State Highlights: Geisinger Health Finalizes Deal With N.J.’s AtlantiCare Health System; Diabetes Annual Medicaid Tab Tops $1B In N.Y.
Health care stories are reported from New Jersey, New York, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Illinois.
The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Geisinger Health Completes Deal With AtlantiCare Health
Geisinger Health System completed its acquisition of AtlantiCare Health System Inc., the dominant health-care system in Atlantic County, the two organizations said Thursday. The deal, which was announced nearly two years ago, adds to Geisinger's acute-care operations. Based in Danville, Pa., Geisinger already owned six acute-care hospitals in Pennsylania and this deal expands its licensed acute-care bed count by 36 percent. (Brubaker, 10/2)
The Associated Press:
Diabetes Costs New York's Medicaid System $1.2B Annually
A New York state spent more than $1.2 billion on diabetes-related medical services last year, according to a new report that suggests the costs associated with the chronic disease are likely to impose ever greater burdens on the state. Total Medicaid spending related to diabetes surged 31 percent in the past five years, the report from Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found. Some 1.6 million New Yorkers — or 10 percent of the state's adult population — have been diagnosed with either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, and 460,000 of them are covered by the state's Medicaid program. (Klepper, 10/2)
Los Angeles Times:
Bill Awaiting Brown Would Subsidize Farmworker Union's Health Plan For 5 Years
Last year, the budget writers in Gov. Jerry Brown's administration held their noses when Democrats pushed through the Legislature a $3.2-million subsidy for a union healthcare plan. It was something the state would "hopefully get out of the business of doing next year," Keely Bosler, the chief finance deputy, said at the time. But the governor approved an additional $2.5-million subsidy in June, and now Democratic lawmakers want a longer financial commitment. They passed legislation last month that would provide similar funding for the union — the storied United Farm Workers once led by Cesar Chavez — for five more years. (Megerian, 10/3)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Highmark Cuts Medicare Advantage Premiums; Looks To Regain Market Share
Highmark is throttling back premiums for most of its Medicare Advantage plans across Western Pennsylvania, a year after spiking prices and losing market share, the Downtown-based company announced Thursday. Seven of nine Medicare Advantage plans sold by the region’s largest health insurer will carry lower monthly rates in 2016, with premiums slipping between 3 percent and 35 percent, Highmark vice president Tim Lightner said. Rival UPMC Health Plan revealed premium increases that will range from about 6 percent to roughly 22 percent for several competing plans. (Smeltz, 10/1)
The San Jose Mercury News:
California Lawmakers, Activists Anxiously Await Gov. Jerry Brown Action On Legislation
With less than a week to go before Sunday's deadline for Gov. Jerry Brown to act on a bevy of bills, lawmakers and activists are anxiously awaiting word about the fate of some of the year's highest-profile legislation. Brown is widely expected to sign bills his administration worked behind the scenes to craft, including measures to combat climate change and regulate the state's medical marijuana industry. But he's been tight-lipped about other measures, including legislation that would better protect foster youth who are over-prescribed potent psychotropic drugs and allow terminally ill Californians to end their lives with a lethal prescription obtained through a doctor. (Calefati and Seipel, 10/4)
The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Protecting The Elderly Amid Big Health Care Changes
With major changes to long-term care for the elderly underway in Pennsylvania, the advocacy group Diane Menio leads is working on overdrive. "The state is moving very quickly to change all of long-term services and supports to managed-care organizations," said Menio, 60, executive director of the Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, a statewide advocacy group based in Philadelphia. (Von Bergen, 10/4)
Health News Florida:
Governor Calls For Hospital Transparency But Should Proposal Extend To Others?
Governor Rick Scott is pushing for greater healthcare cost transparency in hospitals. The move comes as Florida faces the loss of more federal health care funding next year, and growing concerns about the state’s healthcare costs. Scott and the hospitals have been at odds all year. Now the Governor is accusing them of price-gouging patients. Scott founded one of the largest hospital chains in the United States, but when asked what he’s done to increase transparency, Scott is pointing instead to his urgent care company. (Hatter, 10/3)
News Service Of Florida:
South Florida College Challenges State Over Nursing Program
A Miami Gardens-based college is challenging a decision by the Florida Board of Nursing that could shut down the school's nursing-education program. Azure College filed a legal challenge that was sent this week to the state Division of Administrative Hearings. The Board of Nursing in July issued a notice of intent to terminate the nursing program, pointing to low passage rates for the school's graduates on licensure exams. But in the challenge, Azure argued that it showed progress under a remediation plan. (10/2)
The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Emergency: Volunteer Ambulance Corps Fight For Lives
Ruth von Minden's life revolves around family, church, and the Springfield Ambulance Corps. At age 66, von Minden proudly shows off a "Dinosaur of EMS" T-shirt she wears under a comfortable blue long-sleeved overshirt. She started in the Delaware County community 41 years ago as a "swoop and scoop," when medics would grab the patient and rush to the hospital for any care, and through 4,000 runs, she's seen childbirths, deadly car crashes, heart attacks, and life-altering burns. Now she's a veteran of the last all-volunteer ambulance company in Delaware County. Fewer stations than ever rely on volunteers such as von Minden. For decades, volunteer ambulance companies were part of the fabric of community life. Generations of good Samaritans stepped up to donate their time, money, and skills to help their sick or injured neighbors. But the emergency-services landscape has changed, across the region and the country. (Schaefer, 10/4)
Stateline:
As Insurers Probe Consumers' Spending, States Begin To Probe Them
When Fred and Donna Wolden’s biannual car insurance premium went up by $90 last month, they wanted to know why. The Wisconsin retirees hadn’t had an accident or bought a new vehicle. In fact, they say not much has changed in the two-plus decades they’ve insured their home and cars through AAA. The couple is used to premium increases of 5 to 8 percent, but this year’s 20 percent increase has them wondering if it is the result of “price optimization,” a rate-setting method rooted in consumer spending habits that is drawing the scrutiny of state insurance regulators around the country. (Breitenbach, 10/2)
Health News Florida:
How Much More (And Less) Floridians Pay For Health Care
The true cost of health care is notoriously secret, but an analysis out this week from the Health Care Cost Institute offers a glimpse into how insurance companies spend money in Florida. “Inpatient prices and outpatient prices can differ within the same area,” says Eric Barrette, director of research for HCCI. “The mix of services isn’t always related to the prices.” (Mack, 10/4)
WBUR:
Coming To A Clinic Near You: The $50 IUD With A Fascinating Backstory
The Liletta, which is just starting to roll out at clinics and hospitals here in Boston and around the country, is not only a device for the lucky — quite the opposite. Its whole reason for being is to serve poor and uninsured women, to make IUDs — which can cost $1,000 or more — affordable to all, and available on demand at publicly funded health centers. (Goldberg, 10/2)
The Chicago Sun-Times:
Heroin Overdoses Remind Ex-Supt. Cline Of 2006 Epidemic
As investigators work to pinpoint the cause of a rash of heroin overdoses that sent at least 74 people to hospitals in 72 hours last week, the flareup triggered memories of a deadly 2006 overdose epidemic. “Fentanyl was the first thing that popped into my mind,” former Chicago Police Supt. Phil Cline said about hearing of the recent overdoses. Heroin laced with Fentanyl, a painkiller that is 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin, was responsible for a rash of fatal overdoses in early 2006. (Dudek, 10/4)
The News Service Of Florida:
Feds, Pharmacies Grapple With Pain Pill Dilemma
Susan Langston wiped away tears as she spoke of a 40-year-old woman who had struggled with cancer for a decade before a Fort Myers pharmacy refused to fill a prescription for pain medication. The prescription was rejected because it was written by a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic, a facility 100 miles away from the woman's home and where she sought cancer treatment after her own doctors told her she was going to die. (Kam, 10/3)
Reuters:
Incomplete Transport Policies, Payment For Risky Births In U.S.
U.S. states need better policies for transporting high-risk pregnant women and newborns to the specialized care they need - and then back to their local hospitals for continuing care, researchers say. Focusing on transportation policies as a measure of how easily women and infants can reach the right care centers and receive ongoing care, they found that where state and territorial policies exist at all, most are incomplete and inadequate. (Neumann, 10/3)
Kaiser Health News:
Telemedicine Expands Despite Uncertain Financial Prospects
Watching the video nurses in action, it’s a little hard to shake the Jetsons vibe, but this kind of health care is already alive and growing. On October 6, Mercy Hospital will open a new telemedicine mothership that will treat thousands of patients in 5 states. The new facility will provide even more patients in remote parts of the Midwest and South with health monitoring that is comparable to what you could get in a big hospital, said Tom Hale, the executive medical director of Mercy Virtual. (Smith, 10/5)
New England Center for Investigative Reporting:
More Harm Than Good?
Genetic tests to identify the most effective psychiatry drugs are the hot new technology in the race to create personalized treatments based on people’s DNA. More than 600,000 of these tests likely have been administered in the last three years, based on company websites and research data, to better treat conditions ranging from depression to attention deficit disorder to anxiety. In a nod to the tests’ growing acceptance, the federal Medicare program agreed last year for the first time to pay for the GeneSight test for some depressed patients.
But a review by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting has found that virtually all the evidence that these psychiatric tests work is based on limited studies funded by the companies themselves or researchers they fund, including all five studies used to promote GeneSight on the company’s website. (Daly, 10/4)