Recently in Health Category

Source: Union of American Physicians and Dentists, 2009

Last year UAPD filed charges with the California State Personnel Board (SPB) over the contracting out of psychiatric services at the Department of Mental Health's (DMH) Atascadero State Hospital facility.  The Union argued that paying over $200 an hour to nearly 50 outside contractors was exacerbating, not alleviating,  the shortage of permanent civil service employees, and that the Department's use of  contractors violated Government Code. 

UAPD appealed an initial ruling from the SPB Executive Officer, who was not persuaded by our commonsense arguments, and we are now happy to report that the SPB has issued an order requiring DMH to go through an evidentiary hearing before an Administrative Law judge to answer questions like "How did the Department come to compensate its contract psychiatrists at a rate so much higher than that paid to civil servant psychiatrists?" and "Has the high compensation paid by the Department to its contract psychiatrists resulted in a shortage of civil servant psychiatrists at Atascadero State Hospital?" 

UAPD through its attorneys will provide evidence at the hearing, a date for which has not yet been set.   

Source: By Kurt Erickson, Pantagraph (IL), Wednesday, April 22, 2009

 

 Hoping to combat rising medical costs, Illinois prison officials have quietly begun investigating a new way to treat inmates.  A review of state documents shows that Illinois Department of Corrections Director Roger Walker met late last year with a top doctor from the Texas prison system.  The subject of their December 11 meeting at Corrections headquarters in Springfield was telemedicine, in which inmates receive medical advice from a doctor linked to the prison via video conferencing equipment.

..... "We don't know what they might be looking at. At face value we don't believe telemedicine in a prison setting is a good idea," said Anders Lindall, spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union. ...... It isn't clear how much Texas saves by using telemedicine.

...... Schnapp said there is no timetable for implementing telemedicine.

Source: Aaron Deslatte, Orlando Sentinel (FL), Apr 7, 2009 10:09:34 AM


 With billion-dollar budget decisions looming, Florida House members have devoted a lot of time the last few days to a comparatively microscopic financial concern: whether or not to save just over $3 million next year by privatizing a mental health hospital in Baker County.

Last week, the hospital privatization -- pushed by House and Senate leaders and lobbyists for GEO Care, which runs two other South Florida mental health facilities -- was removed from the House budget plan only to be re-inserted by House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala.

Source:By Stacy Forster, Journal Sentinel (WI), Mar. 19, 2009

 

A computer glitch at the state Department of Health Services caused 5,000 Wisconsin Medicare recipients to be mistakenly notified they were ineligible for benefits that should have been paid.

...... In January 2008, contractor EDS Corp. mailed 260,000 brochures to Medicaid recipients that included their Social Security numbers on the address labels. In late 2006, a different contractor printed 171,000 tax forms with Social Security numbers on the mailing labels.

Source:By BRIAN IANIERI, Press of Atlantic City (NJ),Wednesday, March 25, 2009

 

The kitchen in the Crest Haven Nursing Home is staffed by county employees afraid they will lose their jobs to outsourcing.  The concern spread to other areas of government - including housekeeping, facilities and services - as the county, which passed its budget in March without layoffs, is already studying cost-cutting measures for next year. ...... Joe Gariffo is president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3596, which represents more than half of the county's employees.

Source: Niklas Hansen, Magnus Sverke, Katharina Näswall, Journal of Nursing Studies, Volume 46, Issue 1, Pages 96-107 (January 2009)

 ....... The results showed that the burnout levels were the highest at the private for-profit hospital and lowest at the publicly administered hospital. However, in contrast to expectations the demands were not higher overall at the for-profit organization or lowest at the public administration unit, and overall, resources were not better in the private for-profit or worse at the publicly administered hospital. Multiple regression analyses showed that several of the demands included were related to higher burnout levels. Job resources were linked to lower burnout levels, but not for all variables.

Conclusions

Profit orientation in health care seems to result in higher burnout levels for registered nurses compared to a publicly administered hospital. In general, demands were more predictive of burnout than resources, and there were only marginal differences in the pattern of predictors across hospitals.

Source:By Rosalind S. Helderman,Washington Post  (MD),Tuesday, January 27, 2009

 

The panel in charge of selling Prince George's County's ailing hospital system is warning state leaders that the economic climate might make finding one buyer impossible and is asking permission to sell the health facilities piecemeal. ..... Not all observers of the process were reassured, however. The union representing hospital workers has concerns about the request, said Stacey Mink, a spokeswoman for SEIU 1199. She said workers believe that the best solution for employees and patients would be to transfer all the facilities to an academic institution, such as the University of Maryland Medical System.

 

Source: Dallas Morning News, January 2009

Texas has long been hard on the weak and vulnerable. It fares badly in national surveys of child poverty, food assistance and care for the mentally ill and disabled. But it isn't only the poor and afflicted who need help; everyone relies on state government for some protection. Not everyone receives it. Business interests and lobbyists exert strong influence on the writing of laws and the workings of state government.

Part 1: Privatizing state programs for the poor, disabled and elderly was supposed to be more efficient and cost-effective. But as the number of complaints grow, private companies, lobbyists and former state officials profit.

Part 2: Influential health-care corporations wanted to limit public access to information about abuses and deficiencies in hospitals. Lobbyists and some Texas legislators were happy to oblige.

Part 3: When heavy industry goes up against public interest before the state's environmental agency, political influence gives one side an edge.

Part 4: Five years after sweeping reforms were supposed to help, Texans still pay some of the highest insurance premiums in the country for reduced coverage.

Source: By ROBERT PEAR, New York Times, November 24, 2008

Private health insurance plans, which serve nearly a fourth of all Medicare beneficiaries, have increased the cost and complexity of the program without any evidence of improving care, researchers say in studies to be published Monday.

The studies, questioning the value of some private plans for Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers, were issued as President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats take aim at the plans and consider cutting the payments they receive. Enrollment in private Medicare plans has nearly doubled in five years, to 10.1 million.

Source: By David Hubler, Washington Technology, 11/21/08 -- 11:15 AM

Maximus Inc. will provide outsourcing services for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Studies to facilitate its appeals process under a three-year contract that could be worth as much as $13.1 million.