Nursefriendly.com: Affordable Care Act

Showing posts with label Affordable Care Act. Show all posts

Thursday, December 19, 2013

All in the balance: Nurse practitioners are ready to help meet baby boomers’ growing needs. #nurseup #aprn #healthcare

All in the balance: Nurse practitioners are ready to help meet baby boomers’ growing needs:"As they grow older, about 70 million baby boomers will test the mettle of the nation’s healthcare system — particularly its supply of primary care providers — like never before. Will there be enough PCPs to meet boomers’ chronic care needs? Some say no and are working toward securing nurse practitioners’ expanded scope of practice across the county, which will allow NPs to meet the growing need for more providers.

Members of America’s massive generation of baby boomers — people born from Jan. 1, 1946, through Dec. 31, 1964 — are now reaching age 65 at a rate of roughly 10,000 a day. The combination of aging baby boomers and an expected influx of patients seeking healthcare in 2014 under provisions of the Affordable Care Act may provide fodder for nurse practitioners seeking to expand scope-of-practice laws in the 34 states that limit it."
https://www.nurse.com/blog/2013/06/03/all-in-the-balance-nurse-practitioners-are-ready-to-help-meet-baby-boomers%C2%92-growing-needs/

See also: Nurse Practitioners:
http://www.nursefriendly.com/nursing/advanced.practice.nurses/nurse.practitioners.htm

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Andrew Lopez, RN
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Saturday, May 28, 2011

In Colorado, Health Care Law Creates Nurse-Run Clinic | The Rundown News Blog | PBS NewsHour | PBS

In a low-income suburb of Denver, Erica Schwartz and her small staff of advanced practice nurses have set up their own primary care facility. Here, they can provide services ranging from managing diabetes and prenatal care to treating depression -- all for less than it costs to run a primary care clinic with a doctor in the house.

"The caring component of nursing is palpable when you walk into the center," she said. Everyone on staff, from the reception desk to the exam room, spends a lot of time getting to know their patients, from their mental health needs to their blood glucose level.

Sheridan Health Services opened in March with a $1.5 million grant, spread out over three years, from the federal health care reform law. It's one of first centers in the country to open under the law. The funding is part of an effort to increase the availability of primary care services nationwide by opening more clinics staffed and managed by nurse practitioners, not doctors.

via pbs.org

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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Action For Better Healthcare » Finally a roadmap for a coordinated approach to patient care

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) released their long anticipated regulations dealing with ten pages of the 2,200-page March 2010 Affordable Care Act. Those ten pages are really the crux of what healthcare reform is all about and it is to improve the way we provide healthcare in this country.

Although these regulations required another 400 plus pages of explanation at least patients, families and caregivers now have an “expectation roadmap” outlining how the care they receive can be better. For the first time we have clear-cut targets to help us successfully achieve two-thirds of the triple aim – improving the quality of care and improving patient/family satisfaction with their care. The third part of the triple aim, monetary savings, should occur as a byproduct of the above clinical improvements.

Many doctors, nurses and others I talk with find the proposed regulations overwhelming and confusing. But remember, CMS is looking to us now for suggestions on how the recommendations can be improved before they become final. So be sure to contribute your comments.

via actionforbetterhealthcare.com

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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Patients Are Not Consumers - NYTimes.com

Earlier this week, The Times reported on Congressional backlash against the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a key part of efforts to rein in health care costs. This backlash was predictable; it is also profoundly irresponsible, as I’ll explain in a minute.

But something else struck me as I looked at Republican arguments against the board, which hinge on the notion that what we really need to do, as the House budget proposal put it, is to “make government health care programs more responsive to consumer choice.”
Here’s my question: How did it become normal, or for that matter even acceptable, to refer to medical patients as “consumers”? The relationship between patient and doctor used to be considered something special, almost sacred. Now politicians and supposed reformers talk about the act of receiving care as if it were no different from a commercial transaction, like buying a car — and their only complaint is that it isn’t commercial enough.

via nytimes.com

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Friday, April 22, 2011

Supreme Court punts on fast-track review of healthcare law - The Hill's Healthwatch

By Julian Pecquet - 04/18/11 10:36 AM ET

The Supreme Court has not acted on a request to expedite a review of legal challenges to the healthcare reform law.
The high court on Monday released the list of cases it has decided to take up or decline, and Virginia's healthcare reform challenge was not included.
Court watchers had expected the high court to announce whether it would expedite Virginia's lawsuit against the law, but the justices aren't saying either way — for now. The Supreme Court issues a regular list of orders on each Monday it is in session, but the justices can also issue "miscellaneous" orders in individual cases at any time.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R), who is challenging the law's individual mandate, has petitioned the court to skip the appeals process and take up the case as soon as possible.
"Given the importance of the issues at stake to the States and to the economy as a whole, this Court should grant certiorari to resolve a matter of imperative public importance," Cuccinelli argued in his Feb. 8 motion.

via thehill.com

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Friday, April 15, 2011

Home Page - National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities

Learn About the NPA

→ The Mission
→ The Goals
→ Social Determinants

Get Involved

→ Become a Partner
→ Find an OMH
→ Share Your Stories

NPA Tools

→ Press Release
→ Fact Sheets
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Read our Plans for Ending Health Disparities

→ HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities

→ National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity

President's Message on National Minority Health Month

"By providing nutritious options and promoting healthy choices, we can reduce disparities among our youngest citizens and secure a safer, healthier future for all Americans."
Read the complete message. [PDF | 198 KB]
More on National Minority Health Month

via minorityhealth.hhs.gov

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Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Autism Diagnoses Still More Likely in Richer Neighborhoods - Yahoo! News

Poor children with autism are less likely than richer kids to have the condition diagnosed, but this disparity has decreased in recent years, according to a new study.

Researchers analyzed data on children in California and found that the average age of autism diagnosis fell from 5.9 years among children born in 1992 to 3.8 years for those born in 2000.

Of the 4,906,926 children born in California between 1992 and 2000, they found that 18,731 (0.38 percent) were diagnosed with autism. The prevalence of autism in the state increased from 29 per 10,000 children in 1992 to 49 per 10,000 children in 2000.

The study appears in the April issue of the American Sociological Review.

via news.yahoo.com

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Accountable Care Organizations: Improving Care Coordination for People with Medicare | HealthCare.gov

The Affordable Care Act includes a number of policies to help physicians, hospitals, and other caregivers improve the safety and quality of patient care and make health care more affordable. By focusing on the needs of patients and linking payments to outcomes, these delivery system reforms will help improve the health of individuals and communities and slow cost growth.
On March 31, 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released proposed new rules to help doctors, hospitals, and other providers better coordinate care for Medicare patients through Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). ACOs create incentives for health care providers to work together to treat an individual patient across care settings – including doctor’s offices, hospitals, and long-term care facilities. The Medicare Shared Savings Program will reward ACOs that lower growth in health care costs while meeting performance standards on quality of care and putting patients first. Patient and provider participation in an ACO is purely voluntary.

via healthcare.gov

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Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Rand: High-deductible health plans produce good and bad outcomes | Healthcare Finance News

A new study by the Rand Corporation indicates people on high-deductible health plans significantly reduce their healthcare spending – but they're also cutting back on preventive care.

The study of more than 800,000 families across the country showed that when families changed to health plans that carried an annual deductible of $1,000 or more per person, their healthcare spending dropped by an average of 14 percent. Healthcare spending was also lower for those same families with a moderate health savings account.

Savings decreased, however, for families with an HSA where employers contributed more than half of an individual’s deductible.

via healthcarefinancenews.com

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Sunday, April 3, 2011

Nurse practitioners are charting a new course - Roanoke.com

A turf war with potential economic, political and health care consequences is under way in Virginia.

It has been gaining momentum for years, having already been fought in other states.

In short, nurse practitioners -- advanced practice registered nurses with either a master's degree or a doctorate -- want to change the law that requires them to be supervised by a physician.

At stake, they argue, is the ability for patients to be seen by a qualified health professional in a timely and geographically convenient way. They point to people who struggle to find a provider to diagnose and treat them, specifically patients in rural communities or those insured by Medicaid or Medicare, as a reason for changing the law.

via roanoke.com

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Saturday, April 2, 2011

Medical News: FDA Sets Rules for Vending Machine Calorie Info - in Public Health & Policy, Public Health from MedPage Today

Chain restaurants, vending machines, and convenience stores would all have to prominently display the calorie counts of their foods under two proposed rules released by the FDA Friday.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandated that vending machines and food establishments with 20 or more locations -- which includes fast-food restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, and certain grocery and convenience stores -- display the calorie counts of their food items. The new rules would implement that portion of the law.

Establishments whose primary purpose is not to sell food -- such as movie theaters and bowling alleys -- would not be subject to the law, meaning giant tubs of buttery popcorn and pizzas and nachos wouldn't have to carry a calorie-count label.

via medpagetoday.com

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Friday, April 1, 2011

AHRQ Reports Declines in Diabetes Care - HealthLeaders Media

Care for people with diabetes, who are at higher risk for disease-related blindness, limb amputations and kidney failure, has been getting worse rather than better, according to an analysis taken from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's latest National Healthcare Disparities Report .

For example, the agency said, the proportion of low income adults age 40 and older with diabetes who had annual recommended blood sugar levels tested, had their eyes examined for retinopathy and their feet examined for nerve damage and circulation issues declined from 39% to 23% between 2002 and 2007.

For middle-income adults, the situation remained the same, with slightly more than half, 52%, receiving those recommended yearly exams.

Racial disparities in getting these recommended screenings was pronounced. Blacks experienced an 11 percentage point drop, from 43% to 32%. The percentage of Hispanics who had all three exams dropped from 34% to 27%. And among whites, diabetes testing also declined, but by only 4 points, from 43% to 39%.

via healthleadersmedia.com

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Cuts Leave Patients With Medicaid Cards, but No Specialist to See - NYTimes.com

Eight-year-old Draven Smith was expelled from school last year for disruptive behavior, and he is being expelled again this year. But his mother and his pediatrician cannot find a mental health specialist to treat him because he is on Medicaid, and the program, which provides health coverage for the poor, pays doctors so little that many refuse to take its patients.

Enlarge This Image

Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Dr. Rachel Chatters, right, with Ana Smith, says she begs specialists to see Medicaid patients.

Related

Arizona Asks to Set Fines for Health Risks (April 2, 2011)

Enlarge This Image

Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Ms. Smith said she has tried for more than a year to find a psychiatrist to treat her son Draven, 8, who is on Medicaid.

The problem is common here and across the country, especially as states, scrambling to balance their budgets, look for cuts in Medicaid, which is one of their biggest expenditures. And it presents the Obama administration with a major challenge, since the new federal health care law relies heavily on Medicaid to cover many people who now lack health insurance.
“Having a Medicaid card in no way assures access to care,” said Dr. James B. Aiken, an emergency physician in New Orleans.

via nytimes.com

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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Poll: Americans Are (Still) Confused About Health-Care Overhaul Law - Health Blog - WSJ

More than half of Americans say they don’t fully understand the health-care overhaul law, according to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll.

The 53% who say they’re confused is only slightly less than the 55% who reported the same last April, shortly after the law was passed. The confusion rate dipped to a low of 42% in June in the past year.

Last month’s Kaiser poll found that almost half of those surveyed thought — incorrectly — that the law had been repealed.

In general, people remain divided in their feelings about the law, with 42% viewing it favorably and 46% viewing it unfavorably, Kaiser says. And not surprisingly, people identifying as Democrats generally have a positive view, while Republicans are strongly opposed. Independents are split, though they’re leaning towards a negative view (49%) rather than a positive one (37%).

via blogs.wsj.com

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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Health Care and You

The Affordable Care Act – One Year Later

We’ve seen some changes in health care over the past...

GAO report shows success in health insurer appeals

According to a Government Accountability Office report, as many as 50 percent of insurance appeals...

New Health Insurance Survey: 9 Million Adults Joined Ranks of Uninsured Due to Job Loss in 2010; Few Viable Health Insurance Options Exist for Unemployed

A new survey from the Commonwealth Fund finds 9 million adults became uninsured in the...

HHS: Seniors using new reform law benefit

A new HHS report shows that more than 150,000 seniors have received an annual wellness...

New site explains healthcare reform law to pharmacists, patients

Modern Medicine gives an overview of the coalition and its goal to educate health care...

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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Dems To GOP: Show Us Your Health Insurance : Shots - Health Blog : NPR

With Republicans on Capitol Hill still trying every legislative manuever they can think of to undo last year's health law, it was probably only a matter of time before Democrats tried a gambit of their own.

Now a House bill being pushed by Democrats would require Republicans to publicly state whether or not they are accepting taxpayer-subsidized health benefits under the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program.

They're entitled to such coverage as members of Congress, but Democrats say it's hypocritical for Republicans who are voting to take health coverage away from millions of Americans to accept coverage subsidized by those same people.

via npr.org

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Monday, February 28, 2011

Governors: Medicaid More A Budget Buster Than Ever : NPR

The federal government and the states have shared the cost of Medicaid, the health insurance program for some 60 million low-income Americans, since it was created in 1965.

They've shared something else almost that long — arguments about who should foot how much of the ever-escalating bill.

"Medicaid cost growth has been a problem for time immemorial," says Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy.

But this time, he says, things are different.

For one thing, "the program is bigger, so growth on a larger base is more real dollars that's harder to find."

via npr.org

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Saturday, February 26, 2011

Medicaid chief: Single payer may be better than ‘devil-may-be’ market

A senior Patrick administration health care official said Friday that a single payer system may work more effectively and efficiently than Massachusetts’s existing insurance market, a high-profile endorsement that raised eyebrows at a legislative hearing.

“I like the market, but the more and more I stay in it, the more and more I think that maybe a single payer would be better,” said Terry Dougherty, director of MassHealth – the state-run Medicaid plan that insures nearly 1.3 million Massachusetts residents – when lawmakers asked for his “personal view” on a single payer system.

Dougherty’s comment, made during a budget hearing at the Boston Public Library, prompted his boss, Secretary of Health and Human Services JudyAnn Bigby, to interject: “That’s his personal opinion.”

Dougherty noted that MassHealth, by far the largest program in state government, spends just 1.5 percent of its $10-billion-a-year budget on administrative costs – compared to about 9.5 percent by the private market, according to studies by the state Division of Health Care Finance and Policy. That figure won plaudits from several lawmakers on the panel, including some who have supported implementing a statewide single payer system.

After his remarks, Dougherty told the News Service that he’s learned to appreciate “elements of single payer” during his 30 years in health care.

“It’s got to be better than this devil-may-be marketplace,” he said. “We don’t build big buildings. We don’t have high salaries. We don’t have a lot of marketing, which makes, to some extent, some of the things that we do easier and less costly than some things that happen in the marketplace. Overall, my point is, we have individuals who work in state government in MassHealth ... who are just as smart, just as tactile, just as creative as people who work in the private sector, but they work for a lot less money.”

A single payer system would replace the state’s patchwork of nonprofit and private insurers with a single, public insurer through which all health care dollars would flow to hospitals, doctors and other health care providers. Supporters say it would eliminate administrative waste and ensure that all residents receive adequate coverage.

But while supporters point to single payer models used by other countries and tout the idea as a cost saver, critics warn the system would result in government bureaucrats deciding what services to cover and how to pay for them, would reduce the quality of care and would disrupt relationships between doctors and patients.

Hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents have endorsed the approach. In fact voters in 14 House districts –including five that backed Scott Brown for U.S. Senate – voted overwhelmingly last year to support a non-binding ballot question that asked, “Shall the state representative from this district be instructed to support legislation that would establish health care as a human right regardless of age, state of health or employment status, by creating a single payer health insurance system like Medicare that is comprehensive, cost effective, and publicly provided to all residents of Massachusetts?”

A similar question passed in 10 other House districts in 2008.

Although last session 50 members of the Legislature supported a single payer model, the issue has lacked support from the upper echelons of the Legislature and the Patrick administration.

A single payer plan would scrap Massachusetts’s landmark health care system, which relies on the private insurance marketplace, and that backers have credited with helping insure about 98 percent of the population. Backers of the existing structure, while acknowledging that health care costs have continued to climb, note that the state has covered about 430,000 residents since the inception of health care reform in 2006. Individuals are required to purchase health insurance, and low-income residents without access to health care through their employers may obtain partially or fully-subsidized care through the state’s Connector Authority, an exchange that pairs consumers with private plans, or through MassHealth.

This session, only 32 members signed on to the single payer proposal, although the sponsors include several high-ranking lawmakers: Rep. Stephen Kulik, vice chair of the Ways and Means Committee; Rep. Martha Walz, assistant vice chair of the Ways and Means Committee; Reps. Ellen Story and Byron Rushing, members of Speaker Robert DeLeo’s upper leadership team; and eight House committee chairs. The bill’s lead sponsors are Rep. Jason Lewis (D-Winchester) and Sen. James Eldridge (D-Acton). Last session’s lead sponsor, Rep. Matthew Patrick (D-Falmouth) was ousted at the polls by Republican David Vieira.

Benjamin Day, executive director of Mass Care, a single payer advocacy group, noted that only six of the lawmakers in the 14 House districts whose voters endorsed single payer health care signed onto the bill. He asserted that many members of state government’s health care hierarchy support single payer health care but keep it to themselves.

“Everyone is making political considerations, tactical considerations,” he said.

Day said supporters of a single payer system are eyeing Vermont, which recently elected a Democratic governor who ran on a platform that included a single payer system.

via bostonherald.com

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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

GOP Counts The Ways To Defund Health Law : Shots - Health Blog : NPR

Did House Republicans keep their promise to defund the health care overhaul as part of their bill to cut more than $60 billion from the federal budget for the rest of the fiscal year?

You betcha. They've come up with more than half a dozen ways to throttle spending on overhaul, in fact.

Most of the attention went to the amendment to the spending bill offered by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT). Rehberg, who chairs the spending subcommittee that oversees the Department of Health and Human Services, offered language to the bill that would bar the use of funds to pay the salaries of any HHS "employee, officer, contractor, or grantee" to implement the health law. It passed on a 239-187 vote, almost exclusively along party lines.

But just in case that doesn't work, House Republicans passed several other amendments as well.

via npr.org

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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Obama administration asks states to cut costs without dropping Medicaid coverage

By Marilyn Werber Serafini
Kaiser Health News
Tuesday, February 22, 2011; 12:58 PM

The Obama administration is deploying squadrons of in-house experts to help budget-strapped states figure out how to save money on Medicaid, the health program for the poor that has been a source of rising tensions between state capitals and Washington.

In recent weeks, both Democratic and Republican governors have been pressing the administration to be flexible in enforcing a requirement in the new health-care law that bars states from tightening eligibility for the program between now and 2014, when an additional 16 million people will be eligible for the program. Some states want to tighten eligibility now to curb spending.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has a difficult balancing act. The former governor of Kansas wants to improve relations with the governors, who are due Saturday in Washington for a big meeting. But she also wants to expand Medicaid, not shrink it.

via washingtonpost.com

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Thursday, December 19, 2013

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Saturday, April 23, 2011

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Friday, April 15, 2011

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Friday, April 1, 2011

Michael Stravato for The New York Times

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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Monday, February 28, 2011

Saturday, February 26, 2011

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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

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