MHA Press Room

Survey: Experts view long-term care as pressing concern

Eight in 10 health care experts surveyed by the Commonwealth Fund last month said policymakers and health care leaders urgently need to secure adequate financing for long-term care. Roughly the same proportion favored adding a long-term care benefit to Medicare, financed by a premium, and saw an urgent need to develop the long-term care workforce and improve the quality of long-term care facilities. Spending on long-term care for the elderly is projected to more than double over the next 30 years, the report notes.

Number of working-age adults with chronic conditions climbs

The number of working-age adults with chronic health conditions grew 25% between 1997 and 2006 to 58 million, according to a study published online on July 22 by Health Affairs. More than one-third of uninsured adults with a chronic condition did not have a usual source of care in 2006, up from 29% a decade earlier; 26% had not seen a health professional all year, up from 21% in 1997.

Both insured and uninsured adults with chronic conditions were more likely to report unmet medical needs due to cost in 2006 than in 1997. The study, by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, examined access to care for working-age adults with heart disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, asthma, emphysema or cancer based on responses to the National Health Interview Survey.

AHRQ reports increase in children hospitalized with skin infections

Skin infections accounted for more than 34,000 hospital stays for children aged 4 and younger in 2006, a 150% increase from 2000, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported recently. Skin infections were the eighth-leading reason for child hospitalizations, up from 17th in 2000. The reason for the increase is unclear, but may be linked in part to increasing resistance to antibiotics, AHRQ said.

Respiratory diseases such as pneumonia, asthma, bronchitis and flu remained the top reason for child hospitalizations in 2006, accounting for about 513,000 admissions. The data are from an AHRQ analysis of hospitalization trends among children.

Long-term care should be part of Medicare: survey

Health care experts overwhelmingly support adding a long-term-care benefit to Medicare as part of a comprehensive solution to the coming onslaught of baby boomer retirees, the latest Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Opinion Leaders Survey finds.

The survey of 196 leading experts in academia, health care delivery, health care-related business and government found that 79% of respondents support such a new benefit, which would be backed by a premium. Such cost-sharing was in line with other results of the poll. Some 55% of respondents said individuals and the government should share long-term-care costs, while only 8% thought such costs should be paid mostly by the government.

Another 64% of respondents favored providing tax incentives for individuals to purchase private long-term-care insurance, and 63% backed transferring the responsibility for Medicaid long-term care from the states to the federal government. Respondents also broadly agreed that ensuring adequate financing and a workforce able to meet the needs of the nation’s aging population were at the top of the list of long-term-care policy challenges. Full coverage of the survey results will be published July 21 in Modern Healthcare and online at modernhealthcare.com and at commonwealthfund.org.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The proportion of U.S. adults who self-reported being obese increased 1.7%, from 23.9% in 2005 to 25.6% in 2007, according to a report released July 17 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report is based on data collected from more than 350,000 adults aged 18 and older through the CDC’s annual Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

According to the survey, the prevalence of obesity increases with age: 19.1% of adults aged 19-29 identified as obese in 2007, while more than 30% of adults aged 50-59 identified as obese. Obesity also is more prominent in the South, where 27% of adults classified themselves as obese.

“Obesity is a major risk factor for a number of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke,” said Deb Galuska, associate director for science for CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity. “These diseases can be very costly for states and the country as a whole.”

National policy needed to address health care workforce crisis, report says

A report released July 17 by the Association of Academic Health Centers warns that the U.S. needs to take immediate action to develop an integrated, comprehensive national health care workforce policy to meet the needs of the aging population. Further exacerbating the problem is that large numbers of health professionals will be retiring in the coming years. For example, 55% of nurses surveyed in 2006 said they plan to retire between 2011 and 2020.

“It is essential that the nation take a critical look at its policymaking framework that has created a system for the health workforce that may no longer be adaptable to changing national health needs,” said AAHC President and CEO Steven Wartman, M.D. “We also need action because the workforce plays such a pivotal role in biomedical research and science as well as in the U.S. economy and jobs creation.”

Study: Employer share of health coverage increasing

Employer premiums for businesses that offered employees health insurance grew 34% between 1996 and 2005, exceeding 10% of total payroll in 2005, according to a report in the June edition of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Monthly Labor Review. The probability that an employer offered coverage increased over the same period from 51% in 1996 to 56% in 2005 despite increasing costs.

According to the authors, many economists “believe that employer premium contributions are ultimately paid for by workers in the form of reduced wages.” The authors said their findings show that the most disadvantaged workers, such as small business employees and those employed at a business without a union presence, may be the most adversely affected by rising health care costs.

Study: Self-referral drives up use of hospital services

Physicians with an ownership interest in specialty hospitals in Oklahoma used significantly more services than non-owners to treat injured workers with back and spine disorders, according to a new study in the July issue of Medical Care. Author Jean Mitchell, an economist and professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, compared the practice patterns of physician owners of specialty hospitals to the practice patterns of physician non-owners who treated similar cases over the same period.

“Given the substantial increases in utilization linked to physician ownership, the costs of treating such cases are likely to be significantly higher in comparison to those who obtain care from nonself-referral providers,” she concludes. “These findings should be of interest to policymakers and third party insurers who are concerned about increased utilization associated with physician self-referral arrangements and its subsequent contribution to escalating health care expenditures for individuals with good insurance coverage.”

DOM announces Medicaid rate cuts

The Division of Medicaid filed on Friday, July 11, the Notice of Rule Adoption with the Secretary of State’s Office, starting the 25-day clock for cuts in provider reimbursements under the Medicaid program. This notification includes a 33.5% rate decrease to all hospital inpatient per diems, to exclude state-owned facilities and Medicare-designated Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs).

Attached below is the IP Hospital State Plan Amendment outlining the cuts. Here is a link to the amendment outlining all proposed cuts to all affected providers.

Download 2008_spa_for_hospitalspayment_decreases.pdf

Singletary rules that Barbour's gross revenue tax is unconstitutional

Judge Singletary has made a ruling in the Mississippi hospitals' challenge of Gov. Barbour's authority to unilaterally levy a tax against hospitals. Attached is a copy of the opinion issued by Judge Singletary on July 10.

The Court found that Section 43-13-117(18)(b) was intended to fund only the non-federal share of the UPL program and not to be used as a general Medicaid funding mechanism. He found that the Division of Medicaid's interpretation is unconstitutional and is in violation of the separation of powers doctrine.

The defendants have 30 days to appeal.

Download gw2B.pdf