Mexicali Health Care
Welcome to Mexicali Health Care, where the first thing you #39;ll notice is the quiet. Mexicali is not a busy tourist city. It #39;s a bit slower here, more relaxed. Not too much traffic, not as...
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Remedy for High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure (HBP) is a serious condition that can lead to coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, kidney failure, and other health problems. "Blood pressure" is the force of...
By: F3 Health Care - Cure yourself with Home Remedies
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In this March 31, 2014 file photo, Jose Villanueva, left, and Doraisy Avila sit with an agent from Sunshine Life and Health Advisors as they look at a pricing plan available from the Affordable Care Act at a store set up in the Mall of Americas in Miami.(Photo: Joe Raedle, Getty Images)
WASHINGTON With the enrollment deadline looming, the Obama administration and advocacy groups are ramping up efforts to sign up millions of Hispanics for health coverage through online exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act.
Activists in states with high Latino populations are using various strategies to recruit a traditionally hard-to-reach group that already faces barriers to health care. The activists have been especially aggressive in Texas and Florida, which declined to expand Medicaid under the 2010 health care law.
Groups such as Enroll America are hosting social media initiatives, airing Spanish-language public service ads and deploying advocates in Hispanic neighborhoods to convince an often reluctant population that enrollment would benefit them and their families.
The enrollment window, which opened Nov. 15, closes Feb. 15.
"We've made every effort to double down on the most effective tactics to reach the Latino community," said Anne Filipic, Enroll America's president. The liberal advocacy group has set up grass-root efforts to sign up uninsured residents in 11 states, including Arizona, Florida and Texas.
USA TODAY
Reports: ACA coverage reached more than 9 million
USA TODAY
Voices: Afraid to apply for health care for their kids
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The Obama administration has announced a major change to the way the federal government pays doctors and hospitals under Medicare. Its an historic attempt to shift away from the traditional, costly fee-for-service model and quell the ballooning costs of health care.
Heres the plan: Starting next year, the federal government will begin paying Medicare providers based on their performance, rather than on the number of surgeries, check-ups or CT-scans they perform. Under the proposal, 30 percent of Medicares $362 billion in annual payments will be tied to performance. Health officials expect that will increase to 50 percent by 2018.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, secretary of Health and Human Services, said the goals are meant to drive transformative change.
Proponents of the pay-for-performance initiative say it is an effective way to slow health spending while improving the quality of care. It has the support of major industry trade groups and leaders, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and Americas Health Insurance Plans.
"Today's announcement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services aligns with the American Medical Association's commitment to work toward innovative care delivery reform that will promote high-quality and efficient care for our nation's seniors who count on Medicare, while reducing the administrative and regulatory burdens physicians face today. Robert M. Wah, M.D., president of the AMA, said in a statement.
Patient advocate groups also threw their support behind the announcement.
Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images A retiree carries a bag of educational pamplets from L.A. Care, the largest public health plan in the US, at a Senior Information & Resource Fair in South Gate, California September 10, 2013 . The event included a discussion of how the Affordable Care Act, also called "Obamacare" will impact senior citizens and what insurance plans will be available to them. With just weeks until a centerpiece of the health care reform law launches, the task of spreading the word about new health insurance marketplaces will fall to local navigators and counselors employed locally but funded by federal grant money.
The transition away from fee-for-service is an important next step towards better care and lower costs in the Medicare program, Joe Ditr, Families USAs director of enterprise and innovation, said in a statement. Since private insurers often follow Medicares lead, the announcement is likely to have a profound and positive impact.
The plan focuses on patient outcomes. If patients fare well, their doctors are paid more; if the results are poor, doctors are paid less. The administration says about 20 percent of traditional Medicare payments are already going through similar programs that emphasize care, such as accountable care organizations and bundled payments. They hope to expand that reach significantly.
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Granted, we have more to do and the political evaluations of the ACA and some macro- and micro-economic considerations of the law will continue to be debated. I was among the many closely following the law, but from the lens of those providing mental health-care services, it has had a measurable positive impact for people in need despite issues with the rollout and some bumps last year. Support for the law continues to waiver around fifty percent, but many of the key provisions that have strong support and popularity are linked to behavioral health.
Read MoreOp-ed: The Great Obamacare Medicaid Bait 'n' Switch
For too long, mental health care was in the shadows and coverage was inconsistent, despite the fact that about 50 percent of Americans experience a mental health episode during their lifetime, from depression or anxiety to chemical dependency or schizophrenia. The ACA changed that imbalance in coverage by putting mental health and substance abuse benefits on par with medical and surgical benefits. By law, coverage for cancer treatment would be the same for substance-abuse treatment. In addition, there would be no lifetime or yearly dollar limits for mental health care recognition that services and recovery can take time and be expensive for patients and families.
This year, an estimated 3.7 million Americans with significant mental illnesses now have coverage and access to care through the insurance exchanges or extended Medicaid they have moved from the shadows and into needed treatment.
But other well-known provisions of the ACA translate into mental health-related benefits. Given that teens and young adults encounter higher levels of behavioral issues (half of all mental health and substance abuse begins before high school and 75 percent develop before age 24), the under-26 provision allowing parents on their policies to continue providing coverage to their underage children has extended coverage to an at-risk population. Considering the cost of untreated mental illnesses on individuals, families and society, providing care to young adults will not only improve the quality and productiveness of lives but also save money.
Read MoreObamacare co-ops struggle to swim, not sink
According to the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health, the first-year impact of the ACA on younger adults is encouraging: Inpatient mental health care has increased while emergency room psychiatric care has dropped. Younger patients are getting services where and when they need it rather than waiting for a crisis and visiting an ER. This improves the quality and delivery of care while reducing costs of treatment.
The pre-existing condition coverage includes mental health and substance abuse. What was frequently seen as a benefit for diabetics, heart disease or cancer survivors also includes individuals with behavioral health issues. The prospects of losing insurance was a barrier for people recovering how could a patient move to a new job or new community and the next stage of their recovery if they faced the prospects of losing their insurance due to pre-existing conditions? That has been fixed.
While more than eight million Americans now have private health-care coverage through the ACA, an estimated 41 million still lack coverage that includes nearly four million low-income Americans suffering from serious mental illnesses who live in one of 24 states that did not expand their Medicaid programs. People at or near the poverty line suffer from higher instances of mental anxiety and disorders. We need to recognize these risk factors and treat them accordingly.
Read MoreHealth-care ignorance costs insurers
Originally posted here:
Granted, we have more to do and the political evaluations of the ACA and some macro- and micro-economic considerations of the law will continue to be debated. I was among the many closely following the law, but from the lens of those providing mental health-care services, it has had a measurable positive impact for people in need despite issues with the rollout and some bumps last year. Support for the law continues to waiver around fifty percent, but many of the key provisions that have strong support and popularity are linked to behavioral health.
Read MoreOp-ed: The Great Obamacare Medicaid Bait 'n' Switch
For too long, mental health care was in the shadows and coverage was inconsistent, despite the fact that about 50 percent of Americans experience a mental health episode during their lifetime, from depression or anxiety to chemical dependency or schizophrenia. The ACA changed that imbalance in coverage by putting mental health and substance abuse benefits on par with medical and surgical benefits. By law, coverage for cancer treatment would be the same for substance-abuse treatment. In addition, there would be no lifetime or yearly dollar limits for mental health care recognition that services and recovery can take time and be expensive for patients and families.
This year, an estimated 3.7 million Americans with significant mental illnesses now have coverage and access to care through the insurance exchanges or extended Medicaid they have moved from the shadows and into needed treatment.
But other well-known provisions of the ACA translate into mental health-related benefits. Given that teens and young adults encounter higher levels of behavioral issues (half of all mental health and substance abuse begins before high school and 75 percent develop before age 24), the under-26 provision allowing parents on their policies to continue providing coverage to their underage children has extended coverage to an at-risk population. Considering the cost of untreated mental illnesses on individuals, families and society, providing care to young adults will not only improve the quality and productiveness of lives but also save money.
Read MoreObamacare co-ops struggle to swim, not sink
According to the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health, the first-year impact of the ACA on younger adults is encouraging: Inpatient mental health care has increased while emergency room psychiatric care has dropped. Younger patients are getting services where and when they need it rather than waiting for a crisis and visiting an ER. This improves the quality and delivery of care while reducing costs of treatment.
The pre-existing condition coverage includes mental health and substance abuse. What was frequently seen as a benefit for diabetics, heart disease or cancer survivors also includes individuals with behavioral health issues. The prospects of losing insurance was a barrier for people recovering how could a patient move to a new job or new community and the next stage of their recovery if they faced the prospects of losing their insurance due to pre-existing conditions? That has been fixed.
While more than eight million Americans now have private health-care coverage through the ACA, an estimated 41 million still lack coverage that includes nearly four million low-income Americans suffering from serious mental illnesses who live in one of 24 states that did not expand their Medicaid programs. People at or near the poverty line suffer from higher instances of mental anxiety and disorders. We need to recognize these risk factors and treat them accordingly.
Read MoreHealth-care ignorance costs insurers
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The Obama administration hasannouncedplansto accelerate a shift in how the U.S.pays its $2.9 trillion annual health-care bill. Officials at Medicare, which covers one in six Americans, want to stop paying doctors and hospitals by the number of tests and treatments they do. Instead, the government wants to link payments to how well providerstake care of patients, not just how much care they provide.
This transitionis already under way. Millions of Americans are now covered in experimental programs created by the Affordable Care Act designed to reduce unnecessary care and incentivize doctors to focus on quality, not quantity. The administration wants to vastly expand suchprograms to include half of all Medicare payments by the end of 2018. Heres what you need to know:
Growth has slowed in recent years. Since 2010, per capita health spending has increased at about the same rate as the U.S. economy, a historically low rate for American health spending. Even if that holdssteady, 17 of every dollar spent in the U.S. goes to health care, far higher than inother countries that have health outcomes as good or better than Americas.
After the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, the federal government started experiments with doctors and hospitals willing to try new payment models. One of theattempts to do this was a program called Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), which would let medical providers share in the savings if they reduced the overall health-care costs for their Medicare patients. Now more than 7.8 million of Medicares 55 million beneficiaries get their care through such arrangements, up from zeroin 2011.
The Obama administration would liketo speed this up. Medicare wants 30 percent of all payments to go through models like ACOs by the end of next year,and 50 percent by the end of 2018, up from about 20 percent now. Other incentives already in place, such as penalties for hospitals when patients get readmitted, nudgeproviders to improve care, even if theyre still getting paid in a traditional fee-for-service system. The government wants 90 percent of all Medicare payments toincludesuch incentives by the end of 2018.
Its hard to say precisely how much of the total $2.9 trillion in health spending flowsthrough fee-for-service payments, but a safe answer is: most of it. Even hospitals participating in Medicares new payment experiments often get paid the old way by commercial insurers, for example. Those contradictory incentives can make it hard for hospitals to fully make the changes they need to care for patients more efficiently.Can you create a situation ultimately where youre treating fewer people in the hospital and doing fewer higher-reimbursement treatments? Thats a real risk, Moodys health-care analyst Dan Steingart told methis month.If your contracts only pay you on a pure fee-for-service basis, youre basically shooting yourself in the foot.
This is the first time Medicare officials have setclear targets for how much spendingthey want to flow through new payment systems. The Obama administration saidthe goalsshould incentivize more doctors and hospitals to join, and give them some certaintythat theswitch to new payment methods is real. Thegovernment also wants private-sector buyers of health caretomake the shift. A council of executives fromthe insuranceandmedical industries, as well as big employers such as Boeing and Verizon, will try to expand alternative payments.
Medicare is trying a fewexperiments, including ACOs and bundled payments (which try to put limits around how much hospitals can charge forcommon procedures like knee and hip replacements). While economists and medical providers largely agree that ending the fee-for-service program is essential to containing health-care costs, the evidence for the new models isnt really in yet.Medicare officials saidthey have no results on bundled payments yet. The early years of the ACO program have shown some savings, but a majority of ACOs for which Medicare has datahave not generated savings yet.
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Texas' Republican leadership has fought tooth and nail against federal health care reform, adamantly opposed to taking either money or direction from the Obama administration when it comes to providinghealth care for the poor.
But putting politics aside,public health care costs in Texas are rising about $1.3 billion over the next two years, according to one legislative budget estimate. Medicaid enrollment is growing, whether or not the state decides to accept more federal funds toexpand the program's coverage to poor adults.And fiscal conservatives are raising the possibility,for first time in recent memory, that state appropriators will this year allocate more money for health care than education.
With the Senatesbudget estimate expected to be released Tuesday morning, we take a look at the health care numbers lawmakers will be grappling with for the next four months.
1. Expect less help from the feds.
The silver lining here is that the average Texan is on the upswing,with average incomes risingin recent years. But because of that, the feds are asking the state to shoulder more of its own health care costs.
The share of Medicaid paid by the federal government is going down, slightly, from 58.05 percent in 2015 to 57.13 percent in 2016. That drop may seem small, but even a slight change to a budget behemoth like Medicaid, which insures about 4.1 million Texans,comes with big fiscal consequences for state lawmakers.
The less favorable federal match means Texas will have to pull nearly $750 million moreout of state coffers over the next two years just to continue providing the level of care it does now, according to the House budget estimate. That cost, however, will be partlyoffset by about $300 million in newfederal money for certain children in the Medicaid program, made available under the federal health law.
2. Medicaid keeps growing.
Public spending on health care is on the rise in Texas, to the tune of about $1.3 billion over the next two years and thats based on an estimate that does not include inflation of health care costs. The main culprit? More Medicaid enrollees.
Federal health reform, which mandates that most Americans have health insurance or pay a fine, continues to be a big driver of Medicaid growthbecause more people are enrolling now who were previously eligible but nonetheless uninsured.State health officials predict the Affordable Care Act will swell Texas Medicaid participation by more than 560,000 people in 2015, including nearly 140,000 adults who were previously eligible.
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Samari Towers 30 Anniversary slideshow
I hope you enjoy the slideshow as much as we did the 30TH Anniversary Celebration. Thanks To: SIMPLY / PALM PLAZA MEDICAL CARE PLUS LA COLONIA ELITE HOME HEALTH CARE CHEN ...
By: SAMARI TOWERS
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Family Medical Walk-In Urgent Care Center in Howell, NJ
http://reliancefamilywalkin.com/ Serving patients in Monmouth County area since 2002, Reliance Walk-In Family Center will provide you with responsive, higher quality, personalized health...
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Family Medical Walk-In Urgent Care Center in Howell, NJ - Video
Changing the supervisor code
How to change the supervisor code on a Regulator KEDL http://GoHCL.com Copyright 2014 by Health Care Logistics, Inc.
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Lou Graham prepares taxes in Connecticut and is ready to answer client questions about the Affordable Care Act. Jeff Cohen/WNPR hide caption
Lou Graham prepares taxes in Connecticut and is ready to answer client questions about the Affordable Care Act.
Are you thinking about tax day yet? Your friendly neighborhood tax preparer is. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen declared this tax season one of the most complicated ever, partly because this is the first year that the Affordable Care Act will show up on your tax form.
Tax preparers from coast to coast are trying to get ready. Sue Ellen Smith manages an H&R Block office in San Francisco, and she is expecting things to get busy soon.
"This year taxes and health care intersect in a brand-new way," Smith says.
For most people who get insurance through work, the change will be simple: checking a box on the tax form that says, "Yes, I had health insurance all year."
But it will be much more complex for an estimated 25 million to 30 million people who didn't have health insurance or who bought subsidized coverage through the exchanges.
To get ready, Smith and her team have been training for months, running through a range of hypothetical scenarios. She introduces "Ray" and "Vicky," a fictional couple from an H&R Block flyer. Together they earn $65,000 a year, and neither has health insurance.
An H&R Block flyer with fictional couples representing possible scenarios of what people might encounter reconciling their taxes under the Affordable Care Act. H&R Block hide caption
An H&R Block flyer with fictional couples representing possible scenarios of what people might encounter reconciling their taxes under the Affordable Care Act.
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Top Health Care Stocks
JNJ -0.14%
PZE +0.57%
MRK +0.35%
ABT +0.50%
AMGN -0.26%
Health care stocks were slightly higher with the NYSE Health Care Sector Index climbing about 0.1% and shares of health care companies in the S&P 500 advancing about 0.2% as a group.
In company news, Heat Biologics ( HTBX ) rallied Monday after the biotech company today presented positive immunological data on its HS-410 drug candidate in certain forms of bladder cancer.
According to the company, one of the patients participating in the Phase I trial showed a 70-fold rise in CD8+ "killer" T cell after six weeks of HS-140 treatment following surgery and growing to 750-fold increase after 21 weeks of treatment.
The patient remains disease-free, HTBX said. A second patient experienced a non-specific immune infiltrate after seven weeks although a repeat biopsy at 13 weeks showed no further increase in the immune infiltrate.
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Top Health Care Stocks
JNJ -0.20%
PZE +0.91%
MRK +0.54%
ABT +0.52%
AMGN +0.14%
Health care stocks were slightly higher, with the NYSE Health Care Sector Index climbing about 0.2% and shares of health care companies in the S&P 500 advancing about 0.3% as a group.
In company news, Healthways ( HWAY ) rose to a nearly seven-year Monday after the health care services company said it was exploring strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value.
The company also said it recently retained J.P.Morgan Securities to assist with the review, adding it does not expect to make additional announcements unless there is a material event approved by the its board of directors.
HWAY shares were up more than 11% at $21.90 each, earlier reaching their best share price since May 2008 at $22.25 a share. The stock already had risen more than 20% over the past 12 month prior to Monday's advance.
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Mental health care in Wisconsin may be receiving more attention in the upcoming legislative session, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester announced late January.
The Associated Press reportedVos introduced a committee in an earlier session that has carried out assessments of mental health needs in Wisconsin. Vos also recently created a new Assembly committee to instigate mental health care development, which will begin this fall.
Julianne Zweifel, a clinical psychologist in the University of Wisconsins Medical Foundation, said social and cultural perceptions deeming mental health problems to be a sign of weakness is one of the factors creating a lack of services for those in need.
People in Wisconsin have what I would call a very German kind of attitude, which is grit your teeth, put your head down and plow through problems. Dont get help, Zweifel said. This social stigma is the biggest barrier to mental health care in Wisconsin.
The AP, reported Vos too, is trying to tackle the issue of social stigma through this legislation. Ryan Herringa, UW associate professor of psychiatry, said integrating mental health care into schools and ordinary health care services such as internal medicine could reduce the prevalence of such stigma and help people receive routine care.
He said having a mental health care worker within the medical clinic would both improve access and reduce stigma. He said it would be ideal if people could go to their regular doctors offices and get mental health care there too. He said this would reduce the stigma of seeking out mental health care, because it would be seen as more routine, necessary and universal.
Along with providing improved access to mental health care, Vos legislation would also aim to create higher quality mental health care facilities in Wisconsin. Zweifel said this could assist people in receiving the right kind of treatment from the right people.
People are not given an opportunity to seek appropriate care for their mental health problems so theyre likely to try to get that care through other means and thats not as effective, Zweifel said.
Herringa said time and money play crucial roles in determining accessibility to mental health care facilities as well and need to be factored into the legislation.Such factors include transportation costs, work hours and the time it takes to complete psychological treatments, Herringa said, all of which can cause people to stop seeking treatment. He said these issues tend to hit low-income individuals the hardest.
Even if you are able to get into a clinic, there is often a long wait time and when people are struggling with severe depression or suicidal thoughts or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder they need treatment as quickly as possible, Herringa said.
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As the health care workforce shifts to treat patients in less expensive primary care settings, the number of nurse practitioners has nearly doubled in the last decade to more 200,000, new data shows.
The American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) says there are 205,000 licensed nurse practitioners compared to 106,000 in 2004. Such advanced degree nurses perform myriad primary care functions, diagnose, prescribe medications and conduct physical exams.
There is unprecedented demand for nurse practitionersto work with primary care doctors to manage populations of patients, keeping them healthy and out of the hospital. The explosive growth of the nurse practitioner profession is a public health boon considering our nations skyrocketing demand for high-quality, accessible care, Ken Miller, AANPs president said.
Insurers are coaxing people toward population health via patient-centered medical homes and accountable care organizations. Under such value-based approaches, providers work to keep patients healthy, taking their medications, exercising and getting care upfront in a doctors office, a health center or retail clinic.
Retailers like CVS Health (CVS) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) have hired thousands of nurse practitioners. Walgreens, which opened about 40 clinics last year, has 1,200 practitioners at more than 420 clinics while CVS 2,700 practitioners across its 960 clinics. In the past five years, weve opened around 500 clinics and have been able to recruit enough practitioners to staff all of these sites with more on the way, Carolyn Castel, a CVS vice president, told Forbes.
Retailers see millions more Americans withhealth coverage under the Affordable Care Act, which has exacerbated a doctor shortage. Seeing a void, practitioners are lobbying to change scope of practice laws to allow them to do more. Nurse practitioners are serving as a lifeline for patients, many who would otherwise struggle to access care, David Hebert, AANPs said.
Wondering more about the role of nurses under the Affordable Care Act? The Forbes eBookInside Obamacare: The Fix For Americas Ailing Health Care Systemanswers that question and more. Available nowat AmazonandApple.
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Health Care : Comment faire un delicieux GREEN SMOOTHIE
Coucou les amis! En novembre dernier, j #39;ai test les Green Smoothies. Voici la recette de mon Green Smoothie prfr ! Avec a, je vous garantis une pche du tonnerre, et une humeur...
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Health Care : Comment faire un delicieux GREEN SMOOTHIE - Video
On the Road in South County: Volunteers in Medicine | Connecting Point | Jan. 21, 2015
Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires free clinic provides access to quality health care for income qualified, uninsured, and underinsured residents of the Berkshire region in a respectful and...
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On the Road in South County: Volunteers in Medicine | Connecting Point | Jan. 21, 2015 - Video
Health Care Coverage Must be Reported on 2014 Taxes
All Hands Update January 22, 2015 #2 Tax season has begun and the Department of Defense wants to notify all Tricare beneficiaries of new tax laws.
By: U.S. Navy
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