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Paying Hospitals To Keep People Out Of Hospitals? It Works In Maryland Saturdays at Mercy Medical Center used to be perversely lucrative. The dialysis clinic across the street was closed on weekends. That meant the downtown Baltimore hospital would see patients with failing kidneys who should have gone to the dialysis center. So Mercy admitted them, collecting as much as $30,000 for treatment that typically costs hundreds of dollars. “That’s how the system worked,” said Mercy CEO Thomas Mullen. Instead of
finding less expensive alternatives, he said, “our financial people were saying, ‘We need to admit them.’” Maryland’s ambitious hospital-payment overhaul, put in place in 2014, has changed such crass calculations, which are still business as usual for most of American health care. A modification of a long-standing state regulation that would be hard to replicate elsewhere, the system is nevertheless attracting national attention, analysts say. As soon as Mercy started being penalized rather than rewarded for such avoidable admissions, it persuaded the
dialysis facility to open on weekends, saving government insurance programs and other payers close to $1 million annually. In the four years since Maryland implemented a statewide system of pushing hospitals to lower admissions, such savings are adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars for the taxpayers, employers and others who ultimately pay the bills, a new report shows. Maryland essentially pays hospitals to keep people out of the hospital. Analysts often describe the change as the most far-reaching attempt in the
nation to control the medical costs driving up insurance premiums and government spending. Like a giant health maintenance organization, the state caps hospitals’ revenue each year, letting them keep the difference if they reduce inpatient and outpatient treatment while maintaining care quality. Such “global budgets,” which have attracted rare, bipartisan support during a time of rancor over health care, are supposed to make hospitals work harder to keep patients healthy outside their walls….Read More
Adults Skipping Vaccines May Miss Out On Effective New Shingles Shot Federal officials have recommended a new vaccine that is more effective than an earlier version at protecting older adults against the painful rash called shingles. But persuading many adults to get this and other recommended vaccines continues to be an uphill battle, physicians and vaccine experts say. “I’m healthy, I’ll get that when I’m older,” is what adult patients often tell Dr. Michael Munger when he brings up an annual flu shot or a tetanusdiphtheria booster or the new shingles vaccine. Sometimes they put him off by questioning
a vaccine’s effectiveness. “This is not the case with childhood vaccines,” said Munger, a family physicianin Over land Par k, Kan., who is president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “As parents, we want to make sure our kids are protected. But as adults, we act as if we’re invincible.” The new schedule for adult vaccines for people age 19 and older was published in February following a recommendation last October by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices and subsequent approval by the director of the CDC. The most significant change was to recommend the shingles vaccine that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last fall, over an older version of the vaccine. The new vaccine, Shingrix, should be given in two doses between two and six months apart to adults who are at least 50 years old. The older vaccine, Zostavax, can still be given to adults who are 60 or older, but Shingrix is preferred, according to the CDC. In clinical trials, Shingrix was 96.6 percent
effective in adults ages 50 to 59, while Zostavax was 70 percent effective. The differences were even more marked with age: Effectiveness in adults 70 and older was 91.3 percent for Shingrix, compared with 38 percent for Zostavax. Shingrix also provided longer-lasting protection than Zostavax, whose effectiveness waned after the first year….Read More
7 Heart Healthy Shopping Tips for Seniors One of the best ways to prevent or control cardiovascular disease is by eating a healthy diet. Use A Place for Mom’s heart healthy shopping list and incorporate these nutrition tips into a senior loved one’s diet for greater heart health.
Heart Healthy Shopping Tips for Seniors Eating better is one of the Heart Association’s “Simple 7” factors for improved heart health. When you maintain a healthy diet along with regular physical exercise and other good habits, you’ll not only feel better, but you’ll live longer — and of course we want our senior
loved ones to stay healthy and vital for as long as possible, too. Here are some tips on what to eat, what not to eat, and how to succeed when the going gets tough. 1. Buy colorful fruits and vegetables. 2. Avoid buying high fat dairy or meat. 3. Buy plenty of nuts and high
fiber foods. 4. Avoid buying butter. 5. Read nutrition labels. 6. Consider frozen or canned fruits and veggies. 7. Avoid rushing into major changes. Click here to read more on each of the 7 tips for a healthy heart.
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