After seeing strong growth in two previous months, online ads for healthcare practitioners and technical workers were essentially flat in December, and rose by 1,600 listings to 557,000 nationwide for the month. Despite the end-of-the-year lull, vacancies for the skilled providers outnumber qualified job seekers by almost 3 to 1, a Conference Board report shows.
Lower skilled healthcare support vacancy listings rose by 3,700 listings to 115,900. There were 2.6 unemployed people for every advertised vacancy in healthcare support. The average wage advertised for healthcare practitioners and technical workers was $33.51 an hour, and the average wage for healthcare support occupations was $12.84 an hour, The Conference Board says.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which will release its employment statistics for 2010, has shown that the healthcare sector is one of the few areas in the economy that has seen monthly job growth throughout the recession, although that growth has slowed considerably since 2009.
In the overall economy, online advertised vacancies fell in December by 9,400 listings to 4,447,800, following an increase of 47,400 in November, and 113,700 in October, The Conference Board reports.
"The year 2010 ended with a continuation of the lackluster labor demand we have seen throughout the last half of this year," says June Shelp, vice president at The Conference Board. "The strongest job demand was in the first quarter of the year, but the rest of the year failed to show that employers were significantly ramping up hiring across the economy. In the last half of 2010, advertised vacancies for workers in production, transportation, and construction and maintenance occupations increased, but demand for sales staff and workers in food preparation and serving, which rose in early 2010, moderated. After a promising start, 2010 ended with the overall job market relatively flat"
The nation's supply/demand rate stood at 3.39 unemployed people for every advertised vacancy in November (the last available unemployment data), down from a peak of 4.73 in October 2009. Nationally, there are 10.7 million more unemployed than advertised vacancies, The Conference Board reports.
Seven hospitals in six Southern states will pay the federal government a total of more than $6.3 million to settle Medicare false claims allegations stemming from the ongoing investigation of improper billing for spinal procedures, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday.
The settlements resolve whistleblower claims that the hospitals overcharged Medicare between 2000 and 2008 for inpatient kyphoplasties. The minimally invasive spinal procedure can often be performed as a less-costly out-patient procedure, but federal prosecutors said the hospitals unnecessarily performed the procedure on an in-patient basis to boost Medicare billings.
The settling hospitals are: Lakeland (FL) Regional Medical Center, $1.6 million; The Health Care Authority of Morgan County – Decatur General Hospital, Decatur, AL, $538,000; St. Dominic-Jackson Memorial Hospital, Jackson, MS, $556,000; Seton Medical Center, Austin, TX, $1.2 million; Greenville (SC) Memorial Hospital, $1 million; Presbyterian Orthopaedic Hospital, Charlotte, NC, $638,000; and The Health Care Authority of Lauderdale County, the City of Florence, AL, Coffee Health Group, and Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital, $676,000.
The government reached similar settlements in 2009 and 2010 with 18 other hospitals for kyphoplasty-related Medicare claims, which were taken up after the government's 2008 whistleblower settlement with Medtronic Spine LLC, corporate successor to Kyphon Inc. Medtronic paid $75 million to resolve Medicare fraud allegations that it encouraged hospitals to perform kyphoplasties as revenue generating in-patient procedures.
All of the hospitals were named as defendants in a lawsuit filed under the False Claims Act in 2008 in federal district court in Buffalo, NY, by whistleblowers Craig Patrick and Charles Bates. Patrick of Hudson, WI, was a reimbursement manager for Kyphon. Bates was a regional sales manager for Kyphon in Birmingham, AL. They will share about $1.1 million of the settlement.
The Justice Department said it has used the False Claims Act to recover $4.2 billion since January 2009 in cases involving fraud against federal healthcare programs.
Texas Health Resources has announced the acquisition of privately held MedicalEdge Healthcare Group, one of the largest independent physician practices in North Texas.
Arlington-based Texas Health also acquired PhyServe, the management services organization for the MedicalEdge physicians, which Texas Health will sell to MedSynergies Inc., the hospital-physician alignment consultants.
Financial terms of both deals were not disclosed.
“This enables Texas Health to become a ‘medical home’ for thousands of North Texas patients,” said Douglas D. Hawthorne, CEO of Texas Health Resources. “Immediately, more than 420 physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners will become part of our established and well-respected Texas Health Physicians Group, and the patients of MedicalEdge providers will have easy access to a hospital system dedicated to both quality and accountable medical treatment.”
MedicalEdge, based in Irving, has patient-access facilities in more than 250 locations in Collin, Dallas, Denton, Grayson, Johnson, Parker and Tarrant counties. MedicalEdge employs more than 280 physicians and more than 140 physician extenders and other mid-level health professionals, many of them involved in providing primary care.
“This is the right time for this to happen,” said Clay Heighten, MD, former president of MedicalEdge Healthcare Group. “Most people have probably never heard of MedicalEdge, but we have quietly built a medical group of more than 420 providers and other medical professionals. Now those doctors and their patients will benefit from the capabilities we now have as part of a comprehensive health system.”
Hawthorne said the deal with Texas Health also remains “a committed partner” with several hundred independent physicians on medical staffs in Texas Health hospitals.
“We have built Texas Health to be a ‘house with many rooms’ to align with all types of physicians,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is to improve quality and outcomes through better coordination of care from prevention and wellness programs, to acute care, to long term and hospice care. This is the most significant step Texas Health has taken in our strategy to become an integrated provider and coordinator of care and transform the delivery of healthcare in North Texas.”
Texas Health MedSynergies, a joint venture between MedSynergies and Texas Health, will provide management services supporting Texas Health Physicians Group with the addition of PhyServe.
Acquisition of MedicalEdge and PhyServe will add more than 2,300 people to Texas Health. MedicalEdge brings several ancillary services to Texas Health, including sleep lab services, infusion services, diagnostic imaging and chiropractic services.
The Texas Health Board of Trustees approved the acquisition Nov. 16, and the transaction closed Dec. 31.
Texas Health Resources is one of the largest faith-based, nonprofit health systems in the nation and includes 24 acute care and short-stay hospitals that are owned, operated, joint-ventured or affiliated with Texas Health Resources.
Detroit Medical Center has announced construction contracts totaling more than $60 million for architectural designs, engineering, and construction management, the first phase of a $300 million capital improvement initiative.
The projects were promised in the eight-hospital health system's $1.5 billion acquisition by private, for-profit Vanguard Health Systems, Inc.
"What better way to start the new year than by moving forward with eight DMC construction projects?" Michael Duggan, president/CEO of DMC system, says. "We promised our patients, our employees and the City of Detroit that we would aggressively move in the bulldozers and forklifts once the agreement was final. Today we start fulfilling that promise---and this is just the beginning."
Contracts totaling $50 million dollars went tothe DMC Children's Hospital of Michigan Specialty Center and to private room renovation at DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital.
Two architectural projects are the Cardiovascular Institute and Multispecialty Building, a five-story, 150,000-square-foot building, and the Sinai-Grace Hospital Emergency Department expansion, which will double the ED and add 46 ICU beds.
The five-story, 105,550-square-foot Children's Hospital expansion will house a pediatrics clinic, adolescent medicine, outpatient rehabilitation, specialty clinics, and 200 physician office suites for outpatient services. Children's Hospital served nearly a quarter of a million outpatient and emergency department patients in 2009. The center represents the first expansion of the DMC central campus in almost three decades.
The contracts for architectural work totaling $10 million are:
Central, unified lobby at Harper University Hospital, awarded to Neumann Smith. The $10.7 million dollar project starts this summer.
Surgical services renovation at Harper University Hospital, awarded to HKS. The $23 million dollar project starts this summer.
Unit renovations at Harper University Hospital, awarded to Stuckey Vitale. The $8 million dollar project starts this fall.
New operating and pre/post operating room at Detroit Receiving Hospital, awarded to Stuckey Vitale. The $8.4 million dollar project starts this fall.
Cardiovascular Institute and Multispecialty Building, awarded to Harley Ellis Devereaux. The $110 million dollar project starts in fall of 2011.
Sinai-Grace Hospital Emergency Department expansion, awarded to Smith Group. The $77 million dollar project starts in fall of 2011.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has issued a final rule to establish the permanent certification program for electronic health records, which includes new guidelines to boost their scope, transparency, reliability, and efficiency, the agency has announced.
"This final rule completes the two-phased approach ONC began with the proposed rule issued in Spring 2010 and includes several important improvements to our certification processes," said David Blumenthal, MD, national coordinator for health information technology. "Our goal is to make the transition to the permanent certification program as seamless as possible."
Meaningful use of "Certified EHR Technology" is a core requirement for healthcare providers who want incentive payments from the federal government.
The temporary certification program, issued on June 24, 2010, will be in effect until it sunsets on Dec. 31, 2011, or until permanent certification program processes are completed. ONC said it will roll out implementation programs for the permanent certification program throughout 2011.
Under the permanent certification program:
Organizations must first be accredited to test and certify HIT;
Certification bodies authorized by the National Coordinator-Authorized Certification Bodies must conduct post-certification surveillance;
ONC-ACBs are permitted to perform "gap certification."
ONC said it will ask the National Institute of Standards and Technology and its National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program to develop a laboratory accreditation program to test HIT for permanent certification.
CVS Caremark said it will buy the Medicare Part D business of Rye Brook, NY-based Universal American for $1.25 billion in a deal that will more than double the size of CVS Caremark's Medicare Part D program.
Universal American's Part D business now serves 1.9 million Medicare Prescription Drug Plan members, while CVS Caremark serves 1.2 million Medicare PDP members. The membership does not include 2011 auto assignment or the results of the Annual Enrollment Period which ended Dec. 31.
"Today's transaction furthers CVS Caremark's position as a significant player in one of the nation's fastest growing segments of the Pharmacy Benefit Management industry. A growing portion of the country's population will receive their prescription drug coverage under Medicare plans, driven both by age demographics and the anticipated shift of retirees from employer-based coverage to Medicare that will likely result from health care reform," said Per Lofberg, president of Caremark Pharmacy Services, in a statement.
"The Medicare Part D program is integral to CVS Caremark's long-term growth strategy. We believe that bringing together these two businesses will strengthen our competitive offerings, enabling us to provide Medicare beneficiaries with expanded products and services and lower the cost of pharmacy care," Lofberg said.
When the deal is finalized Woonsocket, RI-based CVS Caremark will be one of the nation's largest providers of prescription drug services for Medicare Part D beneficiaries.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Monday launched an enhanced version of its Physician Compare online tool which provides detailed information about physicians and other healthcare workers.
The updated Physician Comparetool expands and updates CMS' Healthcare Provider Directory, which for more than one decade has helped Medicare beneficiaries find participating doctors online. The new tool expands the doctor-specific information into the suite of informational tools for Medicare beneficiaries and other consumers.
The CMS tool "begins to fill an important gap in our online tools by providing more information about physicians and other healthcare workers," said CMS Administrator Donald Berwick, MD, in a statement. "This helps to pave the way for consumers to have similar information about their physicians as they have for nursing homes, home health agencies and health and drug plans."
Mandated by the Affordable Care Act, Physician Compare contains information about physicians enrolled in Medicare, which include doctors of medicine, osteopathy, optometry, podiatric medicine, and chiropractic. The site also contains information about other health professionals who routinely care for Medicare beneficiaries, including nurse practitioners, clinical psychologists, registered dietitians, physical therapists, physician assistants, and occupational therapists.
The tool is designed to help all patients—whether on Medicare or not—locate health professionals in their communities. The information on the site includes contact and address information for offices, the professional's medical specialty, where the professional completed his or her degree as well as residency or other clinical training, whether the professional speaks a foreign language, and the professional's gender. The tool can also help Medicare beneficiaries identify which physicians participate in Medicare.
Physician Compare also shows consumers whether the practice reported certain data to CMS through the Physician Quality Reporting System. Currently, PQRI is voluntary and rewards physicians and other healthcare professionals for reporting data on quality measures related to Medicare beneficiaries. In 2009, more than 200,000 healthcare professionals reported data to CMS through the PQRI.
Later this year, CMS plans a second phase of the tool which will indicate whether professionals chose to participate in a voluntary effort to encourage doctors to prescribe medicines electronically. Eventually, Physician Compare will include information about the quality of care Medicare beneficiaries receive from physicians and the other healthcare professionals profiled on the site. The expansion will include information on quality of care and patient experience that can help consumers learn more about the care provided by Medicare-participating physicians. CMS is required by the Affordable Care Act to develop a plan to implement this expansion by 2013.
"Today's release of Physician Compare moves us closer towards CMS' goal to improve the quality of healthcare for people with Medicare in all the places where they receive care, including the doctor's office," Berwick said. "By using a considered, step-wise approach to spotlighting quality of care, we can create a tool that will help doctors and patients for decades to come."
If 2011 is anything like 2010, it will be another mean year for the business of healthcare.
The healthcare reform debate in Congress undoubtedly will reach new heights of vituperation this year as Republicans regain control of the U.S. House with what they claim is a mandate to repeal "Obamacare."Democrats are already firing back at the GOP, calling them liars and hypocrites for misrepresenting the effects of the reforms while failing come up with fiscally viable alternatives. Both sides will sow fear, confusion, and angst. The "death panel" rhetoric—perhaps the single most unfortunate rumor to arise from the healthcare reform debates in 2009 and 2010—apparently has been rekindled.
Lobbyists for doctors, hospitals, drug makers and the health insurance industry will cruise the halls of Congress to ensure that any changes made to the healthcare reforms will come at someone else's expense—more than likely, the consumer.
And we'll hear more in the coming months about how hospitals and the healthcare system continue to kill tens of thousands of Americans each year through HAIs and medication errors, other preventable mistakes—and frankly, incompetence.
On the healthcare business front, Community Health System's very public hostile takeover attempt of rival Tenet Healthcare Corp. provides us with a fascinating glimpse of C-Suite fisticuffs.
There will be more questions about conflict of interest for physicians who take money from drug makers or medical device companies. There will be turf wars between rival hospitals and healthcare systems. There will be more strikes, or threats to strike. Unions and management will try to discredit one another in the media. And, rival unions will try to discredit one another.
With our attention so focused on these divisive issues, it's easy to forget that healthcare is supposed to be about the noble science healing. So, before the mud starts flying, let's take a moment to remember the example of David Nichols, MD, who died Thursday after a months-long battle with liver cancer. He was 62.
Most regular readers know about Doc Nichols, who in December was named one of HealthLeaders Media's 20 People Who Make Medicine Better—2010. A primary care physician, Nichols for more than three decades served as the only healthcare provider for about 525 people on remote Tangier Island in Chesapeake Bay. Once a week for 31 years Nichols would fly himself out to the island from his coastal Virginia home. He didn't have to. He could undoubtedly have found other far less inconvenient ways to make money. In fact, Nichols told HealthLeaders Media that his White Stone Family Practice in Hampton Roads, VA helped to subsidize much of the unreimbursed or low-cost care he provided on the island, which is inhabited by fishing families.
Nichols chose to make those predawn flights ever year for half of his life because he saw a need. He put the welfare of his patients above all else. He saw himself as a dying breed, a self-described "Dinosaur Doc," but he didn't resent what he saw as a different set of priorities for younger physicians.
"Giving up too much time for others; that's how it was in those days. It was the norm for medicine," he says. "I can understand why today younger doctors don't want to work the long hours; they want to go home to their families."
In August, the whole town and a slew of visiting dignitaries from across Virginia honored Nichols at a dedication ceremony for a new $1.5 million health clinic on the island, which was named the David B. Nichols Health Center.
"I've received way more than what I've given," Nichols told HealthLeaders Media, of his legacy on the island. "I hope people will remember, Dr. David Nichols tried his best to help people."
If Hollywood made a movie about Nichols' life—how in his final months the whole town turns out to shower him with love, to tell him how he changed their lives, to shake hands and embrace the babies he helped grow into adults—nobody would believe it really happened. But, it did.
Medicine lost a champion Thursday with the death of David Nichols, MD, a primary care physician who for more than three decades served as the only healthcare provider for remote Tangier Island in Chesapeake Bay.
Nichols died Thursday morning, surrounded by his family at his home in coastal White Stone, VA, after a months-long battle with liver cancer, the Richmond Times Dispatchreported.
Once a week for 31 years, Nichols would pilot his own airplane or helicopter on the 15-minute flight to Tangier Island to treat the fishing village's 525 residents.
HealthLeaders magazine in December named Nichols one of "20 People Who Make Healthcare Better – 2010." He told the magazine in an audio interview that he first encountered the people of the remote island on a family trip, and began traveling back and forth in 1979 doing missionary work on the island —treating patients "like family." That's when he made the decision not to leave the islanders stranded without healthcare.
"Turns out the mission's in my backyard—which I think is the case for a lot of places in America—there can be a lot of room to help people without going to Africa or other places," he said.
In August, the whole town and a slew of visiting dignitaries from across Virginia honored Nichols at a dedication ceremony for a new $1.5 million health clinic on the island, which was named the David B. Nichols Health Center.
Allscripts Sunrise Acute Care, Version 5.5 and Sunrise Emergency Care Version 5.5 have been certified as Complete Electronic Health Records for 2011/2012 by the federal government's Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, the company announced this week.
"CCHIT is pleased to be testing and certifying products so that companies are now able to offer these products to providers who wish to purchase and implement certified EHR technology and achieve meaningful use in time for the 2011-2012 incentives," CCHIT Chair Karen M. Bell, MD, said in a media release issued by Allscripts.
The 2011/2012 criteria support the Stage 1 meaningful use measures required to qualify eligible providers and hospitals for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Additionally, Sunrise Acute Care Modular Version 5.5, Sunrise Emergency Care Modular Version 5.5, Sunrise Ambulatory Modular Version 5.5, and Sunrise Patient Portal Version 5.5 are all CCHIT 2011/2012 compliant and were also certified as EHR Modules on Dec. 21 by CCHIT.
"Certification of our Sunrise Acute Care, Emergency Department and Ambulatory Electronic Health Records is an important milestone for the company as it marks the completion of ARRA certification for our full portfolio of ambulatory and acute EHRs, a commitment we made to our clients," said Glen Tullman, CEO of Chicago-based Allscripts.
Allscripts said it submitted Sunrise Acute Care and Emergency Care for certification as both a Complete and Modular EHR to accommodate hospitals that prefer to keep an existing third-party analytic system. Hospitals can either use the Sunrise Clinical Analytics embedded within Sunrise Acute Care or Sunrise Emergency Care to demonstrate the quality measure reporting requirement of Meaningful Use, or choose to integrate their third-party system to with Sunrise Acute Care Modular to satisfy the requirement.
That third-party reporting system, however, will be required under ARRA rules to be ARRA-certified as an EHR module, otherwise the hospital will have to certify the reporting module themselves - a time-consuming and expensive process, Allscripts said.
Three clinical components of Allscripts Sunrise 5.5 EHR were certified by CCHIT in July. Those components included: Sunrise Clinical Manager 2011 Suite, Version 5.5, Sunrise Ambulatory Care 2011 Suite, Version 5.5 and Sunrise Emergency Care 2011 Suite, Version 5.5.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Authorized Testing and Certification Body 2011/2012 certification program certifies that Complete EHRs meet all of the 2011/2012 criteria and EHR Modules meet one or more – but not all – of the criteria approved by HHS for either eligible provider or hospital technology.
Companies offering ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certified EHR modules may return to test additional criteria and certify their products as Complete EHRs later.
CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announced that registration will begin January 3, 2011, for eligible providers hoping to participate in the Medicare EHR incentive program.