Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Hospitals Put Big Focus On Telehealth After $200M Boost From Feds
Roll Call: Hospitals Eye Permanent Telehealth Expansion With FCC Funds
Hundreds of hospitals and health care centers from Washington state to Louisiana are expanding telehealth infrastructure thanks to $200 million that Congress appropriated for the Federal Communications Commission in emergency legislation. In some cases, hospitals are supplementing the federal funds from the $2 trillion coronavirus relief law enacted in March with their own money to expand health care delivery through remote devices, cameras and software with patients remaining at home during the pandemic. (Ratnam, 8/18)
Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 Could Push Systems To Create Telehealth Leadership Roles
More healthcare providers are carving out telehealth leadership roles in their C-suites, a trend that will likely accelerate as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, governance experts said. There was around a 40% increase in the number of telehealth leadership roles among health system C-suites from early 2019 to early 2020, according to data from SullivanCotter, an executive compensation consulting firm. Telehealth use skyrocketed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, facilitated by temporary regulatory waivers and reimbursement boosts. (Cohen and Kacik, 8/18)
Also —
Modern Healthcare: Job-Based Health Coverage Will Be More Expensive In 2021
Large employers expect the cost of providing health coverage to workers to increase next year, as employees seek care they put off during the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies anticipate that health benefit costs will grow 5.3% in 2021, an increase slightly higher than the 5% increases employers projected in each of the last five years, according to the latest annual survey big employers by the Business Group on Health. (Livingston, 8/18)
Burlington Free Press: Vermonters Spent An Extra $1 Billion On Health Care, Auditor Says
Health care costs in Vermont were up 167% from 2000 to 2018, according to the state auditor, more than double the increase for all other goods and services in Vermont during the same period. Doug Hoffer released a report Tuesday saying that if health care spending in Vermont had increased at the same rate as the U.S. average, Vermonters would have saved roughly $1 billion. (D'Ambrosio, 8/18)
Boston Globe: These Local Hospital Honchos Made More Than $1 Million In 2018
Seventeen executives at Mass General Brigham earned more than $1 million in compensation in 2018, according to the company’s latest public filing, led by Dr. David Torchiana, who stepped down as chief executive the following year. In his last full year at the state’s largest network of doctors and hospitals, then known as Partners HealthCare, Torchiana received $2.3 million in salary, $700,000 in bonus and incentives, and nearly $960,000 in deferred compensation and other benefits. His total compensation was just under $4 million, down from $6.1 million in 2017. Despite the decline, he was the highest-paid executive among the state’s health networks and hospitals in 2018. (Edelman, 8/18)
New Orleans Times-Picayune: LCMC Health Deepens Connections To Neighborhoods With Mobile COVID Testing
For the past five months, LCMC Health has focused more heavily on reaching people in their own neighborhoods through mobile COVID-19 testing. Since late April, LCMC Health, in partnership with the LSU Health Sciences Center and the City of New Orleans Health Department has administered more than 15,000 tests in local neighborhoods. (McElresh, 8/18)
Modern Healthcare: Beaumont Medical Staff Survey Results Highly Critical Of Management, Proposed Merger
Physicians at Michigan-based Beaumont Health overwhelmingly rejected corporate management and the proposed merger of the eight-hospital nonprofit system with a 28-hospital Chicago-based health system, according to results of an explosive medical staff survey that Crain's Detroit Business has obtained. About 1,555 physicians answered the six-question survey that criticized Beaumont's management, physician and employee relations, culture, staffing and the proposed merger, essentially giving a vote of no-confidence to Beaumont's top leaders. (Greene, 8/18)
