November 21, 2019 | To whom is the Nightingale singing?
November 21, 2019
INDUSTRY NEWS
Final rule: Hospitals must disclose negotiated rates
CMS issued a final rule Nov. 15 that requires hospitals to disclose the rates they negotiate with insurers beginning in 2021. It’s partly a broader administration push to make health care markets more transparent to patients. The administration also unveiled a proposed rule to require insurers to allow patients to get advanced estimates of their out-of-pocket costs before they see a doctor or go to the hospital. (Modern Healthcare; New York Times)
To whom is the Nightingale singing?
Google has been amassing health data on millions of patients without their knowledge, according to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal. Google began the effort—dubbed Project Nightingale—secretly last year with St. Louis-based Ascension. Privacy experts say it’s legal, but The Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services will be investigating—specifically, how well the organizations are protecting patient data. (The Wall Street Journal)
INNOVATION & TRANSFORMATION
Records access: holding “churlish” providers accountable
Ciitizen, a small Palo Alto startup, is holding providers' feet to the fire. Providers must, when asked, give patients their records in a timely fashion. But patients say responses from providers “can range from sluggish to churlish,” Kaiser Health News reports. Ciitizen, which helps cancer patients get their records, published a scorecard last week rating hospitals, doctors and clinics on their compliance. It was grim: Of the 210 providers from which Ciitizen has requested patient records, 51% have only one or two stars—that means they either were non-compliant or required significant intervention by Ciitizen to comply. (Kaiser Health News; scorecard)
Medicare patients with heart failure or pneumonia likely had more costs associated with the hospital where they were receiving treatment than associated with their acuity, according to research published in JAMA Network Open. The researchers found that lower cost hospitals—which tended to be non-teaching and smaller facilities than their higher-cost counterparts—treated the same patients at less cost with virtually the same outcomes. “No evidence was found that lower-payment hospitals had higher mortality rates,” the study concluded. (Healthcare Dive)
CONSUMERS & PROVIDERS
Doctors aren’t having the sex talk with patients
Oncology practices aren’t discussing sexual side effects of treatment with their patients, if a small study presented at the Sexual Medicine Society of North America fall meeting is any indication. Of the oncologists and advanced practice providers responding to the survey, just 31% said they often or always discussed sexual health with their patients. Moreover, 54% reported never receiving training in male erectile dysfunction, and 62% said they never received training in male ejaculatory or orgasmic disorders. In addition, 62% reported they had never received training in female sexual disorders related to orgasm or libido. (MedPage Today)
Geisinger gives full ride to 40 potential PCPs
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine will provide tuition to 40 students a year who commit to practice primary care after their residency at Geisinger Health. Those selected to participate in the Primary Care Scholars Program will also receive a $2,000 per month stipend for the four years of medical school. Criteria will include financial need, academic merit, diversity, experience serving their communities and predictors of whether the applicant is likely to stay in Geisinger’s service area. (FierceHealthcare)
NEW & NOTED
EHR usability and burnout: Doctors give their EHR systems an F for usability, according to research published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The researchers observed a “strong dose-response relationship between EHR usability and the odds of burnout.” (Healthcare IT News; Mayo Clinic Proceedings)
Math matters: Johnson & Johnson’s fine in the Oklahoma opioid suit has dropped to $465 million rather than $572 million, thanks to a judicial miscalculation. Judge Thad Balkman's miscalculation involved the cost to train Oklahoma birthing hospitals to evaluate infants with opioids in their systems. He listed it as $107,683,000, while the actual amount is $107,683. (New York Times)
Employee premiums increasing: Employees will see moderate premium increases in 2020. PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Society for Human Resource Management predict a 5% premium increase. Aon predicts 6.5% and Mercer a 3.9% bump. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, premiums have increased 22% since 2014 and 35% since 2009. (San Diego Union Tribune)
MULTI-MEDIA
Drug therapy as good as surgery for many heart patients
The findings of a large federal study on bypass surgeries and stents calls into question the medical care provided to tens of thousands of patients with blocked coronary arteries. The study found that patients who received drug therapy alone did not experience more heart attacks or die more often than those who also received bypass surgery or stents. In an American College of Cardiology video, Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, FACC, explains the findings. (ACC)
MARKETVOICES...QUOTES WORTH READING
“For decades, hospitals, insurance companies, lobbyists and special interests have hidden prices from consumers, so they could drive up costs for you, and you had no idea what was happening. You’d get bills that were unbelievable and you’d have no idea why.” Patients have “been ripped off for years.”—President Donald J. Trump, quoted in the New York Times