For people who had been awaiting the rollout of the Affordable Care Act in order to obtain health insurance for the first time, the major problem associated with American healthcare has been a lack of access to it. But for a surprising number of Americans, the greater problem may be exactly the opposite: They are receiving too much healthcare. And that's not good news for either their wallets or their physical well-being. The most recent estimate from the Institute of Medicine is that about 30 percent of total healthcare expenditures in America go toward unneeded care. Doctors, too, have acknowledged the problem.
The television ads show a series of medical mishaps: a man kicking the wrong leg in a reflex check, a urine sample bottle that won't open for a frustrated patient and a blood pressure cuff letting out a strange noise when the doctor presses the plastic bulb. After each scene, a narrator says: "Things don't always work like they're supposed to. Good thing the government exchange website isn't the only place to buy health insurance." A Midwestern company not participating in the federal health insurance marketplace next year launched the ads recently in Iowa and South Dakota. They poke fun at the technical problems that have plagued the federal government's enrollment website.
Hospital and health system job growth looks strong, Connecticut sees its first hospital strike in 25 years, and a hospital worker convicted of infecting patients is sentenced in New Hampshire.
Healthcare Employment Shows Stronger than Average Gains Back in September, jobs in healthcare were growing at a less than impressive rate, with only 6,000 new jobs created. Two months later, the healthcare job market has sprung to life, with over 28,000 healthcare jobs being created in the month of November.
November's jump marks an improvement over the rise in October (15,000 jobs created), and easily eclipses the monthly average for 2013, which has come in around 19,000 jobs created per month. The 28,000 jobs created is more in line with the 27,000 jobs per month that the healthcare industry was averaging in 2012. It's also the highest spike between months since the 41,000 job increase that occurred in August.
In terms of specifics, the biggest jump came in ambulatory healthcare services (+26,300) home healthcare services (+12,000) and offices of physicians (+7,000). Among the smaller boosts were hospitals, which only saw a 1,200 increase in jobs in November. While there was a notable drop occurred in nursing care facilities (-4000), nursing and residential care facilities saw a slight bump (+900).
Lawrence and Memorial Hospital Lockout Continues Connecticut's first hospital strike in 25 years is entering its second week.
No organization ever wants to go through a strike and that goes double for strikes that occur around the holidays. But that's the case at the Lawrence and Memorial Hospital in New London, CT. Nearly 800 nurses and technicians walked out of the hospital on November 28th.
The strike was only supposed to last until November 30th, but when the striking workers attempted to return to their jobs, they were locked outand barred from entering, as the hospital had promised. Replacement workers have been brought in to work while the two sides continue to negotiate.
The two dominant issues have been job security and patient safety. Initial concern from workers came from charges stated that Lawrence and Memorial had been laying off workers and shifting work from their hospital to shell corporations.
The hospital presented its "best and final offer" on December2. It was rejected. The two sides will meet with a federal mediator Tuesday. In a statement, the hospital said, " As we have for 15 previous sessions, we are ready to negotiate in good faith in an effort to reach a mutually agreeable contract that will return our employees to what they do best – taking care of the patients in our community."
New Hampshire Hepatitis C Worker Sentenced The sordid tale of serial hospital infector David Kwiatkowski finally came to a close last week. Kwiatkowski was sentenced to 39 years in prison after infecting 45 patients around the country with Hepatitis C.
The story has been told over and over. Kwiatkowski was a traveling radiology tech and a drug addict who injected himself with syringes filled with painkillers intended for patients. To avoid being caught, he'd refill the tainted syringes with saline. That's how vulnerable patients were infected with the incurable disease.
Now Kwiatkowski is behind bars, but the pain for his victims will remain forever.
The ordeal was highly publicized and brought a lot of attention to how hospital employees and contract workers are screened. In the wake of Kwiatkowski's scheme being uncovered at New Hampshire's Exeter Hospital, the Granite State is starting to crack down on drug using employees. After issuing zero suspensions in 2011, both the New Hampshire Board of Nursing and Board of Pharmacy increased their amounts of emergency suspensions over the last two years.
Taking down drug-abusing employees has been a slower process in other states. A special report on nurses in Minnesota showed that since 2010, one hundred and twelve nurses who were caught stealing narcotics, forging prescriptions, or working under the influence were allowed to keep their licenses to practice medicine.
And nurses aren't the only ones abusing substances. A study recently released shows that doctors in certain specialties also suffer from substance abuse, with some of those instances resulting in fatalities.
While an end-all solutionwould be nice, New Hampshire is taking a step in the right direction by ramping up its use of emergency suspensions.
The Obama administration said Friday that the enrollment records for roughly a quarter of all the people who signed up for health insurance on its website in October and November could contain errors, raising questions about whether those consumers would get coverage in time to pay for their medical care next month. Even now, the administration said, it may be sending incomplete or erroneous information to insurers for one in every 10 people who enroll. The disclosure added yet another complication to a long list of technical troubles that have hampered the rollout of President Obama's health care law.
Asian Counseling and Referral Service (ACRS), one of 12 nonprofits assisted by The Seattle Times Fund For The Needy, serves more than 27,000 people annually through mental-health and substance-abuse programs, legal and naturalization help and one of the most-visited food banks in King County. The organization, founded in 1973, now has an annual budget of $15 million. Its 3-year-old Wellness for Asian Pacific American Project combines health education, wellness groups and primary care alongside counseling and group therapy. Behavioral Health Director Yoon Joo Han said the project is aimed at fighting one fact: People with a severe mental illness die 25 years younger than everybody else, according to a 2006 study by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors.
The main website for buying coverage under the federal health-insurance overhaul has itself gotten an overhaul, just in time for a rush of shoppers eager to have coverage in effect on Jan. 1. The site, HealthCare.gov, has undergone extensive work since its glitch-plagued Oct. 1 launch. The Obama administration pledged to improve its functioning by Nov. 30. In a statement on Dec. 3, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, the federal agency responsible for the site, lauded a new average page-response time of under one second, down from eight seconds at launch, and an "uptime"—when the system is functioning—of approximately 90%, compared with 42% in the past.