DCMedical News: Tuesday, June 9, 2020
DCMedical News-DCMN
Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, June 9, 2020
DCMedical News is published every day both the House and the Senate are in session and on pre-pandemic Regularly Scheduled Session days (see CQ calendar, below).
THE BIG STORY IN HEALTH CARE
Coronavirus News: (reference pages below under Reading & References)
Tracking by Johns Hopkins shows on 6-8 at 8:00 p.m. EST worldwide 7,085,894 confirmed cases; 405,168 deaths worldwide; 110,932 U.S. deaths (27%). Statista reports on cases per million population, here, details on Sweden here.
COVID-19 and Society
Statista reports on the revised and corrected unemployment rate, here.
CQ reports that “The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the federal deficit in May was $424 billion, substantially lower than April's $738 billion but still the second-largest monthly shortfall since records have been kept. The deficit for the first eight months of fiscal 2020 was about $1.9 trillion, the CBO said, or $1.2 trillion greater than during the same period the previous year.” The CBO report is here.
Asymptomatic spread: The Hill reports that Maria Van Kerkhove of the WHO said “From the data we have it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.” But “Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, expressed some skepticism of the WHO’s claim and said he thinks asymptomatic transmission is, in fact, an important source of spread, and that some modeling shows as much as 40 to 60 percent of transmission is from people without symptoms.” Dr. Topol also disagrees, publishes research on the subject in the Annals of Internal Medicine (here, Medscape report here).
DOCTORS, NURSES AND OTHER HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
California Goes After Mergers and Acquisitions (and Resulting Price Jumps) in Health Care
A report in The National Law Review (here) says “The California state legislature is currently considering a new bill that, if passed, would require California Attorney General consent and approval for a potentially broad range of mergers, acquisitions, and affiliations in the health care sector.” The bill “would apply to health care systems, private equity groups and hedge funds seeking to acquire or affiliate with a health care facility or provider and would impose additional criteria for approval on transactions over $500,000.” In addition, the bill would prohibit “Health care systems from engaging in unilateral conduct that is not prohibited by current antitrust laws, including using market power to raise prices, reduce quality, reduce choice, increase cost, or reduce access to hospital or health care services.”
HOSPITALS, NURSING HOMES AND OTHER HEALTH CARE FACILITIES
Hospital Job Losses Continue in May, but Healthcare Jobs Increase
Healthcare Finance News (here, Bureau of Labor Statistics report here, BLS news release here) reports that “Hospitals lost 27,000 jobs in May, showing they have yet to recover,” but that health care overall added 312,000 jobs.
Hospital Executive Pay Targeted in Proposed Internal Revenue Service Excise Tax Rule
The IRS will publish in the June 11 Federal Register proposed regulations (177 pages, here) which impose “an excise tax on remuneration in excess of $1,000,000 and any excess parachute payment paid by an applicable tax-exempt organization to any covered employee.” Also targeted: physician compensation, as in this example: “Employee B’s supervision and instruction of resident physicians during the course of patient treatment are necessary for the treatment, and thus are medical services. Employee B’s classroom instruction is not necessary for patient treatment, and thus is not medical services.” Not included, per Bloomberg report (here), many employees at public colleges, such as coaches. Comments by August 11, public hearing to be held if requested.
Becker’s Publishes 110 Hospital Metrics for 2020; Chronicles Orthopedists Carving Out Total Joints from the Hospital
The list (here) is drawn from bond rating agencies, quality literature and AHA information. Interviewing an advisory panel of orthopedic surgeons on Medicare’s payment for total joints in ambulatory care centers, Becker’s Orthopedics notes (here) that “While commercial payers pay higher rates than Medicare at the moment, the volume Medicare presents is unrivaled, even if CMS is only paying $8,609 per case . . . [These procedures] won't be as profitable as the commercial side but getting the patients into the ASC and away from the hospital is what we need now."
MEDICARE, MEDICAID, AND COMMERCIAL HEALTH INSURANCE
July 1 Many Hospital Outpatient Procedures Will Require Prior Authorization for Medicare Coverage
CMS has announced (here) that as of July 1 such procedures as Blepharoplasty, Botulinum toxin injections, Panniculectomy, Rhinoplasty and Vein ablation will require prior authorization when done in hospital outpatient departments. A complete list of codes and procedures is here.
READINGS & REFERENCES
“The Collision of COVID-19 and the U.S. Health System,” from the Annals of Internal Medicine, here.
Also from the Annals of Internal Medicine (here), “Historical Insights on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, and Racial Disparities: Illuminating a Path Forward”
For Health Departments (and others), CDC publishes (here) “Interim Guidance on Developing a COVID-19 Case Investigation & Contact Tracing Plan.”
Coronavirus Public Health Resources and References (alphabetical):
Association of American Medical Colleges Clinical Guidance Repository, here.
AMA resource page for physicians here. AMA guide to medical education and COVID-19, here.
American Public Health Association information here.
CDC information page here.
CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) Current Emergencies website, here.
Council of State Governments, here.
JAMA Network’s COVID-19 resource center here.
Library of Congress Coronavirus Research Guide, (here) from the In Custodia Legis blog of the Library of Congress (LoC), with links to Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports.
NIH information page here.
National Library of Medicine Coronavirus page here,
New England Journal of Medicine update here, New England Journal of Medicine Journal Watch here.
The Lancet COVID-19 Resource Centre here and real-time dashboard to monitor clinical trials, here.
The New York Times Coronavirus coverage, here.
State actions, Kaiser Family Foundation, here.
UC Hastings College of Law’s “The Source” (on health care prices and competition) COVID-19 page, here.
The White House open research dataset (CORD-19) here.
World Health Organization COVID-19 page here.
U.S. House of Representatives:
Members at https://www.house.gov/representatives
Committees and Members at https://www.house.gov/committees
U. S. Senate:
Committees and Members at https://www.senate.gov/committees
CQ 2020 Calendar of Regularly Scheduled Sessions, here.
PUBLICATION SCHEDULE FOR DCMEDICAL NEWS
June 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 26
July 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
August, none
Notes to: Fred Hyde, MD, JD, MBA; fredhyde@aol.com.