Imagine if American health policy were established by the consensus of health economists. What would the system look like? A survey of nearly 200 Ph.D. health economists working in the United States provides some clues.

The survey, presented at the American Society of Health Economists conference in Washington last summer, was conducted by the health economists John Cawley of Cornell University, Michael Morrisey of Texas A&M and Kosali Simon of Indiana University.

Whether the Affordable Care Act should be repealed has been one of the highest-profile health policy issues ever since its passage in 2010. Health economists are clear on this: They strongly reject repeal, with 89 percent opposing the idea.

Health economists also overwhelmingly (81 percent agreement) said the A.C.A.s individual mandate in which people paid a fine if they chose not to be insured was essential for its success. Without it, they said, the people who sign up would disproportionately be sicker, causing insurance to become ever more expensive. This phenomenon, also known as adverse selection, could collapse the market.

The need for an individual mandate is consistent with both economic theory and research and seemed sensible at the time of the survey in 2018. But its necessity is less clear today. The tax cuts signed into law at the end of 2017 reduced the penalty for not having coverage to zero last year, yet marketplaces have by and large remained stable.

A popular feature of the A.C.A. is that insurers cannot raise premiums for pre-existing conditions. Health economists appear to agree with this, with 80 percent saying premiums should not be higher for those with genetic defects (the polls wording).

But nearly 70 percent of health economists are comfortable charging people more if they engage in unhealthy behaviors that lead to higher health costs. The A.C.A. allows marketplace plans to do just that based on smoking. The idea that people should pay for the consequences of their personal choices sin taxes, basically has some intuitive appeal. (Another sin tax would be to increase taxes on soft drinks, an idea favored by 62 percent of health economists.)

But disciplines other than economics view health behaviors differently. Addictions, in particular, are often viewed as diseases, not informed choices. Adult addiction to nicotine usually stems from decisions made as a teen, which are shaped as much or more by circumstances than rational thought, said Michael Stein, chair of the Health Law, Policy & Management Department at Boston University School of Public Health. Charging a higher premium for a smoker is punishing someone with a disease, so why this disease?

Various ideas to cut costs in Medicare and Medicaid have been proposed in recent years. Health economists generally oppose those changes.

The poll asked them if they favored converting Medicare into a program based in part on income. That would mean that full Medicare coverage would not be available to everyone upon reaching 65, but only to those whose incomes are below some cutoff. This idea is opposed by 71 percent of health economists.

A related idea for Medicare is to convert it to a voucher-based program. This would establish a set amount the government would pay for your coverage so that you could shop for a health plan. Most health economists (61 percent) also oppose this idea. This is in step with the broader public, according to most polls over the years.

Raising the age of Medicare eligibility is the least opposed of the polled ideas for changing the programs eligibility or benefits; around half reject it. But only 28 percent favor it, with 22 percent not providing an opinion. The most recent polls of Americans on this issue indicate that a slim majority reject it as well.

It may surprise some that economists, who normally prefer market-based approaches to government programs, are so supportive of Medicares current structure. Though they recognize the value of free markets, economists also believe that market failures are harmful, the polls conductors told me. In some cases, such as health insurance for the elderly, many economists think that society does best when government provides services directly.

Another way to improve Medicares finances would be to raise taxes. A slim majority (52 percent) of health economists favor doing so.

While Medicares coverage policy or financing hasnt changed recently, Medicaid has undergone considerable changes. One is work requirements. As of last summer, 16 states have proposed or put in work requirements for Medicaid eligibility. The change has been the subject of lawsuits, and was dealt a defeat before a federal appeals court panel on Friday. Seventy-seven percent of health economists do not believe work requirements should be part of Medicaid.

The Trump administration said recently that it would permit block grants for some of the funding the federal government sends to state Medicaid programs. Medicaid block grants, long proposed by Republicans, would provide states a fixed amount of money for Medicaid instead of an open-ended funding program. About 70 percent of health economists oppose the idea.

Employer-sponsored health insurance is not subject to taxation. That results in $250 billion in lost tax revenue per year, and many economists say this leads to excessively generous health insurance plans, contributing to wasteful health care spending. Health economists, by and large, dislike this big tax break only 14 percent of them favor the current tax treatment of employer-sponsored health insurance. But theyre just about the only group that feels that way. Reflecting public sentiment, a provision in the Affordable Care Act that would have partly undone this tax break the so-called Cadillac tax was repealed at the end of last year.

Many of todays conversations about reducing health spending focus on prescription drugs. A good deal of drug spending ends up as profits for the pharmaceutical industry drug company profit margins above 15 percent are not uncommon. One justification for high profits is that they motivate additional investment, spurring innovation.

A plurality of health economists seem to question this argument. Forty-eight percent disagree with the statement that drug company profits are necessary to incentivize the optimal level of research and development. Twenty-eight percent agree with that statement, and 24 percent gave no opinion.

Health economists overwhelmingly (93 percent of them) say that if employers were to spend less on health insurance, wages and other benefits would increase. In other words, when employers appear to pay for health benefits, at least some of that comes from workers wages. The evidence is on the economists side, but it doesnt necessarily mean that wages would go up one dollar for every dollar premiums went down. It might for some workers, but not for all.

If health economists were in charge of the health system, not a lot would change, with some notable exceptions. Medicaid would not have work requirements (which would be unpopular among conservatives in some states), and taxes would go up for Medicare and for employer-based health insurance (which would make it unpopular among just about everybody).

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The Health System Wed Have if Economists Ran Things - The New York Times

The healthcare services market is a $50 billion+ industry, and continues to grow exponentially without any signs of slowing down. However, daily consumers may not be aware of this market, as these firms provide services, advisement, and innovative technology to various healthcare organizations, rather than to patients directly. These healthcare organizations include large hospital systems, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, and even organized physician groups. Therefore, albeit the financially impressive size of this industry, the majority of the work and the significant value that these service firms provide is often shrouded behind the successes of these larger clients. The fact that much of this value occurs behind-the-scenes often delivers the false public perception that healthcare consulting is solely focused around the implementation of electronic health systems, when in reality, the industry entails a volume of other services as well. So, what do these firms do exactly, and why is this such a robust market?

Perhaps the biggest buzzword of this decade, digital health has become routine business for any professional services firm that is involved in healthcare.The U.S. Food & Drug Administration provides a wide scope when defining what fits within the category of digital health, including: mobile health (mHealth), health information technology (IT), wearable devices, telehealth and telemedicine, and personalized medicine. Congruently, consulting companies have been quick to form entire verticals within their healthcare practices to focus on servicing these specific areas. And this is for good reason. The mobile health market is estimated to reach nearly $22 billion dollars by 2023. The healthcare artificial intelligence market is just as robust,and is projected to reach $19+ billion dollars by 2026. The telemedicine market boasts the most impressive figure, estimated to reach $130 billion by 2025.

The unifying factor between all of these different avenues remains the same: an extremely complex learning, implementation, and acclimation curve. Hospital systems and healthcare entities that do not want to fall behind on these new streams of market share, revenue, and patient populations have no choice but to engage professional services firms to learn how they can pivot their existing capabilities into these new ventures. Healthcare consulting firms will be able to provide this dedicated expertise.

Mobile and digital health tools are playing an increasing role in patient care.

While digital health is a massive growth opportunity, many healthcare entities are struggling to simply grow and maintain their fundamental and existing business areas. This is another area where healthcare consulting firms can often add value: expertise in market competitiveness, operational efficiency, and enterprise performance remains the bread and butter business for the vast majority of these firms. Global consulting firm Bain & Company discusses a valuable client story:a large pharmaceutical company engaged the consulting firm to cut costs while still tangibly maintaining and growing its product pipeline. Another case entailed a governmental entity engaging the Boston Consulting Group to transform its entire healthcare approach, working with the consulting firm to implement a system that emphasizes preventive care, high provider quality, and efficient care delivery models.

Much of the approach to all of these cases were similar. At the most basic level, industry experts from the consulting firms worked to understand the client needs, the requirements of the specific market consumers being served, the needs of the business entities, and any other outlying variables related to the issue at hand. Once these factors were understood and established, these experts worked with stakeholders to provide strategic recommendations and implement key frameworks for the clients to use moving forward.

SWOT Analysis: A commonly used tool to determine business and market strategy.

The common fallacy that many continue to contemplate: why hire outside consultants to resolve an internal problem? But the reality is that healthcare is too agile of a market, with political, economic, and consumer demands creating nearly instantaneous market shifts.Hospital systems, pharmaceutical companies, physician groups, and other patient centered players have very different expertise areas, and should remain focused on the actual delivery of healthcare to the community. These entities cannot be expected to also have unlimited knowledge in operational efficiency and enterprise success. Rather, there is a need to delegate this expertise. This has paved the way for healthcare consulting to become an entire industry in and of itself, an industry which continues to work behind-the-scenes to contribute to and support a dynamic and robust healthcare ecosystem.

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The $50+ Billion Consulting Industry Supporting Healthcare That You May Not Know About - Forbes

Achieving universal health coverage requires the consistent delivery of high-quality healthcare services at scale, which is itself dependent on a workforce that operates in the most efficient way. In the context of overburdened health systems in emerging economies, however, this is particularly challenging.

To help healthcare leaders better manage their health resources and support improved performance, BroadReach Group has been successfully deploying its proprietary, cutting-edge technology in some of these markets.

In South Africa, the company is working with the Department of Health in the Ugu district of KwaZulu Natal (KZN), as part of the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)s HIV control initiatives, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Ugu has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world, with 27% of its population testing HIV positive. In 2019, it achieved the remarkable milestone of meeting its 90-90-90 targets, established by UNAIDS in 2013 to help end the AIDS epidemic, which state that:

As of December 2019, the Ugu district had achieved the following:

This was no easy feat, particularly given the health-resource constraints experienced in the public health sector. BroadReach Consulting has supported the Department of Health as a certified implementing partner of Vantage Technologies, using a combination of AI-enabled technology, health programme management best practices and change consulting to help guide them towards achieving their 90-90-90 targets. Ugu was the first district in the country to reach this milestone.

The right people were given the right information, recommended next best actions, and step-by-step support to implement them and to create scalable, consistent, system-wide transformation. The ripple effect of directed individual action cascaded across the entire health system to enable oversight and improved results.

Last month, BroadReach Founding Partner Dr John Sargent spoke at the HIMSS DM Cambridge Summit about the role of AI-enabled technology in improving the management of the public health system in emerging markets.

Below, you can see Dr Sargent talk about their approach on HIMSS TV.

More information about the event can be found here.

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How AI is transforming public health system management in emerging economies - Healthcare IT News

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Off duty health care workers save mans life after he collapsed at gym - WNEM Saginaw

Since then, the matter has only escalated. Mr. Barr, in an extraordinary rebuke of the president on Thursday, said Mr. Trumps Twitter attacks on the Justice Department made it impossible for him to do his job. Mr. Trump fired back on Friday, asserting via tweets that he had a legal right to interfere in Justice Department cases.

And Mr. Boltons book, which is scheduled to go on sale on March 17, could yield additional revelations about the presidents behavior with respect to Ukraine and revive calls for Mr. Bolton to testify.

At the same time, cases related to other House investigations of the president, including examinations of his finances and whether he violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution by accepting payments from representatives of foreign governments who frequent his hotels, are working their way through the courts.

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Mr. Trump can block the release of his financial records; a ruling is expected by June. An appeals court is considering whether Mr. Trump can order his advisers, including Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel, from complying with congressional subpoenas.

Still, Representative Katherine M. Clark, Democrat of Massachusetts and vice chairwoman of the Democratic caucus, said Democrats believed the cure for Mr. Trumps behavior runs through the ballot box.

A lot of this is going to be up to making sure that we are successful in November, she said.

Democrats say they have never taken their eyes off their legislative agenda, in particular lowering health care costs. Even as they voted to impeach Mr. Trump, Democrats teamed up with him on a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada.

Before they left for recess, Democrats unveiled a $760 billion infrastructure plan that they have said is aimed at jump-starting bipartisan talks with the administration on how to fix the nations crumbling roads, rails and bridges. Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, said the plan would give Democrats something tangible to talk about in their home districts. But the chances of any election-year deal with Mr. Trump on the issue are vanishingly remote.

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Democrats Plan to Highlight Health Care and Jobs Over Investigating Trump - The New York Times

These three health care accounts have some similarities - and some very important differences.

There are a lot of acronyms when it comes to saving for your health care expenses. HSA, FSA, HRA. Which one should you choose?

Jonathon Hess of Athos Health, our Health Care Hacker, breaks down some of the differences.

HSA - Health Savings Account

FSA - Flexible Spending Account

HRA - Health Reimbursement Account

So, which one should you choose?

If you have the choice, Hess thinks you should alwayschoose the Health Savings Account (HSA). Some of the key reasons? It's your money, it rolls over so you never lose it, and it doubles as a retirement account.

If you have a question about your health care expenses, send it to us athealthcarehacks@kare11.com. We'll try to address it in the future episode.

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HSA, FSA, HRA: What's the difference? - KARE11.com

Founded in 2016, Precision Driven Health is a research partnership between New Zealands health IT sector, health providers and universities, aimed at improving health outcomes through data science. Ahead of the HIMSS20 conference, Kevin Ross, CEO of the organization, talks about the significance of data in delivering value-based care and the real challenges of collaboration between different stakeholders in data.

What are your thoughts on value-based care (vs the traditional fee-for-service model) and what can be done with healthcare data to create more value and personalized care for patients?

Value-based care is far preferable to a fee-for-service model, as long as we agree on value, and can be transparent in our approach. At its extreme, a fee-for-service model rewards someone who takes many attempts to get it right, whereas value-based care rewards the delivery of what matters in the most efficient way. Data has a huge role to play in this, particularly in helping to define and analyze the most appropriate metrics for value.

Data allows us to use a common language for value, and can make transparent the link between the activities undertaken in healthcare, and the value that is received by consumers. When data can be shared, people can see more clearly what they are receiving, and what is having the greatest impact. A fee-for-service tends to lead toward giving the same care for everyone, as we get good at efficiently delivering a particular procedure or program.

Data science allows us to analyze what works for different people, and if the objective is to deliver value, then the world of possibilities opens up. One person may benefit from medication, while another benefits from improvements to their living circumstances; value-based care gives us a framework to consider these in a common way.

As CEO of Precision Driven Health, what are some of the lessons learnt through coordinating collaborations between health professionals and data scientists in applying data science to enable precision health to become a reality?

Everyone is keen to collaborate and learn from each other, but there is often a lot of work up front to establish common language and understanding. We come with our biases, and are often unaware of how much they influence our thinking and expectations. I find that most people oversimplify the role of another collaborator and assume that it will fit into their own way of viewing the world.

For example, a data scientist thinks of a clinician as having a very transactional role of translating data into a diagnosis or next decision. While this may describe some of the core information exchange in clinical care, it is in reality only a small part of what happens and much of what happens is not captured in tidy data science language. Similarly, our clinicians often think that data science is one of two extremes either magic (just throw some data into a pot and out will come an answer), or predictable (the data will show that if we change X then Y will be improved). A good data science process involves a lot of workshopping, trial and error, human input and compromise.

What are your observations on the development of precision health in New Zealand? What opportunities do you see?

New Zealand has excellent quality data, enabled through a single identifier per person, known as the National Health Index. This allows twenty years of digital records to be linked and analyzed for historical patterns. Combining this data about a diverse population with excellent data scientists, clinicians and software developers, New Zealand is well positioned to be a testbed for innovations in precision health. Having a single-payer health system also helps to ensure that the best care for an individual usually corresponds with economic benefits to the whole system.

However, despite all of these advantages, the task is still very difficult. Healthcare changes slowly, and we must build public trust for/in new uses of data, and new ways of delivering care. Our clinical carers are not trained in data science, and our data scientists are new to healthcare so the changes that are readily seen in other industries have not yet taken hold on a large scale.

How do you think the use of healthcare data has led to better health outcomes in New Zealand? Could you give us some examples?

New Zealand has linked healthcare data to other government service data, including housing, education, justice. This has allowed us to understand the link between health and other social circumstances. As one example, a local health board has invested in improving the quality of homes in the neighborhood, to reduce the rates of respiratory issues caused by mold.

At the other end of the system, we have developed a localized calculator for the outcomes from elective surgery, developed based on all surgeries in the past ten years. We can now use this information for anyone considering a procedure, and explain what the outcomes are like for people like them. For minority groups who are not represented well in international studies, this allows a much better-informed conversation between surgeon, patient and family that helps to make the best long-term decisions.

Kevin Ross is a panelist at the HIMSS20 AsiaPac Summits Panel Discussion titled Preparing Data and Redesigning Metrics for Value-Based Care, scheduled for Wednesday, March 11 from 8.30am to 9.30am in room W240C. Additional registration is required click here for more details on the HIMSS20 AsiaPac Summit.

He is also the speaker for the session titled Ethical Machine Learning scheduled for Tuesday, March 10 from 1.30pm-2.30pm in room W207C.

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Extracting data to deliver value-based care - Healthcare IT News

Efforts to alleviate long travel and wait times and appointment backlogs faced by military veterans at the VA Medical Center in East Orange have taken a small step forward with the approval of an alternate hospital site in Paramus where they can now receive care, but it may be awhile before a similar local alternative is offered in the Sussex/Warren county region.

The latest development, announced Friday by U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th Dist., follows the June 2018 passage of federal legislation known as the VA MISSION Act. The law whose name is an acronym for "Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Outside Networks" established a Community Care program intended to allow eligible veterans to receive care from non-VA facilities within their own communities.

At an October meeting with Vincent Immiti, director of the New Jersey Health Care System for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the congressman discussed issues faced by veterans seeking care at the VA hospital in East Orange including appointment delays of 30 days or more as well as frequent and abrupt appointment cancellations, often with little or no advance notice or explanation.

At the time, the congressman secured a commitment from Immiti to expedite the designation of Bergen New Bridge Medical Center in Paramus as a VA-approved community care provider so it, too, could begin accepting patient referrals for eligible veterans. According to Friday's announcement, covered veterans may now specify an eligible non-VA facility from which they would like to receive care, so long as the care is clinically necessary and not feasibly available through another VA facility.

"I've heard from veterans across the Fifth District who have had to drive over an hour, only to be met by long wait times and canceled appointments," said Gottheimer, who touted the fact that veterans in Bergen County would now have access to an alternate facility closer to home.

However, given the drive time of over an hour from most of Sussex and Warren counties to get to Paramus, it is not yet clear how much this announcement will help the veterans of northwest New Jersey.

Gottheimer previously had said he hoped to enable additional healthcare referrals to be made through Newton Medical Center and other local facilities, but so far it hasn't happened. With representatives of Newton Medical Center unavailable for comment Monday because of the Presidents' Day holiday, it could not immediately be determined how much progress, if any, has taken place on that front.

John Harrigan, president of Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 1002 in Vernon, said in a phone conversation Monday that he would love it if veterans could access more healthcare services locally. "It would be great if somebody could work with the VA and do that," he said.

Currently, veterans have access to a VA outpatient clinic in Newton that operates mostly by appointment from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. In addition to offering specialty referrals, the facility offers primary care and prescription services along with limited psychiatric and mental health services. For veterans like Harrigan who reside in northern Sussex County, an additional VA outpatient clinic also is located in Port Jervis, N.Y.

Harrigan said veterans can also receive basic, primary and prescription drug services on a walk-in basis at a CVS Minute Clinic in Sparta. Still, he said, being able to obtain specialty care at a local hospital or other facility would be of immeasurable value to veterans, particularly those with limited transportation options.

Gottheimer has said previously that he would like to see that become a reality for veterans from Sussex and Warren counties as well as those residing in Bergen County. We must always have the backs of those who have had ours, the brave men and women who have served our nation and defended our freedoms, he said.

Eric Obernauer can also be contacted on Twitter: @EricObernNJH or by phone at 973-383-1213.

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Efforts to expand veterans health care options continue - New Jersey Herald

Stephanie Rosas-Garcia

Three hours 22 minutes and 32 seconds have passed, and I have not moved from this hard seat in the basement of Jersey Citys Medical Center, but whos keeping track other than me. Certainly, not the three tired-looking members of staff who sit at the front desk shouting out peoples names from a list. By the time September has arrived, I have used all my paid time off, vacation and sick days to accompany my diabetic father to his countless doctor appointments appointments that could have been avoided had his treatment begun 11 years ago when he was first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Unfortunately, a decade ago, access to anything but absolute emergency health care in New Jersey for an undocumented person was not feasible. Since then, and with the passing of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 by the Obama administration, hospitals have had an incentive to provide more care for uninsured patients. If hospitals did not meet the requirements, they were subject to a new $50,000 annual excise tax.

On average, a person in a private practice waits 30-35 minutes to be seen and 16 days to schedule a first-time visit with a new physician. Uninsured patients spend almost double that time to be seen and one to two months to schedule a new patient-physician appointment. The waiting time varies depending on location, staff numbers, among other reasons. Regardless of the new requirements, hospitals that care for a large population of charity care patients which includes those without insurance, or those without adequate coverage are only able to recover a small portion of the cost. The financial impact will depend, among other factors, on whether hospitals are located in states that expanded Medicaid coverage through the ACA.

As the debate for universal health care continues and Gov. Phil Murphy works to implement a state-based exchange, New Jersey needs to implement health care reform that includes undocumented residents. According to Migration Policy Institute analysis from 2012-2016, there were 526,000 undocumented folks living in New Jersey and 56% of those were uninsured. In addition, a 2018 report from New Jersey Policy Perspective showed that the state has the second-highest uninsured rate for children in the Northeast and many of these are from immigrant families. Research shows that if undocumented people have health insurance, usage of emergency rooms will decrease, there will be a healthier population, thus a stronger workforce. And simply stated, it is the right thing to do.

Most undocumented people do not receive health care until their medical condition has advanced requiring more costly and complex solutions or they frequently go for care to emergency rooms, which are more expensive and designed to respond to problem issues, not prevent or reduce their severity. In 2013, the New Jersey Department of Health implemented the federal Delivery System Reform Incentive Program (DSRIP). It was designed to result in better health care for individuals and the population, and to lower the cost of emergency-room use by incentivizing hospitals to achieve performance goals related to quality of care and health outcomes. Implementing health care literacy and having community health workers aid patients in the process, the program helped to cut expenses in the states where it was implemented. A study by the United Hospital Fund on DSRIPs Promising Practices found that using community health workers in a care triage program decreased emergency-department visits from 184 in the 12 months preceding program enrollment to 56 visits in the six months post-enrollment. Using this model and providing undocumented people with health insurance that allows them to see a primary care physician once a year would surely reduce the use of emergency rooms and lead to a healthier population.

California recently became the first state to pass legislation to allow undocumented people to buy coverage on state-run exchanges with their own money and without using any public subsidy a change some have recommended for New Jersey. California officials believe this to be a cost-saving measure since 70% of undocumented people living there are in mixed-status families, whose members include people with different citizenship or immigration status. This change allows for everyone in the family to buy into coverage, not just some members. It is also the first state to offer government-subsidized health benefits to young undocumented adults. If New Jersey cannot agree on providing insurance to all undocumented New Jerseyans, we should at least consider providing health insurance for those below the age of 25. Californias legislation has proved that providing those under 25 with health insurance has been beneficial to the state.

In expanding care to those without legal residency status, New Jersey would thrive with a healthier community, the most vulnerable population would not have to spend their limited days off work every month to go to a doctor appointment, and hospitals would not be at capacity with charity care patients making it seemingly impossible to see everyone hence the hours-long waiting times and the five months it can take to schedule a visit to a specialist.

A recent report by New Jersey Policy Perspective agrees that coverage reduces adverse health outcomes for children, provides major social benefits, and lessens medical debt for residents. The 2019 study argues that over half of all uninsured children in New Jersey are eligible for New Jersey Family Care, the states Medicaid program. One reason for this high uninsured rate is because New Jersey has the sixth highest number of children in immigrant families in the nation and immigrant parents are reluctant to enroll their children in any public program for fear of federal anti-immigrant policies. Studies show that immigrant families are specifically concerned about the proposed public charge rule that could result in the denial of citizenship to legal-immigrant parents if their child received Medicaid. Since almost all of these children are eligible for coverage that is matched by the federal government under the status quo, New Jersey is losing up to $60 million annually in federal funds for uninsured children. It is estimated that between 22,500 to 52,500 citizen children in New Jersey Family Care with noncitizen parents could lose coverage because of the public charge rule.

Those who oppose these measures may argue that providing health insurance for undocumented people would incentivize migration and that New Jersey taxpayers should not subsidize their care. To those, I ask, What if you suddenly fell ill and lost your job and could not afford health insurance? Wouldnt you want help? How can you decide if a person deserves to live or not just because they do not have a Social Security number?

Extending access to care for undocumented immigrants would be a meaningful step to a more prosperous New Jersey. With the current Democratic presidential candidates unanimously agreeing to support policies that provide health care for undocumented people, New Jersey politicians or health care administrators should hold public forums or do assessments to understand what the population needs. And New Jersey should follow the lead of California in order to decrease the number of uninsured patients and thus help the hospitals financially and the state overall. New Jersey is heading in the right direction by issuing driver licenses to undocumented residents. Politicians must not forget about health care for all.

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Op-Ed: Why NJ Should Give Better Health Care Options to Undocumented Residents - NJ Spotlight

Veterans Memorial Hospital Urgent Care is available seven days a week and designed for treating injuries or illnesses requiring immediate care, but not serious enough to require an emergency department visit.

Examples of what a patient may seek Urgent Care for could include back pain; bladder or urinary tract infection; cough; cuts, scrapes and bruises; diarrhea; fever, colds and flu; ear pain, swimmers ear, ear infection, or wax removal; insect or tick bite; joint pain; minor burn; nausea/vomiting; pink eye; rash; seasonal allergies; sinus and upper respiratory infection; sore or strep throat; strains/sprains; sudden back or neck pain; urinary problems or vaginal irritation/discharge. Most insurance does cover urgent care visits. Patients can usually expect to pay a copay or deductible for visits to Urgent Care treatment centers.

Urgent Care is offered every Monday through Friday evening from 5-9 p.m. and Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Patients may enter through the main entrance of the hospital and ask for urgent care. A registered nurse will assess each patient and decide if urgent care or ER is the level of care they need.

In addition to utilizing Urgent Care, Veterans Memorial Hospital also encourages community members to ask their provider if their care can be provided close to home, at Veterans Memorial Hospital. Many of the hospitals skilled care, surgical, maternity, laboratory, rehab and x-ray patients among others would have been sent elsewhere for their care, had they not specifically asked for local care.

Here is a list of some of the services patients can ask for locally for convenience:

Laboratory - Veterans Memorial Hospitals Laboratory has the ability to draw and run many lab tests locally. Specialists from out of town often require blood work prior to an appointment. Often those tests can be run locally and the results sent electronically the same day the blood is drawn. Weekly INR testing can also be completed by the hospitals lab as well as wellness testing which is provided daily from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday.

X-ray/Radiology Services - CT scans, mammograms, dexa bone densitometry scans, and ultrasounds are available the same or the next day.

Nuclear Medicine - Cardiac stress tests are available every Thursday at Veterans Memorial Hospital.

Respiratory Therapy - Pulmonary function testing is available the same or next day, overnight oximetry tests available within one or two days and sleep studies are scheduled within a month or less.

Rehabilitation - Physical therapy, Occupational therapy and Speech therapy can all begin within one to two days.

Nutrition and Diabetes - Consultations for nutrition or diabetes can also begin within one or two days.

We want everyone in our local communities to ask for local options before leaving the area for their health care, states Mike Myers, Administrator of Veterans Memorial Hospital. So many services can be provided close to home. Its convenient, top notch and our friendly staff truly shows how neighbors can care for neighbors.For questions on local medical testing and services, call Veterans Memorial Hospital at 563-568-3411.

Read the original here:

Urgent Care continues; Ask for other local health care options - Waukon Standard

Another video of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has resurfaced. Back in 2011, the billionaire paid his respects to the Segal family for the passing of Rabbi Moshe Segal of Flatbush. During that time, Jewish families undergo Shiva, a 7-day mourning period. Bloomberg stopped by to issue his condolences to the family.

Interestingly enough, the then-mayor used the opportunity to talk about overcrowding in emergency rooms, Obamacare and a range of other issues, The Yeshiva World reported at the time. One of those topics included denying health care to the elderly.

"They'll fix what they can right away. If you're bleeding, they'll stop the bleeding. If you need an x-ray, you're gonna have to wait," Bloomberg said. "All of these costs keep going up. Nobody wants to pay any more money and, at the rate we're going, health care is going to bankrupt us."

But don't worry. He believes he has a way of addressing cost concerns.

"Not only do we have a problem but we gotta sit here and say which things we're gonna do and which things we're not. No one wants to do that," he said. "If you show up with prostate cancer, you're 95-years-olds, we should say, 'Go and enjoy. Have nice live a long life.' There's no cure and there's nothing we can do. If you're a young person, we should do something about it. Societys not willing to do that, yet. So they're gonna bankrupt us."

Who is Michael Bloomberg to decide who should and should not receive health care treatments? He has a tonof money and we know he'd do everything in his power to get the best doctors and treatment available if he or his loved ones became ill. They wouldn't be told they're too old or too broke, would they?

And who would be impacted by this decision? At what point is someone too old to treat? 60? 75? 80? What's the arbitrary number, Mike? Whatever random number you decide on?

What about those who have chronic illnesses, like diabetes or multiple sclerosis? Do they suddenly stop receiving treatment once they hit a certain age, because they're no longer deemed worthy?

And here I thought Democrats were supposed to want to take care of anybody and everybody. Guess not.

Read the original:

Bloomberg: We Can No Longer Provide Health Care to the Elderly - Townhall

News Release, US Department of Veteran Affairs

WASHINGTON The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) partnered with Verizon, Medivis, and Microsoft, effective Feb. 12, as part of its efforts to deliver Veterans VAs first advanced, 5G-enabled, clinical care system at theVA Palo Alto Health Care System.

The public-private partnership, Project Convergence, will be led by VAsNational Center for Collaborative Health Care Innovationand work to help identify potential clinical uses for technology that combine emerging health care innovations with 5G capabilities.

Last year, President Trump challenged America to be among the first to provide 5G wireless services, and VA met that challenge, said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. Our hospital in Palo Alto, California is currently one of only a handful of 5G enabled health facilities in the world. Were excited to use this hands-on opportunity to work with our partners to develop foundational practices and deploy advanced medical solutions to serve our nations Veterans.

Project Convergence will unveil and demonstrate initial clinical uses of the combined technology at the upcomingHealth Information and Management Systems Society conferencein Orlando, Florida, March 9-13.

The Southern Maryland Chronicle is a local, small business entrusted to provide factual, unbiased reporting to the Southern Maryland Community.While we look to local businesses for advertising, we hope to keep that cost as low as possible in order to attract even the smallest of local businesses and help them get out to the public. We must also be able to pay employees(part-time and full-time), along with equipment, and website related things. We never want to make the Chronicle a pay-wall style news site.

To that end, we are looking to the community to offer donations. Whether its a one-time donation or you set up a reoccurring monthly donation. It is all appreciated. All donations at this time will be going to furthering the Chronicle through hiring individuals that have the same goals of providing fair, and unbiased news to the community. For now, donations will be going to a business PayPal account I have set-up for the Southern Maryland Chronicle, KDC Designs. All business transactions currently occur within this PayPal account. If you have any questions regarding this you can email me at davidhiggins@southernmarylandchronicle.com

Thank you for all of your support and I hope to continue bringing Southern Maryland the best news possible for a very long time. David M. Higgins II

Original post:

VA partners with Verizon, Medivis, and Microsoft to advance health care services for Veterans - The Southern Maryland Chronicle

The holy grail for technology companies working in the healthcare industry is becoming the gateway for all healthcare data.

Big legacy providers like Epic and Cerner are trying to reach out to hospital networks to hoover up all of their data. Google is interested in it. Salesforce is interested in it. Everyone wants to be the resource that organizes and manages healthcare data for physicians and hospital providers, including San Francisco-based startup Innovaccer, which has raised $70 million in new financing to finance its mission.

The new investment from firms including Steadview Capital, Tiger Global, Dragoneer, Westbridge Capital, the Abu Dhabi investment firm Mubadala Capital and Microsofts corporate investment arm M12.

These are deep-pocketed investors for whom money is no object, but Innovaccer has shown a fair bit of traction among hospitals and health systems with its data analysis and management platform.

The companys software pulls from datasets, generated by Cerner and Epics healthcare records, insurance companies and pharmacies, to create a more holistic view of a patient, the company says.

Since its launch in 2014, Innovaccer has provided a single source or healthcare information for 3.8 million patients and saved healthcare systems more than $400 million, the company said.

Healthcare still needs a lot of work to become patient-centered and connected by organizing information and making it more accessible. It is really important to make patient data seamlessly available to all providers along the patients care journey, said Abhinav Shashank, the co-founder and CEO at Innovaccer, in a statement. We have been fortunate to work with transformational healthcare initiatives that our amazing customers are engaged in. The vision of helping healthcare work as one needs a connected and open technology framework. We are excited to be at the forefront of providing the tech platform for our customers to drive that change.

Its technology relies on over 200 APIs to take data from health plans, primary care providers, pharmacies, labs and hospitals and serves that data to 25,000 care providers. The company hopes to take that number to over 100 million healthcare records and 500,000 caregivers over the next several years.

Its a lofty goal, but one that appeals to the Ravi Mehta, the founder of the $2.5 billion hedge fund Steadview Capital.

By using their connected care framework coupled with their leading-edge data aggregation and analytics platform, they are unifying patient records and enabling care teams to coordinate patient care at a new level, said Mehta. We believe this will achieve greater efficiencies, enable better care and reduce overall healthcare spend in the years to come.

Read the original here:

Innovaccer wants to be the service that unifies all healthcare data - TechCrunch