Two new reports from the Health and Human Services Department's Inspector General say the new federal healthcare insurance market is having trouble verifying whether people are eligible for the health insurance they are receiving, or the federal subsidies that help them pay their premiums. One of the two Health and Human Services inspector general reports found 2.9 million inconsistencies in the federal marketplace. It said the federal marketplace was unable to resolve 2.6 million of them because the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) system for determining eligibility was "not fully operational." The reports looked at the exchanges between October and December of 2013.
Gov. Deval Patrick on Monday quietly signed a bill setting nurse staffing levels inside intensive-care units at one nurse per one patient, depending on the stability of the patient. The private bill-signing was attended by state Rep. Denise Garlick, a Needham Democrat and registered nurse, and Donna Kelly-Williams, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, a union that had been pushing for two ballot questions on nurse-patient ratios and CEO pay and hospital financial transparency. Patrick's signature on the bill (H 4228) means the union will drop both initiative petitions, which were headed for the November ballot.
A mediation program spearheaded by Gov. John Kitzhaber went into effect Tuesday, giving patients and their families an option besides suing when medical errors happen. But questions remain over how the mediation program will develop, including whether hospitals, doctors and other providers will take advantage of the program, or candidly discuss errors if they do. The result of a compromise between trial lawyers and the Oregon Medical Association approved in SB 483 last year, the Early Discussion and Resolution program is intended to cut down on lawsuits and boost the reporting of medical errors to help improve health care practices.
The director of Roudebush Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Indianapolis said Tuesday the facility has reduced its patient wait times by two thirds. That assertion came during a visit from Indiana congresswomen Susan Brooks and Jackie Walorski. The representatives were taking a tour of the medical center in response to concerns about long patient wait times, falsified records and preventable deaths at VA facilities across the country. Tom Mattice, director of the 229-bed hospital just west of Downtown, said the facility has made important strides in reducing wait times.
Gov. Martin O'Malley's intervention in the wage fight between Johns Hopkins Hospital and its service workers reflects the lingering dispute's significance but also signals that it may be resolved soon. The hospital and members of the 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East labor union, which represents 2,000 Hopkins workers, went back to the bargaining table Tuesday after the governor asked them to take a cooling-off period. Union leaders also called off a four-day strike that was to have begun Friday. It would have been the second strike in the dispute. Workers walked off the job for three days in late April after negotiations for a new contract broke down. Talks began in March and have continued intermittently.
Ever since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) decided to penalize hospitals financially for avoidable readmission of patients within 30 days of their discharge, health systems have been coming up with inventive ways to keep patients out of the hospital while also trying to bring in more revenue. Most of these approaches make sense. They've created population health management programs that analyze patient data to spot those at high risk for readmission, for instance, and then offer preventive measures to those patients. They've created care-coordination systems to make sure discharged patients arrive safely at their next destination, whether it be their home, a rehabilitation unit, or a nursing facility.