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universal coverage news from FierceHealthcare
News
Senate witnesses call for cost-containment
U of IL hospital sending back Mexican immigrant
Study: Universal coverage won't solve primary care shortage
Primary care shortage blocks healthcare reform
Group says Stark rules unfair to for-profits
SPOTLIGHT: Candidates should push treatment effectiveness
It's all well and good to advocate for universal healthcare coverage, but unless we trim costs universal coverage is not sustainable, suggests New York Times columnist David Leonhardt. If they really want to fix the U.S. health system, presidential candidates should encourage the industry to focus on which treatments really work, he says. Article
VHA: Stark issues more common than execs think
While there are plenty of exceptions to self-referral regulations known as "Stark II," the repercussions can be enormous for hospitals that wrongly assume that they're in the clear. So whenever hospitals do business with physicians, it's critical for them to lay plans carefully and get attorneys involved in transactions, says Rosland Fisher McLeod, J.D., vice president and general counsel with Novation. For example, if hospitals want to offer physicians a lease, and then decide to cancel the deal, they can't offer physicians another lease until the original term is up. "Planning at the front end is very necessary," says McLeod, who led a session at the VHA Inc's annual conference in Denver. "Involve your legal counsel early and often. This stuff is very tricky."
Unfortunately, she notes, hospital leaders aren't always aware of which areas are dangerous in Stark terms. For example, she notes, there is no Stark exception allowing hospitals to let doctors purchase supplies through their bulk purchasing contracts. Another area where hospitals aren't always careful enough is when they create joint ventures with physicians. In such deals, like ambulatory surgical center and imaging center JVs, hospital execs must make certain that physicians are taking meaningful financial risks, she says. "They must sign a loan guarantee, buy some equipment...they have to have some skin in the game," she notes. What's more, hospitals must be certain that physicians aren't given special financial status related to how often they refer or how much their referrals are worth.
To get more background on Stark II rules:
- read this law firm's summary (.pdf)
Related Article:
Stark files universal coverage measure. Report
ALSO NOTED: Kindred opens long-term hospitals; MN doctors prefer single-payer; and much more...
> Kindred Healthcare has opened a freestanding, 68-bed long-term acute care hospital in Cleveland. It plans to open another in San Antonio shortly. Article
> According to a new study, doctors in Minnesota would prefer a single-payer universal health system to one based on universal coverage. …
... Read more...Strange bedfellows get together on health reform
Two years after the odd couple of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich teamed up to tout electronic health records, more unusual groupings are forming in Washington. The Business Roundtable, representing major corporations, is getting together with organized labor--namely the Service Employees International Union--to launch "Divided We Fail," a campaign to push for broad-based-and unspecified-healthcare reform.
Tomorrow, America's …
... Read more...Universal health gains traction
The drumbeat is getting louder: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois, San Francisco (and possibly California) took action on the issue of covering the uninsured this year, gaining traction for reforms that might have been shot down with little comment a few years ago. Among the highest-profile changes is taking place in Massachusetts, where legislators are looking at a …
... Read more...Get more universal coverage coverage at:
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