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Category Archives: Health Care

Health care 8212 a team approach

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Doctors throughout southern New Hampshire are embracing a new way of caring for people through Patient Centered Medical Homes, a team-based approach supporters say increases the quality of health care and decreases the cost.

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care recently wrapped up a 15-month pilot program with Foundation Medical Partners, the physicians group of Southern New Hampshire Health Systems, and Bedford Ambulatory Surgical Center.

The model of care is built on a foundation of care that is coordinated through a primary physician who taps into a network of nurse practitioners, clinicians, therapists and other health care providers to design individual health care strategies for each patient.

Key elements of the programs include expanded hours and access to doctors and health care providers and broad use of electronic medical records that allow a team to tailor treatments and reduce unnecessary or duplicate procedures and costly tests.

Its a proactive approach from the front desk to the physician, said William Brewster, medical director for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and an internist with a practice in Somersworth. Brewster said the new approach involves a different mindset that makes health care genuinely patient-centered.

During the 15-month pilot program, expanded office hours and access to providers cut high-cost visits to the emergency room by 10 to 12 percent. Immunization rates also increased dramatically. And according to Mark Santos, chief operating officer for the Foundation Medical Partners, the success isnt just in the numbers.

With a walk-in service open seven days a week, patients can come in on Thanksgiving Day in the afternoon and see someone who has their electronic medical record in front of them, Santos said. Not only does that health care provider have the relevant information needed to treat the patient, but it also creates a much safer encounter, Santos said.

By creating a team approach or continuum of care, patients can access more support services that are coordinated by, but not directly provided, by doctors.

There are a lot of talented people besides doctors working in health care, Santos said. When patients are able to see those health care specialists through the program, doctors have more time to devote to more complicated cases that require more care.

And according to Mary Wallen, a spokeswoman for Harvard Pilgrim, the team approach increases the quality of care for patients.

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Health care 8212 a team approach

Health care enrollments reach 8 million, president announces

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By McClatchy Newspapers

Published: 9:53 PM - 04/17/14 Last updated: 9:54 PM - 04/17/14

WASHINGTON Driven by a last-minute flood of enrollments, particularly in California, sign-ups for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act's online marketplaces hit 8 million, President Barack Obama announced Thursday.

The total exceeded the initial forecast by 1 million people and capped a notable comeback after a disastrous debut last fall gave rise to predictions the law would collapse in its maiden year.

The health law, often called Obamacare, instead has brought about the largest increase in insurance coverage in the United States in the half a century since Medicare and Medicaid were created.

This thing is working, Obama said from the White House briefing room.

He took repeated jabs at his Republican critics who continue to pledge to roll back the law, showing a new willingness to go on the political offensive on the subject.

The repeal debate is, and should be, over, he declared. We've been having a political fight about this for five years. We need to move on to something else.

The final surge of enrollments came heavily from California, which signed up more than 200,000 consumers in the last two weeks, state officials said Thursday. Those late arrivals brought the state's total to nearly 1.4 million people, far ahead of all other states.

Although the numbers will continue to fluctuate throughout the year as some people obtain insurance and others drop it, Thursday's announcement marked a significant milestone as the first open enrollment period ended for most people.

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Health care enrollments reach 8 million, president announces

8 million health care sign-ups take sting out of GOP attacks

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A newly insured patient through the Affordable Care Act receives a checkup April 15 in Hollywood, Florida. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Today in the Morning Line:

Health care: President Barack Obama took to the White House briefing room Thursday to announce that eight million people had signed up for insurance through federal and state exchanges under the health care law. He said 35 percent of the enrollees were under 35 years of age. (A caveat here: That number includes children who would be covered by the plans. In fact, just 28 percent of enrollees were between 18 and 34. The percentage is key to controlling costs and almost more important than the overall number of signups.) Regardless, the health care news is politically significant for the White House and Democrats. It takes some of the sting out of conservatives withering attacks on the law and highlights the potential danger of Republicans singular messaging focus against Obamacare. If Republicans want to attack a law thats working, thats their business, Obama touted Thursday. But his message was less to Republicans, and more to skittish Democrats: I think Democrats should forcefully defend and be proud. I do not think we should apologize for it. We should not be defensive about it. I think it is a strong, good, right story to tell.

How this might change the playing field: Though Republicans hold the upper hand in the race for control of the Senate, Democrats are still within striking distance in key races, and Thursdays announcement is welcome news for them. That said, vulnerable Democrats have a reason to be skittish. Its important to remember that many of the key Senate races this year are taking place in states favorable to Republicans, where Mitt Romney won by large margins, and where the president and the health care law are deeply unpopular. But, IF the health care law bad news is over, it could perhaps mean the playing field shrinks a bit again in the states where Republicans have expanded places Obama won in 2012. The field widened to 12 states with the prospect of going up to 14, including Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, Virginia and potentially Oregon and Minnesota. But does the wave recede a bit now to the original seven GOP targets (plus a couple others): South Dakota, Montana, West Virginia, Arkansas, Alaska, North Carolina and Louisiana? That doesnt mean Colorado, Iowa, Michigan and New Hampshire are off the table or even that Republicans cant win there. By no means. Of course they can. But Democrats have to be feeling a little bit better about their chances. Its something to watch in the polls in coming months.

Could the law ever become popular? To a bigger point President Obama addressed yesterday, he was asked essentially whether the law could ever become popular. His answer: My view is that the longer we see the law benefiting millions of people, the longer we see accusations that the law is hurting millions of people being completely debunked, and the more the average American that has health insurance sees its not affecting them in a negative way, then it becomes less of a political football. Democrats point to the fact that social-welfare programs like Medicare didnt start out popular but have later become untouchable. Thats possible, but its still VERY early to say. Its highly unlikely the partisanship in the numbers on the law budge until Obama leaves office. Asked whether the law will ever move past the current partisanship, Obama said, Thats going to take more time. As weve written previously, its probably unlikely to change much until theres a Republican PRESIDENT who embraces the law and tries to fix it.

2016: Clintons numbers back to politics as usual: Hillary Clinton gets just a 49 to 45 percent favorable rating in a Fox News poll. (It is traditionally a good poll.) Thats a stark dropoff from her numbers when serving as secretary of state, but the more polarized view is to be expected, as Clinton is seen increasingly as the likely Democratic nominee. Its why it has always been in her interest to NOT appear political for as long as possible before 2016. The poll also finds that Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Chris Christies favorable ratings are all underwater. In fact, Paul is the only one who is a net-positive with independents. In head-to-head matchups, Clinton beats Christie 50 to 42 percent, Bush and Paul 51 to 42 percent.

Daily Presidential Trivia: On this day in 1994, former President Richard Nixon suffered a stroke and died four days later. He is buried beside his wife, Pat, in California. How did the two meet? Be the first to Tweet us the correct answer @NewsHour, @rachelwellford, @DomenicoPBS, and youll get a Morning Line shout-out. Congratulations to former NewsHour producer Katelyn Polantz (@kpolantz) for getting yesterdays answer- CIA Director Allen Dulles. An honorable mention to Colter Diehl (@colterdiehl), who came in a close second.

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8 million health care sign-ups take sting out of GOP attacks

Obama: 8 million signed up for health care – NBC40.net

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By JOSH LEDERMAN and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Eight million people have signed up for health care through new insurance exchanges and the proportion of younger applicants has increased, President Barack Obama said Thursday. The enrollments exceeded expectations and offered new hope to Democrats who are defending the law ahead of the midterm elections.

An impromptu appearance in the White House briefing room offered the president an opportunity to trumpet the new figures, which beat initial projections by 1 million. With an eye toward November, Obama castigated Republicans for continuing to seek out every opportunity to thwart the Affordable Care Act.

"This thing is working," Obama said of his signature domestic achievement.

Touting modest progress on another front, Obama said 35 percent of enrollees are under 35 years old, suggesting that in the final weeks of enrollment, the administration managed to sign up higher numbers of younger, healthier people who are critical to the law's viability.

The most coveted age group comprises those between 18 and 34 years old. White House officials said that for the 36 states where the federal government is taking the lead, 28 percent are in that age group - a step in the right direction from March, when the administration said just 25 percent were 18 to 34.

In a sharp rebuke to his political opponents, Obama called out states that have refused to embrace an expansion of Medicaid under "Obamacare," arguing that their opposition was rooted in nothing more than sheer ideology and political spite.

"That's wrong. It should stop," he said. "Those folks should be able to get health insurance like everybody else."

Although the first year's open enrollment season for the exchanges closed on March 31, the administration is still tallying the number of total enrollees. States managing their own exchanges have been slower to report data, and some Americans who started applications before the deadline were given extra time to complete their enrollment.

The demographic figures also give Democrats an opportunity to blunt the pessimism of Republicans, some of whom have accused the White House of "cooking the books" by announcing large overall enrollment numbers that tell only part of the story.

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Obama: 8 million signed up for health care - NBC40.net

Public Health Research@Maryland 2014: Affordable Care Act Implementation – Video

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Public Health Research@Maryland 2014: Affordable Care Act Implementation
Affordable Care Act Implementation: Intended and Unintended Consequences for Public Health Chair: Stephen B. Thomas, PhD, Maryland Center for Health Equity, ...

By: University of Maryland School of Public Health

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Public Health Research@Maryland 2014: Affordable Care Act Implementation - Video

Health care's ills worry leaders

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FORT WAYNE The short-term prognosis for health care providers is gloom and doom.

Costs are high and rising. Incomes are falling. Fewer students can afford medical school or want to become primary-care physicians. The federal government is botching its oversight of private health insurance and reducing its reimbursements to doctors.

Those were among views expressed Wednesday during a group discussion led by two lawmakers who are also physicians.

Unless medical providers become more engaged in the politics of health care, were going to get run over by a truck by Washington, D.C., by CMS and by the rest of the government, Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-8th, warned at the gathering at Lutheran Hospital. CMS is the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Bucshon, who represents southwest Indiana, and state Rep. Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville, visited Lutheran Hospital as part of their two-week Hoosier Healthcare Tour.

Brown, chairman of the Indiana House Ways and Means Committee, is an emergency physician. Bucshon is a cardiothoracic surgeon from Evansville.

The dozen people taking part in the Fort Wayne session included local doctors, health administrators, an insurer and Allen County Commissioner Nelson Peters. Some spent much of the 90-minute meeting lamenting requirements and costs of the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, which stipulates that people must obtain health insurance or pay penalties.

Bucshon has voted many times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But he said he does not want to return to letting insurers deny coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

The good parts of the law that are there, and there are some, OK, are going to sustain in the long term. And the parts of the law that are clearly not working will be repealed and replaced with something different, Bucshon predicted.

For one thing, care providers should offer more pricing information to consumers, the second-term congressman said.

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Health care's ills worry leaders

Long-Term Health-Care Funding

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New E-Book, Help on the Way, Explores

Long-Term Health-Care Funding

Chris Orestis, senior health-care advocate and CEO of Life Care Funding, (http://ebook.lifecarefunding.com/), has published a new free e-book, Help on the Way, which details the slowly unfolding crisis happening now in the United States: a Silver Tsunami of aging Americans with no way to pay for long-term care.

Since 2011, 10,000 baby boomers a day are turning 65 retirement age. But many dont have enough money to retire, much less to pay for long-term health care if they should require it. Theyre joining 40 million older seniors.

Unfortunately, as we age were more likely to suffer a disease or disability that requires daily care giving, which can be expensive, says Orestis, a former insurance industry lobbyist. Faced with that, many people cancel their life insurance policies in order to qualify for Medicaid or to save on premiums.

What I have been educating consumers for years about and address in my book is something that the insurance industry has kept secret for decades because they profit from the cancellations: Your policy can be used to pay for long-term health care such as home care, assisted-living or nursing home expenses.

Orestis, who has been lobbying state Legislatures to make the public aware of their legal right to use this option, says seniors can sell their policy for a substantial percent of its death benefit value and put the money into an irrevocable fund designated specifically for their care.

In Help on the Way, Orestis explains the legalities of a senior using their life insurance policy to stay in control of their care; facts about Medicare and Medicaid eligibility; the forms of care that can be covered; and dangerous liabilities that can affect unsuspecting families of seniors, among other topics.

About Chris Orestis

Chris Orestis, nationally known senior health-care advocate and expert is CEO of Life Care Funding, which created the model for converting life insurance policies into protected Long-Term Care Benefit funds. His company has been providing care benefits to policy holders since 2007. A former life insurance industry lobbyist with a background in long-term care issues, he created the model to provide an option for middle-class people who are not wealthy enough to pay for long-term care, and not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.

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Long-Term Health-Care Funding

Residents weigh in on the future of health care

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Kawartha Lakes This Week

(KAWARTHA LAKES) If Ottawa listens to the little guys, there could be positive changes to health care.

And, thanks to the proactive efforts of health-care teams across Canada, the federal government will know what the public wants.

About 100 residents of the City of Kawartha Lakes, Brock Township and Haliburton attended public consultations held in recent months as the Canada Health Accord comes up for renewal this year.

OUR OPINION: The Public Has The Answers To The Future Of Health Care

The results were released in a special report Health Care Accord 2014 - The Future of Canadian Health Care on Tuesday (April 15).

The Accord is the agreement by which federal health care funding is given to the provinces. It is a 10-year agreement last negotiated in 2004.

That year, the federal government committed to an increase of health-care funding of six per cent per year. In 2011, the government announced that funding at that rate will continue until 2017. At that point any increase will be tied to economic growth, but not lower than three per cent annually. Funding will be calculated for each province/territory, based on its economic performance each year.

Mike Perry, executive director of the City of Kawartha Lakes Family Health Team, agrees the results are eye-opening.

It is clear people want quality, publicly-funded health care and are willing to pay for it, he said. If anything, they want it enhanced.

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Residents weigh in on the future of health care

Ontarios performance in health care is uncompetitive among international peers – Institute for Competiveness …

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Institute for Competiveness & Prosperity report calls for a re-think of how Ontario delivers and finances health care

TORONTO, ON In Working Paper 20, Building better health care: Policy opportunities for Ontario, the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity examines how the performance of the Ontario health care system compares internationally on dimensions of efficiency and equity, and analyzes what drives health care costs. The Institute finds that, overall, Ontario could get better value for money from its health care spending. Ontario is among the jurisdictions with the highest total per capita health care spending in the OECD, with spending 33 percent above the OECD average. Yet despite exceptional resources, Ontario trails international peers in overall health care performance. Countries that spend less on health care have comparable or better health care outcomes, higher quality care, and more extensive public coverage than Ontario.

Ontario cannot afford to maintain the status quo of its health care system. Although spending on health care has recently slowed, over the last decade public expenditures on health care have continuously outpaced the provinces economic growth rate and its ability to raise revenue. If major changes are not made now, rising health care expenditures could lead to further deficit financing, rationing of health care and higher tax burdens on the working age population.

To have a health care system that is affordable, yet provides high quality care, Ontario needs to tackle the main cost drivers. Institute research shows that population aging is a contributor to rising health care cost, but its significance may be exaggerated. There is a need to control age-specific cost increases and attention related to end of life care is critical. Advances in technology, primarily drugs, increased service utilization, and physician compensation growth are more influential causes behind rising health care spending, but that remain largely unaddressed in current policy initiatives, even when these factors, unlike aging, hold significant potential for policy intervention.

The Institute offers eight policy opportunities for Ontario to make headway in realizing greater efficiency and equity in health care. These include strengthening primary care, engaging physicians to drive change, accelerating the deployment of IT, implementing a pharmacare program, and scaling up policy focus on end of life care, as well as strengthening the revenue base by introducing a savings plan for prefunding drugs, implementing a co-payment model and abolishing the tax subsidy for employer health insurance benefits.

The Institute urges Ontarians to consider what we give up in spending more on health care. More money for health care means less money available for investment in education, infrastructure, and other pressing societal needs. Neglecting these areas is a huge challenge to the provinces future prosperity. Ontario will not be able to afford the cost of its public services unless it prioritizes spending on areas that will drive economic growth and, in turn, revenue.

Our research shows that Ontario could be getting considerably more bang for its buck in health care, and new priorities are needed to make our health care system work smarter, says Roger Martin, Chair of the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity. This Working Paper is the first in a series of research papers on health care, and our goal is to contribute to the discussion of strategies that can be used to raise the performance of Ontarios health care system.

Findings:

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Ontarios performance in health care is uncompetitive among international peers - Institute for Competiveness ...

Tuesday 04/15: Living with "Suicide Disease"; Secrets for Spending Less on Health Care – Show Promo – Video

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Tuesday 04/15: Living with "Suicide Disease"; Secrets for Spending Less on Health Care - Show Promo
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Tuesday 04/15: Living with "Suicide Disease"; Secrets for Spending Less on Health Care - Show Promo - Video

Standard & Poor’s U.S. Consumer, Retail, And Health Care Weekly Review (April 14) – Video

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Standard Poor #39;s U.S. Consumer, Retail, And Health Care Weekly Review (April 14)
In this segment of U.S. Consumer, Retail, and Health Care Weekly, Standard Poor #39;s Director Jean Stout discusses the actions we recently took on Coca-Cola, ...

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Standard & Poor's U.S. Consumer, Retail, And Health Care Weekly Review (April 14) - Video

Health-care landscape gets new look

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St. Francis Hospital renamed

Despite the driving rain, construction crews were still out and working to build the new 47 million dollar addition to North Dutchess Hospial in Rhinebeck on Tuesday.KELLY MARSH/For the Times Herald-Record

Published: 2:00 AM - 04/16/14

RHINEBECK The region's health-care landscape underwent a dramatic if quiet sea change over the weekend, as one venerable medical institution was given a new name and another launched a new $47 million building expansion.

Last year, St. Francis Hospital fell short of celebrating its centennial year as an independent Catholic hospital when it declared bankruptcy in December. It will soon likely in May become part of Health Quest, the region's largest health-care conglomerate.

Health Quest has promised there will be no job loss as the result of the acquisition. Its new name will be Mid-Hudson Regional Hospital of Westchester Medical Center.

On Friday, the same day Health Quest announced the name change, company officials and political figures turned over the first ceremonial scoops of earth that will mark the beginning of a new $47 million addition to Northern Dutchess Hospital in the Village of Rhinebeck.

That addition includes another six operating rooms and 40 patient rooms at the hospital.

Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, D-Kingston, who participated in the ceremony, lauded the hospital for paying attention to public comment during Planning Board review.

"While not all stakeholders were on the same page from the start, the hospital took great pains to listen to public input and make significant changes to their plan," he said in a statement.

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Health-care landscape gets new look


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