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Healthcare spending up as CMS continues push for hospital price transparency…
Scott E. Rupp Medical & Allied HealthcareU.S. healthcare spending rose 4.6% in 2018 to $3.6 trillion, a rate that's higher than in 2017 but near the same level as 2016. Healthcare spending didn't grow as fast as the nation's gross domestic product, so healthcare's share of the economy fell from 17.9% to 17.7%, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Office of the Actuary. The data, released annually, pointed to the increase brought on by the reinstatement of the Affordable Care Act's Health Insurance Tax, which was not in effect for 2017.
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Study: Declining admission, mortality rates due to ED physicians improving…
Lynn Hetzler Healthcare AdministrationThe results of a new study show a substantial decline in mortality rates among Medicare beneficiaries visiting an emergency department from 2009 to 2016, especially among patients with high-severity conditions. Healthcare continues to be in the spotlight as policymakers seek to improve care and its costs. Many policymakers who focus on emergency medicine (EM) characterize it as being overutilized by patients, excessive when it comes to performing tests, overly expensive, and prone to diagnostic errors.
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A new study on vitamin E may change how cardiac patients are treated
Lisa Mulcahy Medical & Allied HealthcareAs a cardiologist or hospital administrator, your priority is to give your heart attack patients their best fighting chance — and now there may be a simple new way to do just that. Researchers at Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, report that giving patients suffering from cardiac arrest symptoms a vitamin E dose may provide better procedure outcomes prior to vessel/stent surgery and may be beneficial to patients' overall outcomes if given before discharge after a procedure.
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What you can do about the 8% Medicare reimbursement cuts to therapy services
Jarod Carter Healthcare AdministrationThis month, CMS came down with its final ruling on the Physician Fee Schedule, which is going to cut Medicare reimbursements for physical therapy services by 8% in 2021. This was in no way a surprise, even though the APTA called it a "surprising decision." It’s not the APTA's fault. It's no group's fault. It’s no individual’s fault, or the profession as a whole. It's just math. I know a lot of practices out there that are running on such thin profit margins that an 8% reduction in Medicare reimbursements for physical therapy services could be the nail in the coffin. But it doesn’t have to be that way!
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Investigational hyperbaric oxygen therapy indications: Preconditioning…
Eugene R. Worth Medical & Allied HealthcareWelcome to another post on plausible, off-label uses for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. We have previously discussed the rationale for using hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) in an "off-label" indication. We suggested that there must be a scientific rationale, physiology that made sense for use of HBOT, and some sort of verified outcome (case report, case series, controlled clinical trial, etc.). Today, we are going to discuss the use of HBOT for patients who have an ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI) to the myocardium.
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Study: Robotic transplants safe for obese patients with kidney disease
Chelsea Adams Medical & Allied HealthcareUniversity of Illinois at Chicago research finds that robotic kidney transplants for obese patients result in survival outcomes comparable to those in nonobese patients. Published in the American Journal of Transplantation, the study highlights 10 years' worth of data from some 230 robotic-assisted kidney transplants in patients with obesity conducted at University of Illinois Health hospitals. The study reports one- and three-year patient survival rates of 98% and 95%, respectively, among kidney transplant patients with obesity.
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2020 is the Year of the Nurse: Is your organization preparing?
Keith Carlson Medical & Allied HealthcareOn Jan. 30, 2019, the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared 2020 "The Year of the Nurse and Midwife (YONM)" in commemoration of the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale. In terms of healthcare organizations employing nurses, the opportunity exists for nurses to be rightfully honored for their place in the global health delivery system, and for their employers to create a new vision of what nurses can accomplish in the 21st century.
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Why you need to know about telomeres
Victoria Fann Medical & Allied HealthcareMany of us know that long-term stress can affect our health, but did you know that it can also impact aging and longevity? Welcome to the world of telomeres. I first learned about telomeres in 2016, when I worked for a human potential physician that specialized in optimizing health through lifestyle changes. He was one of the first physicians in the country that built his practice around the awareness that lifestyle and behaviors impact one’s genetics.
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Study review: Depressed physicians more likely to commit medical errors
Scott E. Rupp Medical & Allied HealthcareA physician who is depressed is more likely to commit medical errors: This is the primary finding from a review of studies — 11 prior studies that included more than 21,000 physicians — published in JAMA Network Open. Per the findings, physicians with a positive screening for depression were very likely to report medical errors. Further examination found that the association between depressive symptoms in physicians and medical errors is bidirectional.
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Freestanding emergency departments bring speedier care but higher spending
Lynn Hetzler Medical & Allied HealthcareFSEDs deliver emergency care in strip malls and in other facilities that are physically separate from acute care hospitals. Freestanding EDs first emerged in the 1970s to fill the need for emergency care in underserved rural areas that could not financially sustain inpatient hospitals, but FSEDs are now popping up primarily in urban and suburban areas. A team of researchers at Rice University investigated the relationship between the number of freestanding emergency departments (FSEDs) and local market spending on emergency care.
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