AHA reports total community benefits for nonprofits were 13.8% of total hospital expenses in 2017.
The nation's more than 2,764 tax-exempt hospitals provided $100 billion in total benefits to their communities in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, according to a report from the American Hospital Association.
The analysis also shows that tax-exempt hospitals' and health systems’ total community benefits were 13.8% of their total expenses in 2017.
Nearly half of that total, came in the form of financial aid for patients and hospitals eating losses from Medicaid and other "underpaying" government programs, AHA said.
"Hospitals and health systems of all sizes and types deliver a wide range of benefits, activities, services and programs on a daily basis to meet the varied needs of their patients and communities," AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack said. "This new analysis shows that improving the health of their communities remains at the heart of the mission of hospitals and health systems."
The community benefits were fairly consistent across the board, with variations found based on size, location, and patient mix. Urban/suburban hospitals generally reported larger community benefits as a percentage of total expenses (13.6%), versus rural hospitals (10.1%).
Pediatric hospitals generally reported higher percentages of community benefits (15.9%) from total expenses.
Effective July 15, hospitals can no longer use CDC/NHSN COVID-19 module to fulfill federal data reporting requirements.
The federal government is pressing hospitals to begin on Wednesday using new modules for collecting data on daily capacity, utilization, and testing.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Healthcare Safety Network COVID-19 module will no longer be an option for daily reporting, effective July 15, the Department of Health and Human Services announced.
Instead, in guidelines set out last week by HHS, hospitals will be given the option of using one of four daily reporting modules, including:
Reporting data to state health departments that have written authorization regional federal administrators to report hospital data to HHS.
Reporting to the HHS TeleTracking portal, which has been used for special data reporting requests for distribution of high-impact funds and remdesivir.
Authorizing health IT vendors and other third-party stakeholders to share information directly with HHS, which has to be approved by HHS regional administrators.
Publishing on a hospital website in a standardized format, such as schema.org, which would also require approval from regional administrators.
HHS is also asking for more granular detail in the daily reporting, including breakdowns of pediatric and adult patients, and inventories of remdesivir.
HHS said it will also no longer ask for one-time requests for data to aid in the distribution of remdesivir or any other treatments or supplies.
"This means that the daily reporting is the only mechanism used for the distribution calculations," the American Hospital Association said in an advisory to its members.
But more funding will be needed, and soon, hospital stakeholders say.
The federal government's announcement that it will provide another $4 billion in emergency funding to hospitals slammed by the coronavirus pandemic was greeted with cheers by industry stakeholders, who also suggested that more funding will be needed.
Safety net hospitals will get a $3 billion slice of this latest CARES Act Provider Relief Funds payment, part of a package of emergency funds that have already sent more than $175 billion to hospitals and other healthcare providers over the past four months.
This latest round of funding, which will be divided among 215 acute care hospitals, is in addition to the$10 billion in CARES Act funding that safety nets received in June. In total, the federal government has sent $12.8 billion in direct payments to 959 safety net hospitals across the nation, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said.
The remaining $1 billion in this latest Provider Relief Fund disbursement will go to rural hospitals, and smaller hospitals in metropolitan areas with high concentrations of Medicaid patients, CMS said. In May, nearly 4,000 rural hospitals shared $10 billion in Provider Relief Funds.
"We've been distributing the Provider Relief Funds as quickly as possible to those providers who have been hardest hit by the pandemic," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said.
"Close work with stakeholders informed how we targeted this new round of funds to hard-hit safety-net and rural providers," he said.
Bruce Siegel, MD, president and CEO of America's Essential Hospitals, said the latest round of funding "will help ease the severe financial pressure many face. But gaps remain, and more support is needed."
"We appreciate the administration's efforts to correct earlier funding gaps that left many essential hospitals without the support they need; but there is more work to do," Siegel said.
"This is an unprecedented public health emergency that has taken a disproportionately heavy toll on the communities that essential hospitals serve. It has put these hospitals in a precarious position that demands an ongoing commitment of federal support," he said.
The American Hospital Association estimates that the nation's hospitals could lose $323 billion or more through the end of 2020, owing to collapsing patient volumes.
"Hospitals with high Medicaid volume provide care to our most vulnerable patients and communities, many of which have suffered disproportionately from this virus," AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack said.
"Even before the pandemic these hospitals operated under serious financial pressure, and these funds will help them continue to stay open and provide care to all who need it," he said.
Donald Mueller, who begins his tenure later this month, now serves as CEO at Children's Hospital at Erlanger in Chattanooga.
Veteran pediatric healthcare executive Donald Mueller has been named CEO of the financially troubled St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, Drexel University and Tower Health announced jointly this week.
Mueller, 49, who for the past five years has served as CEO at Children's Hospital at Erlanger in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will take the reins at the Philadelphia-based, 188-bed, pediatric hospital on July 27.
He replaces Maria Scenna, who left St. Christopher's last September to become COO of Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Philadelphia.
Reading, Pennsylvania-based Tower Health and Drexel University bought the bankrupt St. Christopher's for $40 million last fall from Philadelphia Academic Health System, a subsidiary of California-based American Academic Health System.
"It is an honor to join the amazing team at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children and I am thrilled for the opportunity to strengthen and grow one of the most important healthcare facilities in the Philadelphia region," Mueller said in a media release.
While at Children's Hospital at Erlanger, Mueller led one of four Comprehensive Regional Pediatric Centers in Tennessee, providing the region's only full-service hospital with a dedicated 65-bed Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a Pediatric Trauma Team, an Emergency Department, and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
He recruited more than 50 subspecialty physicians to the hospital, and oversaw the strategic planning, coordination and design of the new 100,000 square foot ambulatory center, and helped raise $46 million to update facilities. In 2019, Children's Hospital at Erlanger achieved Leapfrog Top Children's Hospital status.
Before Erlanger, Mueller served in various executive leadership roles for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta – Emory University for 15 years.
"Don is a highly skilled and experienced executive, with an extensive and successful background in developing high-quality pediatric clinical programs; recruitment of physicians and researchers; strengthening nursing; and building effective partnerships with the community," Clint Matthews, president and CEO of Tower Health, and John Fry, president of Drexel University, said in a memo to staff announcing Mueller's appointment.
A proposed rule would pay for innovative dialysis equipment and support in the home setting for patients with end-stage renal disease.
Home-based dialysis equipment and supplies for patients with end state kidney disease would be eligible for additional Medicare reimbursements under a proposed rule put forward this week by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
CMS Administrator Seema Verma said the proposed rule – the latest in a series of initiatives put forward by Medicareto improve access to kidney dialysis – is particularly timely "in the midst of a deadly pandemic that poses a particular threat to those with serious underlying conditions."
In addition to often having multiple comorbidities, ESRD patients also have the highest hospitalization rates for COVID-19 among Medicare beneficiaries.
"CMS data shows that those with ESRD have the highest rate of hospitalization of any single group, a trend consistent with having to frequently leave home to receive dialysis," Verma said.
"(This) action represents a sorely needed course direction, making it easier for ESRD facilities to make new and innovative home dialysis machines available to patients who need them," she said.
Currently, more than 85% of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries with ESRD travel to a facility to receive their dialysis at least three times each week, spending an average of 12 hours each week attached to a dialysis machine away from home, CMS said.
Under the proposed rule, which would take effect on January 1, 2021, CMS would:
Expand the transitional add-on payment adjustment for new and innovative equipment and supplies (TPNIES) that was introduced last year to now cover qualifying new dialysis machines when used in the home.
Encourage under the ESRD Treatment Choices (ETC) Model the greater use of home dialysis and kidney transplants for Medicare beneficiaries with ESRD to enhance care quality and reduce costs.
Determine whether new ESRD care delivery and payment options can improve the quality of care and reduce the total cost of care for patients with kidney disease.
Refine eligibility for the transitional drug add-on payment adjustment (TDAPA) under the ESRD PPS to target additional payments to innovative renal dialysis drugs and biological products.
New estimates underscore the importance of infection prevention, particularly among seniors.
Between 1% and 2% of New Yorkers infected with COVID-19 – including those with no or mild symptoms – died between March 1 and May 16, according to a new study.
The findings suggest that the fatality risk averaging 1.45% during that timespan is more than double the 0.7% fatality risk identified in previous studies from both China and France.
That's according to a new study from researcher at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health that was published online in medRxiv.
"These dire estimates highlight the severity of COVID-19 in elderly populations and the importance of infection prevention in congregate settings," the study authors wrote.
"Thus, early detection and adherence to infection control guidance in long-term care and adult care facilities should be a priority for COVID-19 response as the pandemic continues to unfold."
The researchers analyzed 191,392 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases and 20,141 confirmed and probable COVID-19 deaths in New York City between March 1-May 16, 2020.
The analysis couples case and mortality data combined with cell phone data used to model changes in COVID-19 transmission rate due to social distancing.
Mortality risk was highest for older adults, with IFR of 4.67% for 65-74-year-olds and 13.83% for those 75 and older.
Younger people had far lower chances of dying from the disease: .011% among those younger than 25 and .12% among 25-44-year-olds.
The researchers said that their findings likely more accurately reflect the true mortality risk of the coronavirus because they rely on "robust data" collected by health officials in New York City, where specialists review all death certificates and record deaths into a unified electronic reporting system.
The study authors suggest that the death toll could be higher in areas outside of New York City, because of the city's relatively strong public health infrastructure.
"It is thus crucial that officials account for and closely monitor the infection rate and population health outcomes and enact prompt public health responses accordingly as the pandemic unfolds," the authors wrote.
"As the pandemic continues to unfold and populations in many places worldwide largely remain susceptible, understanding the severity, in particular, the IFR, is crucial for gauging the full impact of COVID-19 in the coming months or years," they wrote.
They also acknowledged the challenges of ascertaining the death risk elsewhere in the nation due to the large number of undocumented infections, fluctuating case detection rates, and inconsistent reporting of fatalities.
The total support available to eligible health care providers in 2020 will top $802M.
The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau this week ordered that $197.9 million in unused funds from prior years be carried forward for the Rural Health Care Program.
The Rural Health Care Program funding cap for 2020 is $604.76 million. But the carry-forward pushes the total funds available to eligible providers to $802.74 million in 2020, the most in the program's history, the FCC said in a media release.
RHCP provides nonprofit rural providers with money to expand their telemedicine and high-speed broadband capacities. In recent years, demand for the funds has outstripped the funding cap, and the FCC moved two years ago to increase the funding cap, carryover funding, and adjust for inflation.
"In 2018, the FCC took swift action to ensure that the Rural Health Care Program better reflected the needs of and advances in connected care," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said.
"Looking to the future, we gave providers more certainty by adjusting the cap annually for inflation and allowing unused funds from previous years to be carried forward," Pai said.
"And now, more than ever, our foresight is fortuitous, as telehealth is proving to be critical in our fight against COVID-19," Pai said, adding that the additional funding "speaks to the FCC's commitment to ensuring that rural healthcare providers can continue to serve their communities during this difficult time and well into the future."
The healthcare sector, once thought a recession-proof job making machine, has reported nearly 87,000 job losses in the first six months of 2020.
Healthcare jobs continued to rebound in June, with the sector reporting 358,000 "payroll additions" as the nation staggers back from the economic collapse brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday.
The bulk of the jobs in June were in ambulatory services, which had been all but shuttered for three months this spring because of the pandemic. Gains in dentist, physician, and other healthcare provider offices accounted for 318,000 payroll additions.
Hospitals stemmed two months of job hemorrhages, with 6,700 new jobs in June, after losing 160,000 jobs in April and May.
Nursing homes reported 18,000 job losses in June.
June marks the second consecutive month of job growth for the healthcare sector, which suffered epic job losses in April owing to the coronavirus pandemic. In May, the sector saw 312,000 payroll additions, mostly in outpatient care venues.
The June job report largely reflects the state of the economy in mid-month, before the coronavirus surge in many parts of the nation prompted some state and local governments and some businesses to scale back their re-openings.
The June job numbers are considered preliminary and could be subject to considerable revision.
The healthcare sector, once thought a recession-proof job making machine, has reported nearly 87,000 job losses in the first six months of 2020. In that same span in 2019, the sector created 138,000 new jobs.
In the overall economy, BLS reported that payroll employment grew by 4.8 million in June, and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%.
More than 2 million of the jobs gained in the larger economy were in the leisure and entertainment sector, which is now threatened with renewed disruption from the pandemic.
JAMA study estimates that 35% of excess deaths during pandemic's early months were tied to causes other than COVID-19.
Overall death rates in the United States rose significantly this spring in the first three months of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, COVID-19 accounts for only two-thirds of the estimated 87,000 excessive deaths tracked across the nation between March 1 and May 30, according to a research letter published Wednesday in JAMA Network.
In 14 states, including — California and Texas — more than half of the excess deaths were tied to an underlying cause other than COVID-19, said lead author Steven Woolf, MD, director emeritus of Virginia Commonwealth University's Center on Society and Health.
Woolf said the data suggest that the official COVID-19 death counts – currently surpassing 129,000 lives nationwide – underestimate the true death toll of the pandemic in the U.S.
"There are several potential reasons for this under-count," said Woolf, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Population Health atVCU School of Medicine. "Some of it may reflect under-reporting; it takes a while for some of these data to come in. Some cases might involve patients with COVID-19 who died from related complications, such as heart disease, and those complications may have been listed as the cause of death rather than COVID-19.
"But a third possibility, the one we're quite concerned about, is indirect mortality — deaths caused by the response to the pandemic," Woolf said. "People who never had the virus may have died from other causes because of the spillover effects of the pandemic, such as delayed medical care, economic hardship or emotional distress."
Deaths from causes other than COVID-19 spiked in Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York — particularly New York City — and Pennsylvania, the regions that also had the most COVID-19 deaths in March and April.
At COVID-19's peak for March and April, diabetes deaths in those five states rose 96% above the expected number of deaths when compared to the weekly averages in January and February of 2020. Deaths from heart disease (89%), Alzheimer's disease (64%) and stroke (35%) in those states also spiked.
New York City's death rates rose 398% from heart disease and 356% from diabetes, the study found.
Woolf said some of these deaths were likely indirectly caused by the pandemic among people suffering acute emergencies, such as a heart attack or stroke, who may have been afraid to go to a hospital.
Those who did seek emergency care may not have been able to get the treatment they needed, such as ventilator support, if the hospital was overwhelmed by the surge, he said.
Barsoum will lead HOPCo's efforts to transition and align stakeholders in the ongoing shift from volume-based to value-based care.
Former Cleveland Clinic CEO Wael Barsoum, MD, has been named president and chief transition officer at Healthcare Outcomes Performance Company, a Phoenix-based orthopedic practice and service line management company.
"The addition of Dr. Barsoum is a major milestone for us," said HOPCo Founder and CEO David Jacofsky, MD.
"Our executive team is comprised of some of the most forward-thinking minds in healthcare and Dr. Barsoum's history of innovation and commitment to value-based care makes him the ideal leader to assume this role," Jacofsky said.
During his six years as CEO and president of Cleveland Clinic Florida, Barsoum oversaw the health system's growth from a $600 million, single, 155-bed hospital system with nine remote sites to a $1.8 billion, 5-hospital, 1,083-bed tertiary and quaternary care hospital system with more than 40 regional sites.
Barsoum will lead HOPCo's efforts to transition and align stakeholders in the ongoing shift from volume-based to value-based care. He will also oversee HOPCo's musculoskeletal service line hospital integrations, musculoskeletal specialty hospitals, quality programs as well as operations.
"HOPCo has emerged as a strong leader in the musculoskeletal space," Barsoum said. "I am truly excited about the opportunity to help drive the national expansion of their proven value-based care and population health models."
