Author: Admin

New Price Transparency Rules Unveiled by Trump Administration

This morning, the Trump Administration issued two rules to increase healthcare price transparency, at both hospital and payer levels.

Today, as directed by an Executive Order from President Trump, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued two rules to increase healthcare price transparency, at both hospital and payer levels.

The rule changes require that pricing information be made publicly available in an effort to “increase price transparency to empower patients and increase competition among all hospitals, group health plans and health insurance issuers in the individual and group markets,” as it was stated by HHS in a press release this morning.

The first—”Calendar Year (CY) 2020 Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) & Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Price Transparency Requirements for Hospitals to Make Standard Charges Public Final Rule”—is a rule that requires hospitals to make all standard charges, including gross charges, payer-specific negotiated rates, the amount a hospital is willing to accept in cash from a patient, and the minimum and maximum negotiated charges, public on the internet in a machine-readable file.

The second rule change, known as the “Transparency in Coverage” rule, which was proposed jointly by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, and the Department of the Treasury, would require most health insurers, including those issuing employer-based group health plans, to disclose price and cost-sharing information to participants, beneficiaries, and enrollees up front.

“President Trump has promised American patients ‘A+’ healthcare transparency, but right now our system probably deserves an F on transparency. President Trump is going to change that, with what will be revolutionary changes for our healthcare system,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar in this morning’s press release. “Today’s transparency announcement may be a more significant change to American healthcare markets than any other single thing we’ve done, by shining light on the costs of our shadowy system and finally putting the American patient in control.”

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Where the Female Physicians Are

Female physicians have long been a minority across the country. These are the states with the highest and lowest percentage of active female MDs and DOs.

Female physicians have long been in the minority across the United States, often cited as accounting for only about a third of the physician workforce. Some specialties, however, are dominated by women residents, such as obstetrics and gynecology (83% female), allergy and immunology (73% female), and pediatrics (72% female), and there have been reports of overall gender statistics flipping amongst younger physicians entering the workforce. However, female physicians are still outnumbered by males in every single state in the country. To that end, these are the states that currently have the highest and lowest percentages of professionally active female MDs and DOs.

Highest Percentage of Female Physicians

1. District of Columbia: 48%

2. Massachusetts: 42%

2. Rhode Island: 42%

4. Delaware: 41%

5. Connecticut: 40%

Lowest Percentage of Female Physicians

1. Idaho: 24%

2. Utah: 26%

3. Wyoming: 27%

3. Mississippi: 27%

5. Nevada: 28%

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

These Shoes Just Might Save Your Aching Feet—and a Life

Nike has designed a shoe with you in mind—the Nike Air Zoom Pulse—and they’ll be donating profits from it to a children’s hospital in Oregon.

Nike has crafted a shoe with you in mind: the Nike Air Zoom Pulse.

As they put it in a press release this week, the design is “a shoe for everyday heroes: nurses, doctors, home health providers and others who work tirelessly to support patients.”

That’s right, Nike has created a shoe solely for medical professionals and the physical challenges they face on a day-to-day basis.

To develop the Nike Air Zoom Pulse, the company conducted product testing at OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital and collected worker insights. During their sessions at the Portland, Oregon based hospital, they found nurses walk approximately four to five miles per shift, while sitting for less than an hour, during their 12-hour shifts.

Nike then set out to develop a shoe to confront a range of specific challenges experienced by medical workers—creating a shoe that is easy to get on and off, easy to clean, comfortable for long periods of standing, and versatile enough to support the hurried movements of healthcare professionals in emergency situations.

In December, Nike will release six versions of the shoe, which were designed by Doernbecher patients, and all profits will be donated to OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.

For more information, and to view the patient-designed styles, click here.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Happy NP Week! Here Are 4 Ways to Celebrate.

National Nurse Practitioner Week is a time for gratitude, advocacy, and celebration. Here are four ways to mark the occasion as an NP.

More than 50 years ago, the nation’s first Nurse Practitioners set out to begin training at the University of Colorado. Today, there are more than 270,000 NPs providing exceptional care in the United States, across all settings and specialties. This is the week—National Nurse Practitioner Week—that they are recognized.

National Nurse Practitioner Week, as it was proclaimed by the U.S. Congress back in 1994, is celebrated annually during the second week of November. It is a time for gratitude, advocacy, and celebration. Here are four ways to mark the occasion as an NP.

Thank Your Fellow NPs

Even the smallest act of kindness—a simple “thank you”—can go a long way in an oftentimes grueling profession. Celebrate this week by thanking those who work alongside you with a simple note, words of gratitude, or a small gesture, such a picking up coffee or lunch.

Spread the Word

Raise awareness for the NP profession by using the hashtags #NPWeek and #WeChooseNPs on social media while you celebrate your profession and peers. Use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more to give the public an idea of all being an NP entails by doing a day-in-the-life series of posts, or hold a public forum of sorts to answer questions about the profession.

Advocate for Your Profession

Participate in grassroots outreach to your state and local authorities and legislators to make them more aware of the significance of your profession and how your work impacts the community by inviting them to meet with you and tour your practice. Or visit the AANP’s Advocacy Center to learn more about advocating for NPs on a local and national level.

Treat Yourself

If you do nothing else this week, celebrate yourself. Set aside some time for a little extra self-care, and indulge in a good meal, a hot bath, a fulfilling workout, or a treat you’ve been eyeing. After all, you’ve earned it.

No matter how you celebrate this NP Week, know that all of us at HealthJobsNationwide.com are celebrating with you and we are so thankful for all you do to improve the health of our nation, not only this week, but throughout the year.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

The Drones are Coming

Access to healthcare saw great progress this past week, with the first residential deliveries of prescriptions via autonomous drone.

It sounds like the future, but it’s happening now: prescriptions delivered via drone.

On November 1st, CVS Pharmacy and UPS’s Flight Forward subsidiary successfully used drones to deliver prescriptions to the homes of customers for the very first time.

The drone, which was developed by Matternet, departed on its inaugural flight from a CVS store in Cary, North Carolina and flew to two customers’ homes, where it then hovered about 20 feet over the ground and slowly lowered the packages to the ground via a cable and winch. One of the packages was delivered to a CVS customer with limited mobility, which makes it difficult for them to travel to a store to pick up a prescription—exactly the sort to customer CVS and UPS had in mind while getting into the drone delivery business.

“This drone delivery, the first of its kind in the industry, demonstrates what’s possible for our customers who can’t easily make it into our stores,” said Kevin Hourican, president of CVS Pharmacy, in a press release. “CVS is exploring many types of delivery options for urban, suburban and rural markets. We see big potential in drone delivery in rural communities where life-saving medications are needed and consumers at times cannot conveniently access one of our stores.”

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Physician Board Certifications on the Rise

As worry surrounding the primary care physician shortage in the U.S. continues, promising numbers were released this week regarding board certifications.

As worry surrounding the physician shortage in the U.S. continues, promising numbers were released this week regarding board certifications.

The figures, which were announced on Monday by the American Board of Medical Specialties in the 2018-2019 ABMS Board Certification Report, show a 2.5% increase over the last year in board certifications, with approximately 940,000 physicians now board certified across 40 specialties and 87 subspecialties.

Of the nearly one million board certified physicians, the largest certifying specialties were Internal Medicine (238,913), Pediatrics (105,685), and Family Medicine (91,208); Colon and Rectal Surgery (2,421), Medical Genetics and Genomics (2,630), and Nuclear Medicine (4,285) were among the smallest.

Other items of note from the report include:

  • Board certified physicians, when grouped by specialty, were comprised of 59% medical, 27% surgical, and 14% hospital.
  • Nearly half of all board certified physicians came from only ten states: California (104,258), New York (70,849), Texas (59,208), Florida (48,140), Pennsylvania (40,975), Illinois (36,240), Ohio (31,101), Massachusetts (30,462), New Jersey (26,800), and North Carolina (25,993).
  • States with the fewest board certified physicians included Wyoming (1,100), North Dakota (1,755), Alaska (1,917), South Dakota (2,108), and Delaware (2,349).

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Is Telehealth Therapy the Way of the Future?

As our society continues to move in a more “on demand” direction, will therapy professionals follow suit through telehealth therapy? Maybe so.

As our society continues to move in a more “on demand” direction and technologies allow just about everything we, as a population, could possibly need at our fingertips, will therapy professionals and practices follow suit? Possibly so, given the amount of continued chatter around the concept of telehealth or virtual therapy over the years.

Telehealth therapy has a lot of obvious merits, including:

  • It has huge potential to expand access to care in geographically remote and underserved areas, of which there are many for PTs, OTs, and SLPs alike. This can be particularly helpful in pediatrics, where schools can set up technology for remote therapy for multiple children in one central location, opening access to pediatric patients that might not be able to get the help they need otherwise.
  • Virtual therapy can also work in conjunction with in-office therapy as an efficient way to perform post-discharge checkups, intake of subjective history, quick screens, post-surgical monitoring, management of chronic illnesses, consultations with other practitioners, such as yoga instructors or pelvic floor specialists, and just about every part of therapy that isn’t manual.
  • Telehealth also puts a strong emphasis on education and pain science for patients, their families, and their caregivers to help them understand their diagnoses and steps they will need to take to improve function. This can be especially helpful for home health patients, such as those who are aging in place, mental health patients, and outpatient neuro patients.
  • For therapists, themselves, the benefits are vast. Telehealth affords therapy professionals a flexibility that is not possible with clinical practice. It also isn’t nearly as physically taxing on therapy professionals as traditional clinical therapy practice can be.

Telehealth, despite its many merits, and like anything else, also has drawbacks. At the moment, it is only possible for therapists to practice virtually in the states they are licensed. Also, patient acquisition has proven to be tough for some. Atop that, Medicare does not currently reimburse for use of remote physical, occupational, or speech therapy, though Medicaid does, at least in some states, and third-party payers all come with their own rules for telehealth reimbursement. Though, as telehealth continues to catch on and healthcare, as a whole, moves toward models that involve more immediate, remote care options, those hurdles to successful telehealth practice may be removed.

What are your thoughts on telehealth therapy?

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Can Nurses Fix the U.S. Healthcare System? Americans Seem to Think So.

Nurses are most trusted by Americans to fix the country’s healthcare system, according to the results of a new survey on health reform.

Being a nurse comes with a significant amount of responsibilities—right down to those that may very well mean life or death—and now it seems as though nurses are charged with another: fixing the U.S. healthcare system.

According to a recent survey on health reform conducted by The New York Times, the Commonwealth Fund, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, nurses are the healthcare stakeholders Americans trust most to improve the United States’ healthcare system, one which 64% of those polled rated as currently being fair or poor.

Nurses, which 58% of respondents indicated they have “a great deal” of trust in to improve the U.S. healthcare system, outranked doctors (30%), hospitals (18%), labor unions (14%), state (6%) and federal governments (6%), and Congress (5%). Health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies elicited the least amount of public trust when it comes to healthcare reform, with both receiving only 4% of the votes.

To view the full results of the survey, click here.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Hospitals Sue Drug Makers Over Cost of Treating Opioid Addiction

In recent weeks, hundreds of hospitals have joined the fight against the opioid epidemic by filing suits against the highly addictive drug’s makers and distributors.

In recent weeks, hundreds of hospitals have joined cities and counties across the country in the fight against the opioid epidemic by filing suits against the highly addictive drug’s makers and distributors, in an effort to recoup the cost of treating uninsured opioid users for addiction. This comes on the heels of thousands of suits filed in state and federal court, aiming to hold Perdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, McKesson Corp. and others in the pharmaceutical industry responsible for the more than 400,000 opioid-related deaths that have occurred since 1999.

According to court documents, hospitals estimate treating opioid-related addiction costs an average of $107,000 per person, and the total costs to U.S. hospitals in just one year exceeded $15 billion.

“The expense of treating overdose and opioid-addicted patients has skyrocketed, straining the resources of hospitals throughout our state,” Lee Bond, Chief Executive Officer of Singing River Health System in Mississippi, said in a statement.

So far, suits have been filed in Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, with more likely to follow in other states around the country.

The lead defendant in the suits, Purdue Pharma, has thus far not responded to requests for comment.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

The Physician’s Role in Disaster Response

If you’ve ever wondered what your role is when it comes to disaster response, here are seven things that can help you prepare for the next emergency.

By Deborah Swanson

Alongside firefighters, police, and other first responders, physicians are often some of the first people to respond to disasters. In emergency situations, physicians have to balance many competing priorities, from figuring out which patients to treat first to weighing their own safety against the need to treat patients. If you’re a physician wondering what your role is when it comes to disaster response, here are seven things that can help you prepare for the next emergency:

Remember Your Ethical Commitments

Disaster relief can present a complex ethical situation for individual physicians. Doctors have an obligation to provide critical medical care while also weighing the risks of providing care in the moment vs. being able to provide care in the future. After all, disaster relief can put physicians’ safety and health, and sometimes even their lives, in danger. The American Medical Association provides the following ethical guidelines for disaster relief:

“With respect to disaster, whether natural or manmade, individual physicians should:

(a) Take appropriate advance measures, including acquiring and maintaining appropriate knowledge and skills to ensure they are able to provide medical services when needed.
Collectively, physicians should:

(b) Provide medical expertise and work with others to develop public health policies that:

1. Are designed to improve the effectiveness and availability of medical services during a disaster

2. Are based on sound science

3. Are based on respect for patients

(c) Advocate for and participate in ethically sound research to inform policy decisions.”

Take an Emergency Response Training Course

Your hospital will likely provide disaster response training, and other seminars and workshops may also be available locally. There’s also training available from international and national organizations, such as the American Board of Disaster Medicine (ABODM). Through ABODM, the American Board of Physician Specialties® (ABPS) offers disaster medicine certification and recertification to physicians of many different specialties and backgrounds. After applicants meet the eligibility requirements, they must pass an online exam that runs for four hours and consists of 200 multiple-choice questions. The certification shows that physicians are skilled in competencies critical in a disaster, such as triage principles, protective equipment, psychological first aid and more.

Build Relationships with Local Agencies

If you live in an area prone to floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires and other natural disasters, it’s a good idea to build relationships with your local agencies so you know what their plan is in a crisis and who to call. These agencies may also be able to assist you in updating your hospital’s emergency contingency plans so you can work together. Even if you’re lucky enough to live in an area that doesn’t get a lot of natural disasters, you should still get to know your local agencies in case of a situation such as an active shooter, which can occur no matter where you live.

Plan, Plan, Plan Ahead

Don’t wait until a disaster strikes and then grab your medical bag and try to react in the moment. You should have a plan in case of a disaster at the personal, family and institutional level. For example, if a flood strikes your area, you should know how to keep yourself safe, where your family will evacuate to and what your hospital will do in the time of crisis. Your facility will likely already have a plan in place, but there’s always room for improvement. If you have experience in disaster relief or have gotten your certification, you can volunteer to review the policies or serve on an assessment committee.

Embrace Your Leadership Role

In some cases, you may be directly responsible for helping your facility to prepare for and respond to disasters—for example, if you serve as an emergency physician in addition to acting as the chief of hospital operations. In other situations, you may not have a direct leadership role when it comes to disaster relief. Even so, in emergencies, people naturally look to physicians for leadership. Your nurses, techs, and other medical personnel will definitely be looking to you to lead, and so may ordinary citizens and bystanders. Clear-minded decisions by an authority figure can make a difference in a disaster, so rather than resisting this role, embrace it and prepare for it as much as possible.

Make Sure Your Own Family Is Prepared

You won’t be able to care for patients in a crisis very well if you’re worried about your loved ones. Talk with your spouse, partner, children and anyone you’re responsible for to come up with a plan in the case of common disasters. How will you communicate with each other? What will you do for food and water if you’re snowed into your house? If you need to evacuate suddenly, where will you meet up? Do you have a backup in case the power goes out? Your emergency plan should be customized to the natural disasters most likely to affect your area.

Register for Disaster Relief Organizations

If you’re really passionate about disaster relief, you can be proactive and volunteer for one of several organizations that helps mobilize doctors, nurses and other medical personnel to travel to disaster areas. The American Red Cross is perhaps the best-known organization, but there’s also Doctors Without Borders, the Emergency System for Advanced Registration of Volunteer Health Professionals, the Medical Reserve Corps, HealthRight International, the Registered Nurse Response Network and many more. Many of these organizations require you to complete additional training before you can be mobilized, but if you’re really passionate about disaster relief, it’s a great way to make a difference and truly save lives.

When it comes to a disaster, you can’t just throw on your scrubs and rush to the scene. Preparing in advance and having an emergency plan in place will maximize your chances of keeping yourself safe and treating as many patients as possible. Follow these seven steps to make sure you’re ready as a physician and as an individual in case you ever face a disaster.

Deborah Swanson is a Coordinator for the Real Caregivers Program at allheart.com. A site dedicated to celebrating medical professionals and their journeys. She keeps busy interviewing caregivers and writing about them and loves gardening.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.