(GETTY IMAGES)
Patient-safety issues raised by the critics of limits on resident duty hours have not materialized. But concerns about doctors-in-training spending less time with patients appear to be valid, according to two new studies in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education set an 80-hour weekly work limit (averaged over four weeks) in 2003. Further limits, including restricting first-year residents to 16-hour shifts went into effect in 2011. The movement to limit resident work hours was originally driven by Sidney Zion, a journalist, prosecutor and novelist, whose 18-year-old daughter Libby died a few hours after being admitted to New York Hospital on the night of March 4, 1984. His fight led to New York state limiting residents to an 80-hour workweek and 24-hour shifts in 1989.
Read more »
A federally chartered special work group with representatives from three federal agencies has submitted its draft recommendations on establishing a regulatory framework for health IT.
Read more »
Fledgling accountable care organizations have faced plenty of challenges. Now a group of economists and lawyers are calling for a close look at issues involving insurance, antitrust and other regulation to avoid “unintended consequences.”
Health policy experts Gary Bacher, Michael Chernew, Daniel Kessler and Stephen Weiner write in the latest issue of the policy journal Health Affairs that ACOs could stifle competition among insurers and providers and potentially drive up prices.
Read more »
Stark
The healthcare world is populated by scores of legal experts who strive to keep up with the sprawling compendium of statutes, regulations and legal advisories known collectively as the “Stark law.” But the law's father, Fortney “Pete” Stark, is not one of them.
Stark, in fact, says he would favor repealing the law as it currently exists and getting back to the law's initial intent.
Read more »
The for-profit assisted-living industry came under the harsh spotlight of PBS' “Frontline” investigators Tuesday night as the news program took Seattle-based Emeritus Corp. to task for a number of deaths and injuries involving residents with dementia at Emeritus facilities across the country.
Emeritus, which was founded in 1983 and has 483 facilities around the country, is the one of the country's biggest assisted-living operators.
Read more »
Home-care workers are growing inpatient with the White House's delay in publishing a regulation that would bring them overtime pay and the federal minimum wage.
Read more »
So far, members of a trade group of health information technology developers like some of what they see in a federal health IT safety initiative that focuses on quantifying any adverse impacts their software is having on patients. But these vendors are withholding final judgment until more plan details are unveiled.
On July 2, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS released its 50-page Health Information Technology Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan that creates an infrastructure to collect and analyze data about health IT-related patient safety events.
Read more »
Technology industry association leaders who testified Thursday before a House subcommittee hearing on whether legislation is needed for data breach reporting called for Congress to pre-empt state laws on data breaches. But at least one witness opposed such preemption.
“There is a growing and exceptionally strong case to be made for the creation of a national data breach notification framework that supersedes state data breach laws,” said Dan Liutikas, chief legal officer of Washington- based Computing Technology Industry Association, a trade group for the computer hardware manufacturers, software developers and other information technology specialists.
Read more »
Obamacare critics have warned of a potential surge in improper federal subsidies due to the administration's recently announced delay in federal verification of income and lack of employer coverage to qualify for insurance subsidies on the state exchanges. A Wall Street Journal editorial called it the “liar's subsidy.” But Americans tempted to shade the truth to qualify for the generous subsidies should take a close look at other obscure provisions of the healthcare reform law.
The July 5 rule allowing those delays led supporters to highlight provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act meant to discourage applicants from gaming the system and garnering federal subsidies to which they were not entitled. The law allows civil penalties of up to $25,000 for applicants who submit inaccurate information because of “negligence or disregard of any rules or regulations.”
Read more »
There's been much media discussion about how the Obamacare tax penalty may be too small to prod so-called young invincibles to buy health insurance come Jan. 1, 2014. Many news reports and commentaries have scoffed at the idea that Obamacare's tax penalty will be stiff enough to convince healthy 30-somethings to pay what could be a relatively hefty premium for coverage and also face high deductibles, copayments and coinsurance. Quite a few media reports, including those in the Washington Post, have described the penalty simply as $95 for the first year, 2014. Pundits have predicted many uninsured Americans will choose to pay that paltry penalty rather than pony up what could be a lot more to buy insurance they don't think they need.
But many Americans—and many journalists—may not be aware of what the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act and the implementing IRS rule actually establish as the penalty in 2014 and beyond for failing to buy coverage.
Read more »
There's been much media discussion about how the Obamacare tax penalty may be too small to prod so-called young invincibles to buy health insurance come Jan. 1, 2014. Many news reports and commentaries have scoffed at the idea that Obamacare's tax penalty will be stiff enough to convince healthy 30-somethings to pay what could be a relatively hefty premium for coverage and also face high deductibles, copayments and coinsurance. Quite a few media reports, including those in the Washington Post, have described the penalty simply as $95 for the first year, 2014. Pundits have predicted many uninsured Americans will choose to pay that paltry penalty rather than pony up what could be a lot more to buy insurance they don't think they need.
But many Americans—and many journalists—may not be aware of what the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act and the implementing IRS rule actually establish as the penalty in 2014 and beyond for failing to buy coverage.
Read more »
