Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Pandemic Surge Constricts Mental Health Services To Breaking Point
Stat: ‘Every Day Is An Emergency’: The Pandemic Is Worsening Psychiatric Bed Shortages Nationwide
The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically cut the availability of inpatient psychiatric beds, with facilities across the country forced to reduce their capacity to meet social distancing requirements, stem outbreaks of the virus, or repurpose psychiatric beds to care for the surge of Covid-19 patients. The crisis — combined with years of mental health care budget cuts, rising demand for mental health care, and an existing shortage of both psychiatric beds and providers — appears to have put health care systems on a wartime footing. (Rapoport, 12/23)
Center For Public Integrity: South Dakota's Coronavirus Surge Is Turning Nursing Homes Into A ‘Battle Zone’
At Jenkin’s Living Center in Watertown, 24 residents have died from COVID-19 since the last week of October — about a fifth of the residents there — data submitted to the federal government show. Thirteen patients at Weskota Manor in Wessington Springs — more than a third of its patients — died from COVID-19 this autumn, most of them in one week. Walworth County Care Center in Selby, a 50-bed facility, saw COVID-19 kill 12 patients this autumn, an administrator said. Overall, more than 40 percent of South Dakota nursing homes have lost a tenth or more of their patients to the coronavirus, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of data from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Essley Whyte, 12/22)
In other health care industry news —
Philadelphia Inquirer: New Jersey May Be The First State To Impose Per-Bed Fees On Nonprofit Hospitals For Municipal Services
New Jersey lawmakers approved an unusual measure last week that requires many nonprofit hospitals to pay per-bed fees to their local governments, while preserving their increasingly contested property-tax exemptions. The legislation, which requires hospitals to pay a fee of $3 a day for each licensed bed, is in response to a landmark 2015 New Jersey Tax Court ruling involving Morristown Medical Center that “the operation and function of nonprofit hospitals do not meet the criteria for property tax exemption” under state law. A 300-bed hospital subject to the fee would pay $328,500 a year. (Brubaker, 12/23)
Indianapolis Star: Indiana Sued Over Fetus Disposal Laws
A series of Indiana laws from 2016 that dictate how fetal tissues are disposed after an abortion are facing scrutiny again after three women and an Indianapolis abortion clinic on Monday brought a federal lawsuit against the state. The lawsuit claims that Indiana's abortion laws, which require that medical facilities bury or cremate fetal remains, are unconstitutional because they force the state's definition of a person onto women who might not share the same beliefs. Attorney General Curtis Hill told IndyStar in a prepared statement that he believes the lawsuit will fail. (Magaleno, 12/22)
The New York Times: Sloan Kettering Paid $1.5 Million Severance To A Cancer Doctor Forced Out Over Conflicts
In 2018, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s chief medical officer, Dr. José Baselga, resigned under fire over his failure to disclose payments from health care companies in dozens of research articles he wrote. Now, recent Internal Revenue Service filings show the nonprofit hospital paid more than $1.5 million in severance to Dr. Baselga in 2018 and 2019. (Thomas and Ornstein, 12/22)
Crain's New York Business: Maimonides, One Brooklyn And CUNY Launch Enterprise Hub To Help Hospitals Find Vendors, Workers
Brooklyn Communities Collaborative, a not-for-profit comprising major health and education institutions, launched an enterprise initiative dedicated to addressing weaknesses in the healthcare supply system and workforce, it announced last week. The not-for-profit, registered in Borough Park, has created the Health Enterprise Hub with two key goals: helping hospitals identify local vendor opportunities and training the healthcare workforce. The initiative involves the not-for-profit’s key members—Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park, One Brooklyn Health System in Crown Heights and CUNY—as well as labor unions and community-based organizations. (Sim, 12/22)
Stat: How 2020 Became The Year Of The Biotech SPAC
Over the past year, the humble blank-check IPO has risen from a disreputable relic of the 1980s into a bona fide financial trend. And biotech has been among the most ardent practitioners. (Garde, 12/23)
