are already studying the best way to deliver those future prescriptions of exercise.
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