More than $1.5 million has been awarded to the West End Medical Centers and the Medical College of Georgia Research Institute to help uninsured children in the state. The grant, awarded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will be used to find and enroll eligible children in Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, or PeachCare for Kids. The funds are part of $40 million in grants recently given to 69 organizations across the nation.
MetroWest Medical Center has told employees it may end its contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts unless the insurer narrows the gap in payments between the hospital and its competitors, the Boston Globe reports. Leaders of the hospital and its physicians organization said rates paid for their services are as much as 40% lower than what other healthcare providers receive. MetroWest, owned by Vanguard Health Systems, operates Framingham (MA) Union Hospital and Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick, MA, which have a total of about 300 beds and more than 740 affiliated physicians.
The House healthcare bill would repeal an exemption from federal antitrust oversight that the health-insurance industry has enjoyed for decades, but the move alone might not make local insurance markets more competitive. The repeal is necessary to inject competition into regional insurance markets, according to Rep. Diana DeGette (D., CO), one of several members of Congress behind a push to repeal the exemption. She cited American Medical Association figures showing that 94% of those markets are highly concentrated.
The business world found plenty to complain about as it assessed the House bill that would make sweeping changes in the healthcare system and extend insurance coverage to millions more Americans, the New York Times reports. Insurers do not like the provision to create a new government-run insurance program. Drug makers oppose billions of dollars in rebates they would have to give to the government over 10 years. Medical devices are not happy about the proposed 2.5% tax on their products. And employers oppose rules that, for many of them, would make healthcare coverage a federally mandated obligation.
Ensuring the physicians at your hospital hold specialty certifications can be a great marketing tool. It shows patients that your physicians meet national competency standards. The problem is that not all medical specialties offer certification; although new certifications are offered each year.
Child abuse pediatricians are the latest group of practitioners to gain their own certification. The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) approved the new child abuse pediatrics specialty in 2006 and the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) issued the first certification exams this month. Medical staffs can begin verifying practitioner certification status on the ABP Web site in February 2010.
"Board certification is really necessary in a field like this, not just for the legal reasons, not just so you can go to court and be an expert [witness], because a lot of us were already doing that," says Ann S. Botash, MD, professor of pediatrics at the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University and director of the University Hospital's Child Abuse Referral and Evaluation (CARE) program in Syracuse, NY.
Rather, Botash says it's helpful in the medical setting when she's working with other pediatricians who are good practitioners, but don't have the same experience in child abuse treatment that she has. The certification may be a deciding factor in a disagreement between two practitioners, one a specialist and the other a generalist, about a diagnosis of child abuse. It's also a helpful indicator for parents who are looking for a specialist in child abuse treatment.
"If you had a child with a heart murmur, do you want the child to see me, a general pediatrician, or do you want the child with the heart murmur to go see the specialist?" Botash says.
As president of the Helfer Society, an honorary society of physicians specializing in child abuse treatment, Botash has been working toward developing a certification in child abuse pediatrics for years. Although the new certification will not change her privileges because the certification is not procedurally based, the new specialty might someday affect finances.
"It may change how we're able to bill, because I'll be able to bill as an expert," she says. "But that takes longer because the insurance companies have to recognize it. That's the next step."
On the heels of the ABMS certification, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) is in the final stages of reviewing standards for residency fellowship programs in child abuse pediatrics. ACGME plans to vote on the standards in early 2010.
Emily Berry is an associate editor for Briefings on Credentialing and Credentialing Resource Center Connection, and manages CredentialingResourceCenter.com. You can reach her at eberry@hcpro.com.
The shootings at Fort Hood in Texas severely taxed local hospitals as they struggled to cope with the flood of victims, and left them scrambling for blood donations as the casualties came into their emergency rooms. Victims were sent as far away as Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, about 30 miles away, since it has the only Level 1 trauma center in central Texas, so designated because it is capable of handling the most serious injuries. The hospital reported receiving 10 shooting victims from Fort Hood, and called for blood donations to keep up with the demands of treating all the wounded. The hospital closed to the public in the wake of the shootings "as we focus our attention upon the victims and their families and to insure the safety of our patients and staff," a hospital statement said.