NHA 2012 Mid-Year Meeting & NHA-HFMA Golf Tournament
The NHA-HFMA Golf Tournament and the NHA 2012 Mid-Year Meeting will be held May 23-25, 2012 in Kearney, Nebraska.
We are fortunate to have an outstanding presentation team for the Mid-Year Meeting. Our keynote speakers, Dr. Steve Berkowitz and Dr. Jason Wolf bring decades of experience, volumes of research and a plethora of passion to help you think strategically about how we provide care to patients. We have brought back the open dialogue forum where CEOs, and human resource and clinical professionals can interact with peers, discussing the challenges facing hospitals today.
REGISTER TODAY!
For more information and to register,
click here
LB 599 proponents rally across the state
Go team go! It's very exciting to be part of this historic two days of events supporting healthy babies and LB 599.
Read more>>
LB 599 passes!
On a vote of 31-15 today, the Unicameral gave final approval today on LB 599. It now heads to the governor's desk and the already-promised veto.
Healthcare to add 4.2M jobs by 2020
Healthcare jobs will grow twice as fast as the general economy, with an additional 4.2 million jobs by 2020, according to a study by Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany. Nearly one in nine U.S. jobs will be in the healthcare sector by 2020, the report states.
"Health sector jobs and health occupations have continued to grow, even in a weak economy, and will remain a major source of jobs for years to come." Center for Health Workforce Studies Director Jean Moore said in a research announcement Friday.
Read more>>
New ICD-10 deadline released
In a new press release from HHS, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a proposed rule that would delay the compliance date for ICD-10 from October 1, 2013 to October 1, 2014. Read more>>
The LJS wants our Legislature to "Stand firm for prenatal care"
The battle over restoring prenatal coverage to low-income women, including those who are not U.S. citizens, has turned out to be one of the most savage of the 2012 legislative session.
Last week, a visibly angry Gov. Dave Heineman took a rhetorical swing at Speaker Mike Flood for his support of the measure, saying that he was "extraordinarily disappointed" in Flood's position. Both are Republicans.
The Journal Star editorial board has long argued that restoration of prenatal care to low-income women is justified both by a sense of compassion and hard-headed fiscal responsibility.
Read more>>
We're moving the economy forward!
Health care is doing its part to grow the economy, adding 26,000 jobs last quarter. (You might want to trust me on that; the press release is a dense doozy!)
Read more>>
LJS: Omaha senator issues money challenge for prenatal care (4-6-12)
Toward the end of a long day and evening on Wednesday, after senators had discussed the need for prenatal care for uninsured moms for nearly four hours, Omaha Sen. Rich Pahls stood up and issued a challenge.
He put it more courteously, but what he was saying was this: Put up or shut up.
He heard that 800 babies are born a year, many of them whose mothers did not have access to adequate care. That care costs between $800 to $1,500 for each mom.
Read more>>
Have you tried this?
The Kaiser Family Foundation has an interactive infographic tracking public opinion of the health law, and you can click and break it down by income, party ID, income, age, gender, etc. Start clicking here: http://bit.ly/HVTZso
This is great news!
"The government QuitLine (1-800-QUIT-NOW ) has seen call volume double since the CDC began the “Former Smokers” campaign two weeks ago. It’s now getting about 34,000 calls a week, and the CDC says that for each one person who calls, five or six more try to quit without the hotline. The new ads are graphic and meant to be disturbing, depicting ex-smokers with diseases and disabilities. The CDC statement: http://1.usa.gov/Hc4cVl"
Getting a doc's appointment tougher on Medicaid
This is such a double-edged sword. Doctors can't survive on providing care for less than their basic cost of practice, however, Medicaid patients need care too.
Read more>>
LB 677 passes!
LB 677, which provide criminal penalties for assault on a health care professional, passes 45-0-4. Our thanks to the senators who voted for the bill!
To see the bill's website, click here.
Dental Visits To ERs Are On The Rise
Ouch! This could be very expensive for our hospitals - and painful for patients because they waited too long.
From the NPR Health Blog:
Toothache? The ER doctor will see you now.
Americans who turn up in the emergency room to get dental care aren't lost, they're probably just running out of options.
According to a new report from the Pew Center on the States, more than 800,000 visits to the ER in 2009 were for toothaches and other avoidable dental ailments.
Read more>>
Harlan County Health System is a winner!
Congratulations to Harlan County Health System in Alma, Nebraska! The awesome team there put together a video for the American Heart Association 'Go Red!' campaign and competition.
And the team won!
See their fun video here.
Nice work, team!
New Fillmore County Hospital ready to admit patients on Mar. 1
This is great news! Congrats to everyone at the Fillmore County Hospital and in the community.
Read more>>
Court action could prolong health care fight
WASHINGTON – Next month's challenge to the Obama-sponsored health care law could affect the care available to most Americans, alter the balance of power between Washington and the states and remain a flash point through this presidential campaign.
Yet there is a path the Supreme Court could take when it hears the case that could delay for years any resolution of a main point of contention. The core of the law is a requirement that most people buy health insurance by 2014 or face a tax penalty.
But looming over the case is a federal policy that restricts the timing of lawsuits connected to the assessment and collection of "any tax."
Read more>>
NET Radio covers the health insurance exchange hearings
Here's another story about LB 835 and the health insurance exchange from the one and only Fred Knapp, whom I'm pretty sure has a cot tucked somewhere in the capitol!
Read it here.
LB 835 gets its day at the Unicameral
It was a busy hearing in front of the Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee yesterday. Lots of people for health insurance exchanges, and in particular LB 835. A few against and a few neutral.
Here's some press on the hearing.
The NHA supports LB 835 for the creation of health insurance exchanges
The Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee held a hearing on health insurance exchanges, which are mandated by federal law. The governor wants to put Nebraska on the sidelines and let the federal government create ours. Read this as to why you should let your state senator know you support LB 835.
Read the NHA's guest editorial in the Omaha World-Herald here.
Time to fix the "doc fix" once and for all
Remember that whole "doc fix" that was taken care of at the very last second in December? Yeah, it's back and unfixed. It's time to let your federal delegation know how important it is to solve this funding issue once and for all. (Oh, and there's the whole tax holiday for the rest of us that may or may not continue.)
Politico dives head first into the issue:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72482.html
Lincoln Journal Star Editorial, 2/2: Eliminate Medicaid cuts
The heart-wrenching testimony on the impact of proposed Medicaid cuts should make clear to state senators that they ought to vote to block them from being implemented.
Two hearing rooms were packed with wheelchairs. Some of those at the hearings had tracheostomies or used feeding tubes. Ventilators hummed away, propelling life-sustaining air to Nebraskans who have difficulty breathing on their own. Nurses suctioned saliva from airways.
The presence of children and adults with serious chronic health difficulties during the six-hour hearing drove home the message of how the Medicaid cuts will drastically affect Nebraskans who depend on home health care.
Gov. Dave Heineman has recommended reductions that amount to $3.4 million in general funds and $4.3 million in federal funds for the Medicaid program for fiscal 2013.
Read more>>
Legislative Bills 952, 926 strive to stop Medicaid cuts
LINCOLN—For a long time, Maura Farruggia of Omaha thought she would never hear her granddaughter, Kareaden, say "grandma." Farruggia and her husband have cared for the 6-year-old, who is inflicted with cerebral palsy, legal blindness and other disorders, since 2006. Medicaid changed everything.Kareaden can walk with assistance, speak and attend school, thanks to Medicaid-funded respite care — a temporary professional care for the disabled. But assistance for many like Kareaden may be on the line with the Division of Medicaid & Long-Term Care's $21 million in Medicaid spending cuts, mostly relating to private and home nursing services. Read more»
— The Daily Nebraskan, Jan. 14, 2012
Medicare shortchanges hospitals on strokes
ROCHESTER, Minn., Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Medicare may be shortchanging U.S. hospitals for the cost of treating stroke, researchers at the Mayo Clinic find. Dr. Waleed Brinjikji, Dr. Alejandro A. Rabinstein and Dr. Harry J. Cloft of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., used data from the the National Inpatient Sample to evaluate hospitalization costs for patients treated with intravenous thrombolysis for acute ischemic stroke in the United States from 2001 to 2008. Read more>>
-- UPI.com, Jan. 17, 2012
NHA 2012 Advocacy Day is March 21!
NHA’s Advocacy Day highlights the 2012 legislative issues impacting Nebraska hospitals and health systems, and how they deliver quality and affordable care to their communities.
Additionally, Advocacy Day provides health care advocates and leaders with the opportunity to visit with and educate state senators about how health care legislation will affect them.
Your participation is important! Having a strong understanding of legislative issues and how they impact your hospital and community is critical for health care executives. Your knowledge of the legislative issues and state health care policy allow you to effectively be a voice and advocate. We will be the most successful when legislators and policymakers hear your grassroots stories describing the realities of health care in Nebraska.
Please plan to join us on Wednesday, Mar. 21, 2012, at The Cornhusker Marriott in Lincoln for NHA 2012 Advocacy Day.
Click here to download a brochure or click here to register online.
Collaborative Efforts Can Save Money And Improve Care
Experts say employers, hospitals, physicians and health plans increasingly are willing to work together because cost and quality problems have reached crisis levels. The goal is to carve out health-care spending that’s wasteful and doesn’t help patients. Sometimes there’s an implicit threat that if a provider or health plan doesn’t participate, the large employer will buy health care from someone else.
Read more>>
This is good news! Glad to hear it from the first lady today. Veterans health care initiative is announced:
First lady Michelle Obama Wednesday announced a coordinated effort by 130 colleges to train doctors to deal with U.S. military veterans' health issues.
The goal of the Obama administration's collaboration with the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine is to produce doctors, medical schools and research facilities that provide healthcare that meets the needs of the military and veterans communities, Obama said in a statement released by the White House.
Read more>>
The Next Phase of Cost Control
This third report in a series of four from the inaugural HealthLeaders Media CFO Exchange provides insight on cost containment from leaders at Banner Health, Wellmont Health System, Parkland Health & Hospital System, Floyd Memorial Hospital & Health Services, and Trinity Regional Health System. Eighteen percent cite "no culture of being cost-conscious" as their greatest organizational challenge to cost reduction.
Read more>>
Commentary: Rural Hospitals Band Together for Insurance-Buying Power
By: Alexandra Wilson Pecci, for HealthLeaders Media, January 11, 2012
A group of Texas community and rural hospitals launches a campaign to encourage a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to buying insurance.
Read more>>
20% of Healthcare Dollars Spent on 1% of Population
By: Cheryl Clark, for HealthLeaders Media, January 12, 2012
The top 5% of the U.S. population, which accounts for half of all healthcare expenditures, may yield the biggest opportunity for realizing savings, suggests a report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Read more>>
Do No Harm — And Keep An Eye On Costs
The American College of Physicians hit a nerve when it released an updated ethics manual calling for doctors to provide "parsimonious care" – in other words, "to practice effective and efficient health care and to use health care resources responsibly."
This recommendation, included in the Jan. 3 Annals of Internal Medicine special supplement, drew immediate reaction – and not just because of its use of the infrequently heard "parsimonious." It's been viewed as a definitive statement of medical ethics directed at the organization's 132,000 members – physicians who practice internal medicine and its related specialties, among them cardiology and oncology, that often involve expensive procedures. And, the guidance comes at a time when health care costs are central to the national policy debate.
Read more from Kaiser Health News.
Slower Growth in Health Spending
The New York Times Editorial:
Health care spending in the United States increased at the slowest rate in half a century in 2009 and 2010, essentially keeping pace with the growth of the economy, according to the latest federal data.
That looks like good news after decades of soaring health care spending that outpaced economic growth. The hitch: the main factor was the recession that left millions of Americans unemployed, uninsured, short of income, and unable or unwilling to spend money on health care.
Read more>>
Walgreen Is Firm on End of Express Scripts Deal
By BRUCE JAPSEN, The New York Times
Published: January 11, 2012
CHICAGO — The chief executive of the Walgreen Company defended the chain’s decision to end its relationship with the prescription benefit manager Express Scripts, even as rivals have stepped up their efforts to attract pharmacy customers covered by Express Scripts plans.
Speaking to about 2,500 shareholders at the Walgreen annual meeting, the executive, Gregory D. Wasson said that Express Scripts was offering to pay below-average rates, which was unacceptable to Walgreen. The agreement ended Dec. 31.
Read more>>
Good news! U.S. cancer death rates continue to decline
Cancer death rates dropped 1.8% per year in men and 1.6% per year in women between 2004 and 2008, according to a report examining cancer in the U.S. released yesterday by the American Cancer Society. Overall cancer incidence rates declined by about 0.6% each year in men and remained stable in women during this period. From 1999-2008, cancer death rates declined by more than 1.0% per year in men and women of every racial and ethnic group with the exception of American Indians/Alaska Natives, among whom rates have remained stable. The report says the overall reduction in cancer death rates in men since 1990 and women since 1991 translates into more than 1 million deaths avoided. Despite declines in incidence rates for the most common cancers - lung, colorectal, breast and prostate, a companion report shows increased incidences of cancers of the pancreas, liver, thyroid, kidney, skin and esophagus.
AHA issues 2010 data on hospitals' uncompensated care
U.S. hospitals provided $39.3 billion in uncompensated care in 2010, according to the latest data from the AHA's Annual Survey of Hospitals. That's $200 million more than in 2009. The total includes "bad debt," services for which hospitals anticipated but did not receive payment, and charity care, services for which hospitals neither received nor expected payment because they determined, with help from the patient, the patient's inability to pay. It does not include Medicaid and Medicare underpayment.
— AHA, Jan. 5, 2012
Report Finds Most Errors at Hospitals Go Unreported
Hospital employees recognize and report only one out of seven errors, accidents and other events that harm Medicare patients while they are hospitalized, federal investigators say in a new report. Yet even after hospitals investigate preventable injuries and infections that have been reported, they rarely change their practices to prevent repetition of the “adverse events,” according to the study, from Daniel R. Levinson, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. Read more»
— The New York Times, Jan. 6, 2012
Doctors going broke
NEW YORK—Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke. This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists. Industry watchers say the trend is worrisome. Half of all doctors in the nation operate a private practice. So if a cash crunch forces the death of an independent practice, it robs a community of a vital health care resource. Read more.
— CNN Money, Jan. 6, 2012
The Affordable Care Act, helping Americans curb health-care costs
WASHINGTON, D.C.—In an Op Ed in the Washington Post, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius writes: "The rising cost of health insurance coverage has imposed a heavy burden on our nation. Over the past decade, insurance premiums for working families have grown three times faster than have wages. Small businesses have seen health care become one of their biggest operating expenses. And rising state and federal spending on health programs has crowded out critical investments in better schools, new roads and other areas.” Read more»
— The Washington Post, Jan. 5, 2012
Medicare Penalties For Readmissions Could Be A Tough Hit On Hospitals Serving The Poor
James Breedin cannot keep track of how often he has been admitted to Howard University Hospital for heart problems. "It's been so many," said Breedin, a 75-year-old disabled former truck driver from Northeast Washington.
Ralph Rust meets with Dr. George Ruiz at Washington Hospital Center. Rust has struggled for decades to stay out of the hospital.
One reason for his frequent returns, he says, is that he often can't afford the medications his doctor prescribes to keep his heart problems in check, "so I have to do without." Another is that he fears exercising outside because of neighborhood violence.
Read more from Kaiser Health News and The Washington Post.
Feds: Neb. man ran $1.4 million health care scam
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Federal prosecutors have charged the former business manager of a Norfolk health care provider with bank and health care fraud. The U.S. Attorney's office says Mark Koehler of Norfolk submitted $1.4 million in false claims to Medicare, Nebraska Medicaid and private insurers. Koehler worked as the business manager for Heartland Physical Therapy in Norfolk.
Prosecutors say he also defrauded a Norfolk bank by including the false billings in reports that were used to secure cash advances. Prosecutors say bank officials relied on the reports when they advanced Heartland Physical Therapy about $500,000, which the company should not have received.
A woman who answered the phone Thursday at Heartland Physical Therapy's Norfolk office said Koehler hasn't worked for the company for nearly two years. She declined to comment further.
Panel: Increasing health care availability doesn't necessarily mean improved health
NEBRASKA—A series of statewide health care dialogues concluded Dec. 1 in Lincoln with a five-person panel discussion about the overall health of Americans in general and Nebraskans in particular. Among the key points was the distinction between leading healthy lives and health care.
Panelist Andrew Holtz, an Oregon-based independent journalist and former CNN correspondent, said it is a common misconception that increasing health care will also increase health. Read more»
— Nebraska News Service, Dec. 7, 2011
House GOP Leaders Agree to Pass Two-Month Tax Bill
(The Hill) -- TheHill.com reports that "House Republican leaders have agreed to pass a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits." The agreement was announced last night. "The deal is contingent on support from rank-and-file House Republicans."
Read more here:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/201081-house-republicans-cave-agree-to-two-month-tax-bill
Supercommittee fails to reach an agreement
WASHINGTON—The co-chairs of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction Monday announced that the committee has failed to come to an agreement on a deficit reduction strategy.
The bipartisan 12-member committee—chaired by Senate Democratic Conference Secretary Patty Murray (D-WA) and House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)—was created by this summer's Budget Control Act to craft a far-reaching plan by November 23 to reduce the national deficit by at least $1.2 trillion. The committee's failure to reach an agreement means automatic spending cuts totaling $1.2 trillion split between defense spending and non-defense programs will take effect in January 2013. Under the trigger, reductions in Medicare payments to hospitals and other providers of 2 percent over nine years (2013 to 2021) will take effect.
"Sequestration means that arbitrary reductions in resources for patient care under Medicare will now be set to take effect under the law for the remainder of the decade," said AHA President and CEO Rich Umbdenstock today. "This will have an impact not just on the elderly and disabled beneficiaries of the program, but on their families. It will also have an impact on the ability of hospitals to provide essential public services to the communities they serve given the impact that Medicare has on the entire health care system."
He added, "It is likely that Congress will reconsider whether this approach should take effect in January 2013 as required under current law. America's hospitals will work with Congress as these discussions continue."
— AHA, November 21, 2011
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CMS Proposed New Worksheets (CL)
May 16, 2012
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Did You Know There is an App for That? A Quick Tour of New Mobile Health Opportunities for Hospitals and Health Professionals
May 16, 2012
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Critical Access Hospitals and Provider-Based Clinics (CL)
May 22, 2012
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Medicare Enrollment, PECOs and NPIs (CL)
May 22, 2012
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Chargemaster for Therapy Services (CL)
May 23, 2012
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Credentialing and Privileging Basics (CL)
May 23, 2012
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Governing Quality Care, Financial Obligations and Community Impact of Your Hospital's Medical Staff - Part 3 of Trustee Webinar Series
May 23, 2012
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NHA 2012 Mid-Year Meeting and Golf Tournament
May 23, 2012 thru May 25, 2012
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Observation: Advanced (CL)
May 24, 2012
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CDC Intravascular Guidelines (CL)
May 30, 2012
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More Events...
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