Letters to the Editor is a periodic function. We welcome all feedback and can publish a variety. We edit for size and readability and require full names.
Occupational Therapists Change Lives. CMS Should Higher Help Them.
Occupational therapists are essential in serving to sufferers alter to new circumstances, empowering them with the instruments they should overcome obstacles and regain management over their lives. Whether or not you’re transitioning from homelessness into a house (“In Los Angeles, Occupational Therapists Tapped to Assist Homeless Keep Housed,” Jan. 24) or relearning the best way to do on a regular basis duties following a stroke, OTs are key to sufferers’ care plan.
However the essential care supplied by OTs is being threatened by one other yr of cost cuts imposed by Medicare, our nation’s well being care program for folks age 65 and up. Many older sufferers handled by OTs entry insurance coverage protection by means of Medicare, which usually reimburses suppliers at a decrease charge than personal insurers. And now, with cost cuts that went into impact on Jan. 1 — regardless of warnings and backlash from lawmakers, sufferers, and suppliers — OTs are struggling to ship care with decrease Medicare cost.
Investing in occupational remedy improves well being outcomes for sufferers, has the potential to scale back the burden on hospitals and different well being care clinicians, and retains people wholesome and unbiased. Medicare’s cost cuts solely compromise the power of suppliers to ship complete, compassionate care. Medicare should acknowledge the long-term affected person advantages occupational remedy has to supply.
Fortunately, Congress is contemplating a invoice that may reverse these dangerous cost cuts. The Preserving Seniors’ Entry to Physicians Act of 2023 (HR 6683), would reverse the cuts that went into impact on Jan. 1, assuaging monetary stress for occupational therapists and preserving affected person entry. I strongly urge lawmakers to prioritize and shield occupational remedy providers and instantly move HR 6683 for America’s Medicare sufferers.
— Doug Fosco, an occupational therapist training at Two Bushes Bodily Remedy in Ventura, California
An assistant professor at Ontario’s Western College weighed in on X.
Nice to see the function of #occupationaltherapy with individuals who expertise #homelessness profiled in @latimes. Thanks #deborahpitts on your work in LA with @USC and #skidrowhousingtrust . Test it out @CAOT_ACE @OSOTvoice ! @CAEHomelessness https://t.co/S5s9jhgoxI
— Carrie Anne Marshall, PhD (@cannemarshall) January 24, 2024
— Carrie Anne Marshall, Sydenham, Ontario
Congress Should End the Job on Web site-Impartial Funds
There’s an apparent answer to rein in authorities spending and affected person out-of-pocket prices: Pay similar costs for similar care (“In Combat Over Medicare Funds, the Hospital Foyer Reveals Its Power,” Feb. 13).
As a neighborhood oncologist, it’s clear to me how Medicare favors hospitals by paying extra for providers supplied in hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) than the identical care delivered in community-based services. For instance, final yr, Medicare paid over 2.5 instances as a lot in an HOPD as in a free-standing workplace for drug administration providers. It’s not simply Medicare paying an excessive amount of; sufferers additionally face increased out-of-pocket prices for care supplied in HOPDs. If the Decrease Prices, Extra Transparency Act is signed into legislation, most cancers sufferers would instantly pay much less for therapies like chemotherapy.
One unintended consequence of present cost disparities is consolidation. To leverage increased reimbursements, well being methods scoop up unbiased practices — a rising downside that’s significantly pronounced in oncology. From 2008 to 2020, 435 neighborhood most cancers clinics closed, whereas 722 contracted with or had been acquired by hospitals. This consolidation is lowering affected person entry, significantly in rural areas, the place many unbiased clinics function small satellite tv for pc websites that are usually the primary to shut when hospitals purchase a community-based apply.
It’s time for Congress to complete the job by means of payments just like the Decrease Prices, Extra Transparency Act and the SITE Act, which might assist stage the taking part in subject as soon as and for all.
— Scott Speeding, Vancouver, Washington
The chief advertising and marketing officer of SKYGEN lower to the chase on X.
Within the battle to manage healthcare prices, hospitals are deploying their political energy to guard their backside traces. https://t.co/97r502KrpM
— Donald H. Well mannered (@DonaldPolite) February 15, 2024
— Donald H. Well mannered, Milwaukee
The ‘Gold Card’ Shuffle
Prior authorization, by definition, creates delays in care and bureaucratic obstacles for physicians — which is why it’s so troubling that many insurers now require prior authorization for big classes of procedures with no proof of overuse or inappropriate use. With well being insurers more and more implementing questionable prior authorization insurance policies, state and federal lawmakers are racing to erect safeguards that guarantee sufferers’ entry to well timed care (“States Goal Well being Insurers’ ‘Prior Authorization’ Purple Tape,” Feb. 12).
A lot of the laws to deal with this rising downside facilities round using “Gold Playing cards” that exempt suppliers whose earlier requests for prior authorization have been authorized for a sure interval. On the whole, these legal guidelines are vital for sufferers who can’t afford to attend for care — particularly within the subject of gastroenterology the place extreme stomach ache or blood within the stool may point out a severe situation like most cancers.
Nevertheless, some insurance coverage corporations are co-opting the “Gold Card” time period to justify new prior authorization necessities as an alternative of streamlining present ones. Think about the case of UnitedHealthcare, which introduced it could roll out a “Gold Card” prior authorization program this yr for many colonoscopies and endoscopies. No different insurer has levied such a coverage, nor does the analysis recommend there’s an overutilization of those important providers. Regardless of almost a yr of fine religion efforts to hunt transparency and steerage from UHC, the corporate has didn’t launch any knowledge or justification that these providers are improperly utilized.
If something, diagnostic and surveillance colonoscopies and endoscopies could also be underutilized. New analysis from the American Most cancers Society exhibits an alarming spike within the variety of youthful Individuals being identified with and dying from colorectal most cancers. Since signs of colorectal most cancers don’t usually seem till the illness is at a extra superior stage, early detection is essential. Any disruption to surveillance colonoscopies (which observe removing of a precancerous polyp and are a part of the screening continuum) attributable to UHC’s forthcoming prior authorization coverage could be harmful for the corporate’s 27 million business beneficiaries.
The American Gastroenterological Affiliation strongly urges UHC to rescind its “Gold Card” prior authorization coverage. Policymakers should monitor how insurers are co-opting ideas meant to guard sufferers, specifically UHC’s fake “Gold Card,” which threatens affected person entry to a process confirmed to save lots of lives.
— Barbara Jung, president of the American Gastroenterological Affiliation, Seattle
In an X put up, a senior fellow on the Manhattan Institute identified the worth in requiring prior authorization.
Case-by-case prior authorization isn’t enjoyable, however absolutely preferable to most different strategies of eliminating useless spending (ex put up denials of reimbursement, increased cost-sharing, capped world budgets, and so forth…) https://t.co/nYijeiAUtP
— Chris Pope (@CPopeHC) February 12, 2024
— Chris Pope, a senior fellow on the Manhattan Institute, New York Metropolis
Hospice in Jail: A Transformative View
I used to be so impressed with Markian Hawryluk’s exceptionally well-written article “Loss of life and Redemption in an American Jail” (Feb. 21). I used to be privileged to function an inaugural member of the American Hospital Affiliation’s Circle of Life Award committee, from 1999 to 2004. The awards had been established to acknowledge probably the most excellent hospice and palliative care packages within the U.S. The very first yr, we obtained an software from the nation’s largest maximum-security jail in Angola, Louisiana, the topic of Mr. Hawryluk’s fantastic article. The jail was one of many 5 finalists chosen for a web site go to in 2000. I volunteered to be on staff to go to and consider the jail’s hospice providers.
Twenty-four years later, I nonetheless bear in mind my dialog with one of many inmate volunteers who had simply returned from bathing and feeding a dying prisoner. He advised me the inmate mentioned, “I like you.” Then the inmate volunteer said, “I by no means heard these phrases earlier than — not from my father, who I by no means met, nor from my mom.” In 2000, if one had been sentenced to life on the Louisiana State Penitentiary, there was no probability for parole. Once we met with the warden, he talked about there was a ready listing of prisoners who wished to be hospice volunteers.
Please convey my deep appreciation to Mr. Hawryluk for his excellent article.
— Paul Hofmann, president of the Hofmann Healthcare Group, Moraga, California
A digital storyteller shared the article on X.
Your one, lengthy learn for as we speak – it is superbly and thoughtfully written and reported”Typically while you’re in a darkish place, you discover out who you actually are and what you would like you can be,” Steven Garner mentioned. “Even in darkness, I could possibly be a lightweight.”https://t.co/57asjh11ZV
— Ameera B. ا ميرة بت 🪬 (@meerabee) February 19, 2024
— Ameera Butt, Los Angeles
Feeling Insecure Due to Social Safety Techniques
When will you proceed your sequence on the overpayments to the Social Safety Administration (“Overpayment Outrage”)? Persons are nonetheless struggling with out advantages as a result of the company says folks had been overpaid and needs the cash again. Why is no person else asking extra questions?
Individuals on this nation labored onerous and paid taxes. And when it’s time to retire, the Social Safety Administration refuses to pay if, rapidly, it discovers you’ve been overpaid. They’ve advised me I owe them $30,000 from over 20 years in the past, and I have no idea what they’re speaking about, however they wish to take my retirement cash till it’s paid off. Or they need you to say it’s OK to take a share out. Doing that may say you’re responsible and also you owe the cash — to me, that’s blackmail.
New immigrants get free telephones, medical care, debit playing cards, meals help, education … that involves greater than my little quantity of retirement cash. It appears the federal government can afford to handle them, however not their very own. Everybody who has had their Social Safety taken away must be entitled to the free providers they get, as we’re in the identical place — now we’ve nothing both.
— Thomas Troy, New York Metropolis
Lifelong Minnesotan and epidemiologist Eric Weinhandl chimed in on X.
Comparatively extreme incompetency. Social Safety Chief Apologizes to Congress for Deceptive Testimony on Overpaymentshttps://t.co/HYPcTU5tVW
— Eric Weinhandl (@eric_weinhandl) December 27, 2023
— Eric Weinhandl, Victoria, Minnesota
A Balanced View of the Regulation Curbing Shock Payments
KFF Well being Information’ Elisabeth Rosenthal has lengthy advocated for high quality, patient-centric medical care. Nevertheless, her latest article, “The No Surprises Act Comes with Some Surprises” (Feb. 14), falls brief in its evaluation of shock medical billing and the federal No Surprises Act (NSA). Whereas she locations blame on physicians, the truth is extra difficult.
Sufferers with medical insurance shouldn’t be burdened with paying greater than their regular in-network cost-sharing quantity for sudden out-of-network care. This isn’t controversial. The legislative debate was by no means about whether or not to behave on shock billing, however somewhat the best way to act. Whereas insurers favored insurance policies that may permit them to calculate the cost charge medical suppliers obtain, with the NSA, Congress as an alternative selected an method meant to guard sustainable cost charges that may protect sufferers’ entry to care. The NSA removes sufferers from cost disputes between insurers and suppliers and is meant to encourage negotiations between insurers and suppliers, with an choice for impartial arbitration.
Rosenthal’s article implies a “grasping physician” narrative, omitting dialogue of insurers as contributing to the issues with the NSA’s implementation. Whereas the article notes that many requests for arbitration got here from personal equity-associated supplier organizations, it uncared for to notice {that a} single insurance coverage firm (UnitedHealthcare) was concerned in virtually 40% of arbitration disputes. That’s greater than the remainder of the highest 5 insurance coverage organizations mixed. The article additionally quotes and references papers by Zack Cooper, whose undisclosed connections with UnitedHealthcare got here to mild by means of litigation. As reported, UnitedHealthcare not solely supplied knowledge to Cooper, however helped body the narrative of the work.
NSA rulemaking has financially incentivized insurers to leverage the NSA to unilaterally scale back present contracted charges and push physicians out-of-network. As for the projected variety of requests for arbitration in 2022 (which underestimated “suppliers’ ire by an order of magnitude”), that projection ignored present knowledge. In simply the primary six months of 2021, Texas alone had greater than twice as many arbitration submissions for its state legislation because the federal authorities projected for the nation for a full yr. Extra importantly, the article ignores the difficulty of why medical doctors request arbitration. Since arbitration is baseball-style and “loser pays,” there’s a sturdy disincentive to request it and not using a stable cause. Within the second quarter of 2023, suppliers received almost 80% of disputes, reflecting the truth that medical doctors are going to arbitration when insurers’ actions are unreasonable.
Additional, whereas it’s true that earlier than the NSA too many sufferers had been receiving payments for sudden out-of-network care, a report from the Division of Well being and Human Companies famous that out-of-network billing was really declining previous to the NSA. Doctor survey knowledge means that post-NSA out-of-network care is now growing on account of some insurers’ actions.
The bipartisan NSA is a balanced answer to an advanced downside. Difficulties with the legislation’s implementation, together with the quantity of dispute submissions and backlog of instances, are on account of unintended penalties from rulemaking. Addressing these challenges requires an trustworthy dialog about their trigger. Going ahead, rulemaking is required to advertise truthful community contracting, restrict the necessity for arbitration, and, most significantly, shield sufferers’ entry to care.
— Wealthy Heller, a pediatric radiologist and the affiliate chief medical officer for well being coverage, Radiology Companions, Chicago
Anesthetist-emergency physician-family physician David Moniz, in an X put up, warned of the “unseen penalties” of the No Surprises Act.
Take a look at the stunning outcomes of the No Surprises Act, designed to guard sufferers from sudden medical payments. Whereas it is efficiently shielded many sufferers, there are unseen penalties. Learn the complete article right here: https://t.co/YFa0xweRe7#well being, #healthpolicy, #he…
— David Moniz (@DavidMoniz15) February 14, 2024
— David Moniz, Chilliwack, British Columbia