Memorial Day, Remembering our Veterans With Treatment

It is Memorial Day, and like in past years I will ask that we take a moment here to consider the sacrifices at the heart  of this holiday—we remember our fallen, we memorialize our dead. At present, the Veterans Administration is having great difficulty in treating and compensating our war wounded.

Number of Veterans Affected, Multiple Deployments

Since the U.S. went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, about 2.5 million service members have been deployed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, according to Department of Defense data. Of those, more than 800,000 were deployed more than once; 400,000 have done three or more deployments, and nearly 37,000 were deployed more than five times.[1] Obviously, multiple deployments increase the likelihood of service related injuries.

Wounded & Injured

It is worth noting that although considered the longest wars in U.S. history, Iraq and Afghanistan have produced relatively few U.S. service member deaths: 6,648 (as of March, 2013), but have produced a large number of wounded in action (roughly 50,000). According to reports such as Modern Warfare, by Alec C. Beekley, MD, FACS, LTC, MC, US Army, Harold Bohman, MD, CAPT, MC, US Navy, and Danielle Schindler, MD,[2] compared to Vietnam, the mortality rate of combat wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq has decreased by nearly half. New medical procedures, protective gear such as body armor and faster medical evacuation are saving more than 90 percent of all those who fall in battle, many of whom would have died on the battlefield just a generation ago. They live, but they are compromised substantially.

Type of Injuries

Notably, according to Modern Warfare, prior wars “had a higher proportion of thoracic injuries and fewer head and neck injuries. There has been a decreased incidence of wounds to the abdomen since the Persian Gulf War. The percentage of blast-related injuries is now higher.”

The number of injured are estimated by many to be ten and twenty times the number wounded in action.[3]

As would be expected with the dominance of “blast related injuries,” hearing loss, traumatic brain injury (TBI), PTSD and clinical depression, are leading injuries, with hearing loss first.[4] A 2005 Department of Veterans Affairs research paper found that one third of returning soldiers were referred to audiologists due to exposure to blasts, and 72% of them were identified as having hearing loss;[5] a 2013 report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimates that 255,330 members of the military suffer from TBI;[6] a 2008 study by the Rand Corp found that 14% of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans screened positive for PTSD, 14% for major depression, and 19% had a probable traumatic brain injury.[7]

And notably, the VA reports that 37% of the claims it has backlogged at present are from Vietnam Veterans, a great influx of which (260,000) occurred after the VA finally expanded the number of illnesses presumed to be associated with Agent Orange.[8]

VA Backlog

The Center for Investigative Reporting recently released a report[9] (featured on NPR)[10] which found:

• Despite assurances from the Obama Administration that the VA would be streamlined, “the internal documents show the VA expects the number of veterans waiting – currently about 900,000 – to continue to increase throughout 2013 and top a million by the end of this month [March, 2013].
• The VA’s internal documents “show that the average wait time for veterans filing disability claims fell by more than a third under President George W. Bush, even as more than 320,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans filed disability claims.
• The documents show delays escalated only after Obama took office and have more than doubled since, as 455,000 more returning veterans filed their claims.”
• Pointedly, under President Obama “the ranks of veterans waiting more than a year for their benefits grew from 11,000 in 2009, the first year of Obama’s presidency, to 245,000 in December – an increase of more than 2,000 percent.”
• Although the VA tracks and widely publishes the avg. number of days it takes to process a claim (273 days), that number pointedly does not refer to new claims. The average number of days to process a new claim in Newark is 371.6 days[11]

That amounts to roughly a year and a week for an initial claim in Newark, New Jersey– a very long time to live for a disabled veteran without much needed payments.

And importantly, if a veteran fails to characterize the claim correctly, the appeals process can literally take 2 and 3 years.

 

Newtown’s Impact on Mental Health Coverage Under the Affordable Care Act

In response to the jarring and horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14, Pres. Obama signed a number of executive orders last week, flanked by schoolchildren and Vice Pres. Biden.  The official investigation into the contributing factors and details surrounding the mass shooting continues, but much of the public discourse on the policy response has already begun in earnest.  Most solutions seem to be focused on addressing two identifiable “causes” of the shooting:  first, the availability of guns (and especially, semiautomatic weapons), and second, the lack of mental health care services available to Americans who struggle with mental disorder.

Although it is clear that a high-capacity gun was used to perpetrate the assault, there has been no clear evidence that the shooter had been diagnosed with any mental disorder.  In fact, assuming a link between mental disorder and the Newtown shooting continues to reinforce destructive stereotypes and stigma about mental illness, according to many experts.  As many who study the subject area know, mental disorder does not equal violence.  Instead, those with mental disorder are no more likely to be dangerous than those without a diagnosis.  Further, at this point, no one could say with confidence that mental illness was a contributing cause or even a factor that led to the magnitude or occurrence of the shooting – opposite, of course, from the individual’s ability to get a high-capacity semiautomatic weapon.

Ironically, however, given President Obama’s response last week, this may be a vital inflection point in the fight to extend healthcare coverage for those diagnosed with mental illness.  As I have noted in the past here, states are trimming back their mental health budgets – even while up to 20 percent of Americans are diagnosed with some form of mental illness each year.  In a confounding policy response, a handful of states have cut funding by more than 30 percent since 2009.

In such a climate, many advocates hailed the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) as an opportunity to improve mental health parity and coverage throughout the country.  Finally, many argued, individuals diagnosed with mental disorder would have their treatments covered by plans established within state-run exchange plans and the Medicaid expansion.  But, through last year, this seemed to be likely an unrealized hope, as the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) loosened the regulations governing the scope of essential health benefit coverage under the ACA.

Assumedly in an effort to increase the likelihood of state buy-in to the ACA, two recent publications by HHS gave states extremely wide latitude in determining what each state’s benchmark plans were required to cover for mental health services.  In addition to giving states the ability to substitute coverage for certain services each state saw fit, HHS did not explicitly tell the states which mental health services they must cover.  In other words, HHS guidance did not set a “federal floor” for the states’ plans.  Further, other guidance seemed to conflict with a liberal reading of mental health essential health benefits.  In defining an essential health benefit under the ACA, a 2011 Institute of Medicine report noted that states were required to only cover services that were “medically necessary,” without sufficient guidance.  Indeed, holistic mental health treatment does not always meet this limiting requirement.  Thus, it seemed – to the dismay of many mental health advocates – that insurance coverage may not be substantially changed or expanded under the celebrated ACA.

That is, until last week.  As part of President Obama’s response to the shootings, he said he would address that gap in the ACA.  He specifically noted that he would contact state officials to clarify both Medicaid requirements and new exchange plan requirements.  In effect, the President may be establishing a specific “federal floor” – a minimum of mental health services that states must cover.  Importantly, President Obama also mentioned that regulations that require equal coverage for mental health services (parity requirements) would be finalized.

Thus, even as advocates cringe to hear the public’s further stigmatizing and (at least to this point) unfounded linkage between mental disorder and the horror seen at Sandy Hook, mental health coverage under the ACA may actually be expanded after all.  This reversal in policy is undoubtedly stunning, but how much coverage for individuals diagnosed with mental disorder actually changes – and how and if this expansion actually prevents future incomprehensible massacres like Newtown – remains to be seen.

Project Shows Substantial Decrease in Colorectal Surgery Infections

There was a time in medical science when doctors did not wash their hands prior to operating on their patients (some might say, that to a greater extent than seems possible, this is still the case among medical professionals and point to a number of recent studies as uncomfortable proof). This failure of doctors to wash hands in the medical forum led to the otherwise avoidable death of many of their patients. Up until the mid 1800s, medical science had simply not made the connection between bacteria, transference, infection and death.

Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician who was Director of the maternity clinic at the Vienna General Hospital in Austria, made the connection after what is said to have been an extensive statistical analysis in the 1840s, and demonstrated that hand-washing could drastically reduce the number of women dying during childbirth. He introduced a rigorous hand scrubbing protocol and enough women stopped dying to earn him the honorific, “savior of our mothers.”

But as an article from the UK’s Science Museum, Exploring the History of Medicine, points out

Until the late 1800s surgeons did not scrub up before surgery or even wash their hands between patients, causing infections to be transferred from one patient to another. Doctors and medical students routinely moved from dissecting corpses to examining new mothers without first washing their hands, causing death by puerperal or ‘childbed’ fever as a consequence. As dissection became more important to medical practice in the 1800s, this only increased.

Semmelweis showing again that the common sense of one era is the uncommon brilliance of one bygone.

Which brings us to this latest study/project showing new solutions which decrease the risk of colorectal surgical site infection. According to the Associated Press in an article about the project,

“Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.”

And:

“Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.”

 

According to the press release regarding the Project,

A project to reduce colorectal surgical site infections (SSIs) saved more than $3.7 million in costs for 135 avoided SSIs. The two-and-a-half year project included seven hospitals and was directed by the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare in collaboration with the American College of Surgeons.

The participating hospitals were able to reduce superficial incisional SSIs, which affect skin and underlying tissue, by 45 percent and all types of colorectal SSIs by 32 percent. The average length of stay for hospital patients with any type of colorectal SSI decreased from an average of 15 days to 13 days. In comparison, patients with no SSIs had an average length of stay of eight days.

The press release further notes that

Colorectal surgery was identified as the focus of the project because SSIs are disproportionately higher among patients following colorectal surgeries. Colorectal surgery is a common procedure across different types of hospitals, can have significant complications, presents significant opportunities for improvement, and has high variability in performance across hospitals. The project addressed preadmission, preoperative, intraoperative, postoperative and post discharge follow-up processes for all surgical patients undergoing emergency and elective colorectal surgery, with the exception of trauma and transplant patients and patients under the age of 18. Project participants studied the potential factors that contribute to all three types of colorectal SSIs – superficial incisional, deep incisional and organ space SSIs, which affect organs and the space surrounding them.

 

The AP article:

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16% of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11% once all the changes had been made.

The AP article further notes the timely nature of the Project’s benefits:

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

Reinhardt in the Times on Socialized Medicine

In case you missed it, in the wake of the opening ceremony to the Olympics which featured a tribute to Great Britain’s National Health Services, Uwe E. Reinhardt, an Economics Professor at Princeton, had an interesting piece in The New York Times regarding  the negative attitudes of  Americans towards “socialized medicine” in general, G.B.’s NHS in particular,  and at least one American anomaly in practice. Reinhardt writes:

I have found that one effective way I can stop N.H.S.-bashing dead in its track is to ask bashers this simple question: “Why don’t you like my son?” I posed that question to a congressman who had berated “socialized medicine” during a hearing on health insurance reform at which I testified.

In response to the stunned look this question invariably elicits, I go on: “You see, our son is a retired captain of the U.S. Marine Corps. He is an American veteran. Remarkably, Americans of all political stripes have long reserved for our veterans the purest form of socialized medicine, the vast health system operated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (generally known as the V.A. health system). If socialized medicine is as bad as so many on this side of the Atlantic claim, why have both political parties ruling this land deemed socialized medicine the best health system for military veterans? Or do they just not care about them?”

You can read the rest here, and it’s well worth it–even if only for the Steven Hawkins story.

Medicaid Donut Hole – Update #2: Professor Tyler Cowen gets it wrong in NYT

I didn’t think I’d be blogging on this again.  I’ve posted twice, here and here, on the trap the Supreme Court’s Medicaid decision created for the poor.  Briefly, NFIB v. Sebelius makes the ACA’s Medicaid expansion (“Medicaid 2.0″) optional with the states, allowing them to choose or reject the federal support for Medicaid expansion without facing any reduction in federal funding for original Medicaid.  The trap is the following: while it might seem that the poor single adults who were the beneficiaries of this expansion would, in states rejecting Medicaid 2.0, at least be eligible for the subsidies the ACA makes available for low-income purchasers of insurance through the Exchanges.  But no.  Under  26 USC 36B(c)(1), only persons at or above the federal poverty level qualify for the subsidies (because Congress assumed that the states would adopt Medicaid 2.0, and subsidies for the very poor were unnecessary in private markets).

Professor Tyler Cowen, writing in the Sunday New York Times business section, gets this point exactly wrong.  In a piece discussing the “tug of war” between the federal and state government, Cowen argues that states may have an incentive to turn down Medicaid 2.0 in order to shift the insurance costs for the poor to the feds.  After all, even with the very high level of federal funding for Medicaid 2.0, states will have some financial exposure.  Cowen says:

State officials know that limiting Medicaid will place more individuals in the new, subsidized health care exchanges, and that those bills will be paid by the federal government. The basic dynamic is that state and federal governments have opposite incentives as to how many people should be kept in Medicaid.

Wrong.  The fact is that all residents below the poverty level who are frozen out of Medicaid coverage in states that refuse Medicaid 2.0 are also ineligible for Exchange subsidies.  This mistake is significant; Cowen, suggests that states may be convinced to refuse Medicaid 2.0 (or perhaps not feels so bad about doing so) because they see an alternative source of coverage.  That error, if picked up by the many governors and legislatures now weighing  their options under the ACA, could lead to disastrous results.

The ACA raises charged issues between the Obama administration and the states.  It would be a shame if misinformation about the effects of a state refusal of federal funding for Medicaid 2.0 were to influence state decisions on Medicaid.

Professor John Jacobi in The Wall Street Journal on the New Jersey veto of Health Insurance Exchanges and the possibility of compromise going forward

Professor John Jacobi appeared in The Wall Street Journal regarding the last minute veto by Governor Chris Christie of a bill which would have created a health insurance exchange in New Jersey. The Journal reports:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday vetoed a bill to create a medical-insurance exchange, rejecting a key element of President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul but leaving the door open if the federal law survives court challenges.

Regarding how the exchanges have fared thus far in other parts of the country, The Wall Street Journal noted that

“Some states clearly are not going to pass them. Other states have. It’s all over the map at this point,” said John Jacobi, a professor specializing in health policy at Seton Hall University School of Law.

Governor Christie is said to have expressed concerns over committing to the expense of the program with the potentiality that the Supreme Court might find the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, which might then impact, if not eradicate, federal funding for the exchanges.

Governor Christie also expressed reservations about other aspects of the bill. The Journal reports

<Block>In his veto, Mr. Christie said he was concerned about creating a new “Medicaid-like program” for individuals above the poverty level without assurances of federal funding. He also expressed doubts about New Jersey’s process of certifying participants in the plan, as they could limit the pool of insurance providers and increase costs.

Mr. Christie also expressed concerns about the exchange’s board. Members were to be paid $50,000 and would be limited to those not directly involved in the healthcare industry.

Mr. Jacobi said that the issues raised by Mr. Christie would be surmountable if he decided to move forward after the court ruling.

“It’s really reasoned and not drawing lines in the sand,” said Mr. Jacobi, referring to the governor’s veto. “There are obvious grounds for compromise.” <Block>

Read the Wall Street Journal article, “Health Exchange Dismissed“

No mandate? OK, but be prepared to pay

[Ed. Note: This commentary was published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch on Wednesday, 3/28, by  long time contributor to HRW, Thomas "Tim" Greaney, Chester A. Myers Professor of Law and co-director of the Center for Health Law Studies and John J. Ammann, director of Legal Clinics at St. Louis University School of Law.]

This week the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing three days of oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the federal health care reform legislation. The pivotal question, whether a federal mandate to buy health care insurance can pass muster under the Commerce Clause, is one that has divided the lower courts and generated a backlash against this vital legislation.

Polls suggest that a strong majority of citizens agree with most of the specific provisions of the health care reform law, though many harbor doubts about its constitutional basis. While we believe there is ample precedent supporting the constitutionality of the law, it is worth considering whether a mandate-free health care reform law would be fairer or more effective. We think not.

Congress unquestionably could have avoided any serious constitutional questions by offering a carrot rather than the stick of a monetary penalty. For example, the law could have made the premiums for government-provided insurance such as Medicare less expensive for those who voluntarily purchase private insurance when they are young. While such an approach may strike some as more equitable, it would undermine effective health care reform. Indeed, this thought experiment exposes the short-sightedness of allowing unrestricted choice to trump all else in the health care debate.

The idea of the federal government using a carrot rather than stick to prompt certain behavior has a long and unquestioned pedigree in the law. Indeed, the federal government uses positive incentives in many aspects of American life to mandate compliance with its rules. For example, if states want federal highway funds, they have to follow federal transportation regulations. If states want federal education funds, they have to adopt federal guidelines such as those under the No Child Left Behind law.
Read more.

The New York Times Hasn’t Scratched the Surface: For-Profit Catholic Healthcare

President Obama has begun the process for healthcare reform by improving access through insurance reform, but achievement of his aspirations will require reform of our healthcare delivery system as well.  Changing where and how healthcare is delivered and paid for is of particular importance given the emerging and generally non-acute needs of the aging baby-boomers, and the lack of sufficient primary care to serve the many who will become insured as health insurance reforms are implemented.  Healthcare providers realize this, and the market is indeed adjusting as we speak.

Three examples of these changes to the delivery system include, first, moving much of the delivery of services out of hospitals and into the community.  Healthcare systems are rapidly affiliating with or employing physicians to facilitate this change, in the hopes of enabling the various parts of the health care system to work more collaboratively, efficiently and cost-effectively.  In many parts of the country, hospitals have been too cash-strapped to invest in necessary updating to their hospital facilities. Now that we are thinking differently about how to use the physical plant that hospitals occupy, and investing in new technology, these investments need to happen.  As a third example, President Obama is infusing money into hospitals and physician offices to enable the United States to catch up to other developed nations in the digitizing of its medical records.  The benefits of this change are numerous, but it is a very expensive transformation.

In order to provide quality service and compete in the fast-changing healthcare market, hospitals and the systems of which they are a part, need money to pay for these changes.  A February 21, 2012 New York Times article on the expansion of Catholic hospitals provides a glimpse of this phenomenon of market reform.  Cash-poor hospitals unable to access capital to invest in the new initiatives necessary to keep them competitive are looking for financially stronger partners with this investment ability.  There are currently 56 Catholic healthcare systems in the country, ranging from the financially successful to the distressed.  Thus it is unsurprising that a potential partner for some hospitals might be found among Catholic systems.

But there are some Catholic providers who are struggling and require an affiliation to survive; other Catholic providers are simply considering alternative business models which might provide more market flexibility as well as increased options for access to capital.  The former Catholic Healthcare West is an example of the latter situation.  CHW was sponsored by six religious orders and operated 25 Catholic and 15 non-Catholic hospitals; just weeks ago, it announced changes to its name — it is now Dignity Health — and its corporate and governance structures.  The parent holding company for Dignity Health is no longer Catholic, and is no longer sponsored by the religious orders — those orders now sponsor directly the Catholic hospitals that are part of Dignity Health.  These Catholic hospitals adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Services, of which each hospital’s local bishop is the ultimate arbiter.  The non-Catholic hospitals adhere to a Statement of Common Values, which preclude assisted suicide and euthanasia, as well as pregnancy terminations and assisted reproductive procedures that deviate from Catholic teaching; the Statement of Common Values does allow the performance of direct sterilizations, which is something precluded at Catholic hospitals.  I would venture to say that many, whether Catholic or not, likely embrace the content of this Statement of Common Values.  I would also suggest that many secular hospitals operate according to similar policies, but it just doesn’t get talked about.

The religious orders hope to perpetuate their evangelical influence on the culture of Dignity Health and its constituent non-Catholic hospitals — if successful, I would suggest that this will be an important and significant contribution to those providers who are the beneficiaries of the Catholic ethos of healthcare delivery, because it can be transformational.  The change from CHW to Dignity also sought to clarify the confusion among patients about which hospitals are Catholic, and provide market flexibility with respect to future affiliations with service providers.    A statement by San Francisco Archbishop Niederauer provides a helpful description of the reasons for Catholic Health West’s transformation to Dignity Health, and the process by which deliberations occurred.

Other Catholic hospitals are engaging in even more “radical” transformations in order to put themselves in a position to survive and/or thrive in the emerging healthcare market.  After years of unsuccessful attempts to prop up the six Boston-area hospitals that comprised Caritas Christi Health Care, Cardinal Sean O’Malley surprised many when he agreed to sell the system to Cerberus Capital Management, which is a private equity firm.  The system was burdened with debt, its pension was underfunded, and its physical plant was in desperate need of significant upgrades. The sale to Cerberus transformed this Catholic health care system, now named Steward Health Care System, to a for-profit Catholic health care system. Cerberus agreed to ensure that the Steward hospitals adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives, subject to the authority of the Cardinal who has the power to strip a hospital of its Catholic status, as happened to a Phoenix Catholic Healthcare West hospital, St. Joseph’s, in 2010, over a disagreement regarding an interpretation of the Ethical and Religious Directives regarding abortion.

Cardinal O’Malley was not the first person to find salvation for financially distressed hospitals in the private equity world.  St. Vincent’s Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts is owned by for-profit Vanguard Health Systems of Nashville, which owns both Catholic and Baptist hospitals, primarily in the south and west.  And Ascension Health, the nation’s third largest health system with a 2010 net income of $1.2 billion has teamed up with Oak Hill Capital Partners to build a new for-profit enterprise with an eye towards “offer[ing] a lifeline to capital-starved Catholic hospitals.”

Myriad questions arise from this new mechanism for infusing capital into Catholic healthcare.  No precedent exists for a Catholic for-profit healthcare ministry.  In terms of the issue about access to services raised by the February 21 New York Times article, “Catholic Hospitals Expand, Religious Strings Attached,”  it is likely that the public will become even more confused about what rules govern hospitals as for-profit systems include both Catholic and non-Catholic entities.  While the interpretation and application of Catholic teaching will vary by diocese and the deal reached by the parties, it is certainly possible that, as was the case with Catholic Healthcare West (now Dignity Health), some or all of the Ethical and Religious Directives will be extended to the secular hospitals which are part of any system that includes Catholic facilities.  This makes sense, as Catholic teaching encourages Catholics to distance themselves from acts which are deemed immoral.  Sometimes, the act in question, such as abortion or euthanasia, is held to be so fundamentally immoral that Catholics can have no association with the situation, which would be the case if a Catholic hospital belonged to a healthcare system in which affiliates offered these services.  As such, even though a hospital may itself be non-Catholic, if it participates in a system which includes Catholic hospitals, its services may necessarily be circumscribed.  Again, most of these proscriptions are ones with which many Americans likely agree.  Transparency should prevail nonetheless. As I discussed in my February 22, 2012 blog post, there are significant benefits from affiliating with a Catholic entity, including commitment to the care of all segments of society and an ethos of care that attends not only to the physical, but to the mental and spiritual as well.  Catholic healthcare is also an important voice in public debates about reforming our healthcare system and the dignity of every person.  These attributes of Catholic healthcare should be given significant weight in assessing collaborative arrangements.

While I believe that there is much that is wonderful about the culture, ethics and ethos of Catholic health care, there may be some other consequences of affiliation that some would fine unappealing. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops opposes the health care reform mandate that would require employers to offer health insurance to employees that includes contraception as a covered benefit. In addition, some bishops have refused to comply with laws requiring equal treatment of spouses and gay partners with regard to eligibility for employer-sponsored health insurance. While it is unclear to what extent Catholic hospitals have followed these policy positions (the Catholic Health Association has announced that it is pleased with President Obama’s contraception compromise), the obvious question is whether they will be extended to secular affiliates as well.

Most of the questions that arise from the transition to for-profit status must obviously be resolved by the religious congregations and others that sponsor Catholic healthcare.  What makes a service or entity essentially Catholic, and whether that can be preserved in a for-profit context is likely unanswerable without experimentation.  For-profit providers ultimately exist to make money for investors.  Non-profit providers must operate in fidelity to their mission.  If a hospital is truly unable to survive, which was apparently the case with the six Boston hospitals that comprised Caritas, then for-profit conversion was the only means to continue its mission.   Even less dire situations may call for serious consideration of this alternative: a provider unable to access the resources to provide quality care irrespective of patients’ ability to pay is not in a position to actualize its mission.

The biggest question for stakeholders, presumably, is how long the private equity firms that are acquiring Catholic hospitals will hold on to them, especially if they are losing money.  The co-head of Cerberus was quoted in the Boston Globe as saying that Cerberus would own the Steward hospitals for at least three years; the article also suggested that it would not close any hospital for the first three years of its ownership, and would extend that time for an additional two years unless a hospital operated at a loss for two consecutive years.  So, one risk of these arrangements might be that they are simply stop-gap measures.  What happens if the private equity firms and their shareholders aren’t making enough money?

Another question is whether the for-profit model will result in the discontinuation of unprofitable yet essential services, which some empirical evidence suggests occurs more frequently with for-profit as opposed to not-for-profit providers, although it is important not to generalize.

This conversation will continue for some years, as we assess the on-going experiment that is for-profit Catholic healthcare.  This month, Seton Hall Law School is looking at some of the issues raised from the Catholic sponsors’ perspective, at a Symposium entitled Is a For-Profit Structure a Viable Alternative for Catholic Health Care Ministry? Return to Health Reform Watch for future discussion of this fascinating issue.

A Broader Perspective on Catholic Healthcare

A February 21, 2012 New York Times article entitled “Catholic Hospitals Expand, Religious Strings Attached” addresses the challenges that arise when Catholic healthcare systems acquire healthcare providers and extend religious proscriptions to the newly acquired facilities and practitioners.  Specifically, the article raises concerns about women’s access to reproductive health services, particularly in communities where Catholic ownership of hospitals and other providers dominates.  Much of this same kind of market activity occurred in the early 90′s in anticipation of market reforms associated with Clinton healthcare reform.  So, while these are not new issues, they are no less difficult to resolve, perhaps in part because we have all become more politicized in our approach to problem solving, which almost seems impossible to imagine, but there it is.  In a 1995 Houston Law Review article entitled DECIDING THE FATE OF RELIGIOUS HOSPITALS IN THE EMERGING HEALTH CARE MARKET I attempted to propose a middle ground of accommodation that would facilitate access to care while providing Catholic healthcare providers with the space required to continue to be true to their religious beliefs.  I believe that the prescription remains as valid today as it was when written over a decade ago.

Catholic healthcare comprises a ministry, whereby the sisters or diocese that provide the health services are committed to ensure that they act in way that is true to the teachings of the Catholic Church.  Catholic healthcare providers are living the gospel, which is replete with instances of Jesus ministering to the sick — he attended to healing the mind, body and spirit. This holistic healing mission began when various religious orders first established their hospitals, and continues today, albeit with fewer religious and more laypersons continuing the legacy of the Catholic healthcare mission.  Catholic healthcare has served an essential role in the United States since the nation’s inception, frequently being the only provider of care to the poor in numerous communities.  That dedication to the vulnerable segments of society continues today. Catholic healthcare providers were the first in many communities to treat compassionately, without judgment and without discriminating, those with HIV/AIDS.  Mission statements for Catholic providers focus on ensuring care to the homeless, to immigrants, whether documented or not, and to the underserved and uninsured. According to statistics available on the Catholic Health Association web page, Catholic healthcare is a national leader in its provision of birthing rooms and breast cancer treatment, geriatric services, nutrition programs, social work services and pain management programs. The disappearance of Catholic hospitals would decimate access to care in rural communities. Catholic hospitals have long been on the forefront of the call for healthcare reform that provides access to all, and support President Obama’s health reform efforts.

Catholic hospitals’ delivery of healthcare is informed by Catholic Social Teaching broadly and specifically by what are called The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, which are promulgated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  Catholic Social Teaching rests on centuries of philosophical and theological learning to guide not only the Church but society in general on such questions as the relationship between labor and capital, the respectful treatment of employees and the importance of unions to workers, distribution of goods and services, and human rights to social goods such as health care.  The Ethical and Religious Directives, which are informed by Catholic teaching, are moral guidelines specific to healthcare, to aid in resolving such ethical issues as pregnancy termination, contraception, and euthanasia.  Obviously, the clinical situations in which these guidelines are implicated can be extremely complex, and sometimes require nuanced analysis by those with a deep understanding of Catholic moral theology and medicine.  Like any intellectual discipline, theologians, bishops, and healthcare providers sometimes disagree among themselves as to the appropriate application of these guidelines to a specific situation.  So, yes, it is true that Catholic healthcare providers are committed by their religious beliefs to operate in ways that may be different than secular providers, but these differences extend far beyond the moral limitations on the kinds of reproductive and end-of-life care they provide. This moral framework serves to unleash the kind of compassionate care that has been a hallmark of Catholic healthcare since its inception. Even in the face of severe budget cuts, Catholic hospitals continue to provide pastoral care to their patients, caregivers, and families; engage in constant assessment of fidelity to mission; and have been leaders of all hospitals with regard to measuring tax-exempt facilities’ provision of community benefits.

My ultimate point is two-fold.  First, Catholic healthcare is too important to the country’s healthcare system to be reduced in our assessment of its value to religious proscriptions that may interfere with access to a limited universe of services, albeit what are sometimes characterized as essential healthcare services. While some may dissent from application of Catholic teaching in particular instances, the continued and pervasive presence of health providers committed to the dignity of every person whom they treat is an ultimate societal good.  Where disagreement persists, it is important that the Church engage in sincere dialogue with all segments of society, with a willingness to be informed from medical, ethical, and sociological perspectives.

As Catholic providers partner, merge or otherwise collaborate with secular healthcare providers, community stakeholders, including licensing agencies, should demand and receive a clear understanding of the implications for healthcare access of the proposed alliance.  Each bishop acts as the ultimate arbiter of the Ethical and Religious Directives, which means that interpretations can vary by diocese.  For example, a minority of bishops have raised questions about the kind of emergency care administered by hospital emergency departments to rape survivors, out of an over-abundance of medical and moral caution, in my view, that the treatment might interfere with a pregnancy.  Thus, it is essential that regulators understand the implications of Catholic teachings for healthcare access, so that patients clearly understand the limitations of Catholic providers and, where appropriate, have alternatives to access services.  Our healthcare system has and will likely always be extremely pluralistic.  We have, and should continue to make every effort, to accommodate the religious beliefs of providers, while ensuring access to care to which patients are legally entitled.

Further, the public debate about what kind of care should be legally available should take seriously the perspective of those whose viewpoints are informed by moral concerns, whether those concerns arise from religious or philosophical principles.  Finally, both The United States Catholic Conference and individual bishops should ensure that they receive a robust analysis of ethical issues related to healthcare from the Church’s best theologians with relevant expertise before promulgating guidance to those engaged in healthcare ministry.  Importantly, bishops should also hear from those who are involved daily in caring for and ministering to patients.

The ultimate goal of reform is one upon which both Catholic healthcare providers and proponents of women’s health agree — increased access to healthcare for all.  Collaboration on the pursuit of this unified goal should enable us to identify means by which the plural interests of the stakeholders can be accomplished.  Transparency and conversation are key to achieving these ends.  In my conversations with those concerned about changes in the healthcare delivery system, I have always found them to be very respectful of religious freedom, appreciative of the role religious providers play in society, and desirous of finding a common way forward.  While the number of religious sisters is shrinking in the United States, women remain a significant presence in the leadership of Catholic healthcare.  A cursory review of the areas where Catholic healthcare predominates reveals a strong commitment to women’s health and wellness.  For these reasons, I feel confident that common ground exists to ensure access to health care for all, while carving out space for Catholic fidelity to the demands of their religion.

The Good News is that Health Care Spending is Down

The bad news is that the country’s too broke to be sick. The New York Times reports that health care spending rose just 3.9% in 2010, totaling $2.6 trillion or 17.9% of the Gross Domestic Product. The information was derived from the latest report from the government’s National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA), which are, according to the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “the official estimates of total health care spending in the United States. Dating back to 1960, the NHEA measures annual U.S. expenditures for health care goods and services, public health activities, government administration, the net cost of health insurance, and investment related to health care. The data are presented by type of service, sources of funding, and by type of sponsor.”

The Times notes:

Health spending normally grows much faster than the economy. But in 2010 growth rates were similar, so that health care accounted for the same share of total economic output in 2009 and 2010.

“U.S. health spending grew more slowly in 2009 and 2010″ than at any other time in the 51 years the government has been collecting such data, said Anne B. Martin, an economist in the office of the actuary at the Department of Health and Human Services.

How bad is it? The data is, well, record-breaking.

The Times:

In 2010, the study said, hospitals reported a decline in admissions and slower growth in emergency room visits and outpatient visits. Likewise, it said, doctor’s office visits declined, and spending for doctors’ services grew just 1.8 percent, to $416 billion in 2010. Total health spending averaged $8,402 a person, up 3.1 percent from 2009, the report said.

Doctors often prescribe drugs during office visits, and the decline in visits helped slow the growth of drug spending, as did the use of lower-cost generic medications. The number of prescriptions filled rose just 1.2 percent in 2010, and total retail spending on prescription drugs also grew 1.2 percent, to $259 billion, the slowest rate of growth in a half-century, the report said.

Those numbers of slowed growth are even more incredible given the context of a slowed generation of aging baby boomers.

But in the inimitable words of R. Hunter and J. Garcia,

Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills

The Times notes:

For the first time in seven years, total private health insurance premiums grew faster than insurers’ spending on health care benefits, the administration said. Premiums totaled $849 billion in 2010, while spending on benefits totaled $746 billion. The difference includes administrative costs and profits.

There are a number of other interesting points to be found in the New York Times article, not the least of which is the growth in federal expenditures. It’s well worth a read.

Vermont and Single Payer, Laboratory for the States?

Law Professor Kevin Outterson, Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights, at Boston University School of Law (as well as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics and Faculty Advisor to the American Journal of Law & Medicine), gives a good account of the implications of Vermont’s recent declaration that it will be instituting  a single payer health care plan (yes, if you haven’t heard, that Single Payer Plan) on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show.

Professor Outterson observes that  implementation “will require multiple steps,” but that the formal decision to move forward was “a significant step,” and that “if Vermont is able to control costs better than their neighboring states, than they will be a magnet for employment.” He also notes that adjustments will need to be made by the federal authorities in order for Vermont’s plan to mesh with PPACA, Medicare and Medicaid, and addresses conflicts of interest in medicine, as presently financed and practiced, which add to the costs of healthcare.

The Single Payer segment starts at 3:48

Veterans and Mental Health Care, The Court Speaks

As Memorial Day comes to a close and we ready ourselves for a return to work and all that brings, let’s take a moment, after this single day dedicated to the ultimate sacrifices made by American military men and women, to consider our part of the bargain.

These are the opening paragraphs from an Associated Press article which ran two weeks ago:

Noting that an average of 18 veterans a day commit suicide, a federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to dramatically overhaul its mental health care system.

In the strongly worded ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it takes the department an average of four years to fully provide the mental health benefits owed veterans.

The court also said it often takes weeks for a suicidal vet to get a first appointment.

The “unchecked incompetence” in handling the flood of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health claims is unconstitutional, the court said.

And, one might add, unconscionable. The AP notes that

The court said a 2007 report by the Office of the Inspector General found significant delays in timely referrals from VA doctors for treatment of PTSD and depression. Fewer than half of the patients received same-day mental evaluations while others had to wait as long as two months for a counseling session.

But wait, there’s more.  A questioning attempt at cover up in an email from a high ranking VA official–which begins with an imperative for quiet: The AP notes:

“Shhh!” began a Feb. 13, 2008, e-mail from Dr. Ira Katz, a VA deputy chief. “Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?”

Katz wrote in another e-mail that 18 veterans kill themselves daily on average.

And then, an attempt to have VA counselors purposefully misdiagnose. AP reports

After the trial another e-mail surfaced that was written by VA psychologist Norma Perez suggesting that counselors in Texas make a point to diagnose fewer post-traumatic stress disorder cases. The veterans’ lawyers argued that e-mail showed the VA’s unwillingness to properly treat mental health issues.

Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the court:

“No more veterans should be compelled to agonize or perish while the government fails to perform its obligations. Having chosen to honor and provide for our veterans by guaranteeing them the mental health care and other critical benefits to which they are entitled, the government may not deprive them of that support through unchallengeable and interminable delays.”

On Memorial Day we rightly honor our dead. But let’s not forget the sacrifices of the living– or our part of the bargain.

A Biography of Cancer and Other Interesting Interviews

As I’m sure the great majority of our readers don’t get the regular joy of hearing Leonard Lopate at NPR’s WNYC, I thought I’d offer up these recent archive interviews for your pleasure and/or edification. Lopate’s interviews are generally extraordinary– and these are no different, except perhaps even better than the norm.

This is how they describe the show– recent favorite interviews– on the WNYC website:

Oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee discusses his deeply personal biography of what he calls “the emperor of all maladies:” cancer. Yvonne Thornton talks about her long road to become the first African American woman board certified in the obstetrical sub-specialty of maternal-fetal medicine. Douglas Starr tells the true crime story that led to the birth of forensic medicine. And Anand Giridharadas gives us an intimate portrait of India’s remaking.

Enjoy.

“The King Has No Clothes!” and Other Useful Truths in the Health Care Setting

Two recent  articles in the Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog are well worth considering. The one article discusses the efficacy of the “aviation model” for medical practice safety. Noting that the surgical checklist is itself cockpit inspired, the article considers a report which questions whether other aviation safety models might be also effective in a health care setting. WSJ writes:

A paper published recently in the Milbank Quarterly, a peer-reviewed population-health and health-policy journal, suggests extracting even more lessons from the aviation world, offering 15 examples of error-reduction policies that aren’t always routinely used in the health-care setting.

The surgical checklist has proved effective. In a post entitled Surgical Checklist Said to Save Lives & Money, we noted the following:

The use of a basic checklist was shown to be associated with a substantial decrease in surgical deaths and complications. In what the A.P. referred to as a “a large international study of how to avoid blatant operating room mistakes,” researchers found a 47 per cent decrease in death and a more than one third decrease in complications-from 11% to 7%- concomitant with the use of a 19 point checklist designed by the World Health Organization.

A few aviation examples the WSJ noted in the article mentioned above involve communication and they, I believe, are worth considering for a moment:

The “sterile cockpit” rule. During certain critical phases of flight, pilots and crew aren’t supposed to chat idly or do anything else not essential to their jobs. Similarly, nonessential activities might be prohibited during certain phases of medical practice, which would depend on the practice (incision during surgery, for example.)

First-names only rule. Regardless of rank or seniority, cockpit personnel address each other by their first names in order to “flatten the social hierarchy” and “foster a culture in which colleagues feel more comfortable questioning one another,” the authors write. Doing the same for surgical or medical teams might promote a similar culture, though the issue is made “complex” by the fact that patients prefer “formality” in their relationships with their doctors.

These examples, much like the surgical checklist, stand out for being common sensical and one would imagine, relatively easy to implement.

Anyone involved in a moderately complex task should be able to relate to the benefit of a “no chatter zone” during the portions of the task which require greater concentration or present greater risk or more dire ramifications. Much of what I do on any given day, because I do it so often, is largely rote. But some moments are crucial; it helps to then not be listening to a co-worker recount the latest misadventure involving cute children, a puppy and some potato salad.

The First-names only rule is perhaps a bit more attenuated, but perhaps even more important. People make mistakes; it is crucial that one has colleagues or friends willing to point them out. The failure to be informed of one’s own errors can have critical impact. History and literature are filled with examples. Think of King Lear and his Fool–someone at court able to tell the King the truth– lest the ruler find himself, like that other famously fabled King, parading through town without clothes. A more modern, and real, example is President Kennedy, his Cabinet and the Bay of Pigs fiasco–a room full of men who thought better but engaged in “groupthink” to the point that they ultimately functioned as rubber stamp sycophants to the President– keeping their misgivings to themselves. After the disaster which was the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy removed himself from Cabinet meetings to allow his counsel to do just that. And for the boxing afficianado (boxing is not sport so much as life distilled– Classical Tragedy, with only the how and when to be resolved) it is an oft repeated tale in which after years of hard and driven work with a dedicated trainer a new Champion with new money is found by new friends–or “hangers-on” as they are most often called in the trade. These omnipresent “friends” with no visible means of support beyond the boxer tend to say things like “You’re right Champ” and  ”You’re the Champion Of The Entire World! You don’t have to train if you don’t want to.” The results are often brutal in their reckoning. Ask Mike Tyson.

But in a more recent article, “Report: Communication Breakdowns Lead to Hospital Errors,” the Wall Street Journal gives us other cause for concern–more concrete, more direct to the topic at hand. The Journal writes:

According to a two-pronged survey of operating-room and critical-care nurses conducted by their professional associations and VitalSmarts, a global training and consulting firm, 85% of 2,383 nurses surveyed said they’d been in a situation where measures put in place to reduce errors -  including checklists or hand-off protocols – warned them of a problem that would have otherwise harmed a patient.

That’s the good news. The bad is that 58% of the nurses said they’d been in situations where it was “either unsafe to speak up or they were unable to get others to listen.”

The report focuses on what causes this type of communication breakdown, including three concerns that are rarely discussed by health-care teams: dangerous shortcuts, incompetence and disrespect. Among respondents to a separate survey of 4,235 nurses, 84% reported working with people who take potentially dangerous shortcuts, such as not washing hands for long enough, with 34% saying shortcuts had led to near misses and 26% saying they caused harm to patients. Some 19% say incompetence or lack of required skills have harmed patients and 20% say that disrespect is making them seriously consider leaving their profession.

Despite all this, concerns “are often left undiscussed,” the report says.

This Film is Rated “R” for… Smoking?

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reported on several anti-smoking groups waging a campaign against Rango, a Paramount Pictures animation about animal characters in a Wild West town.  In one scene, a character swallows a cigar and burps fire into the face of another character.  Seemingly harmless fun in the world of animation, right?  Well, not everyone thinks so… and the burping fire and possible physical scarring isn’t the issue here.

Smoke Free Movies, the American Legacy Foundation, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and the American Academy for Pediatrics have rallied against the portrayal of smoking in Rango and other films marketed to children.  (SceneSmoking provides a tally of the number of “smoking incidents” – over 50 – in Rango.)  The groups maintain that exposing children to smoking on the silver screen leads to smoking in real life; thus, such films should have an R-rating.  Rango is rated PG “for rude humor, language, action, and smoking.”

In response to the release of Rango, Cheryl Healton, CEO of the American Legacy Foundation, stated that

[t]he public health community has made great progress in making every studio aware of the harm to America’s youth when they release films with smoking and animated films are no exception….  Even the cartoon Joe Camel has long been barred from reaching children to sell cigarettes. So it is a mystery why Hollywood’s masters of storytelling and visual effects have not found a better way to depict their characters without the danger of influencing young people to light up.

Similarly, Smoke Free Movies took out a one-page advert in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter criticizing Paramount Pictures and the film industry for the depiction of tobacco use in Oscar-nominated films and citing National Cancer Institute research connecting silver screen exposure to an increased likelihood of real-life smoking.  Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California-San Francisco (and head of Smoke Free Movies), said “[a] lot of kids are going to start smoking because of this movie.”  On the other side, Virginia Lam, a Paramount Pictures spokeswoman, replied that “[t]he images of smoking in the film, which primarily involves the animals, are portrayed by supporting characters and are not intended to be celebrated or emulated. Rango [the title character] is never depicted as smoking.”

So are these anti-smoking groups overreacting or must the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) reevaluate its ratings system?  In August 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report printed some research that found “[e]xposure to onscreen smoking in movies increases the probability that youths will start smoking.  Youths who are heavily exposed to onscreen smoking are approximately two to three times more likely to begin smoking than youths who are lightly exposed.”  (Note Prof. Glantz contributed to that report.)  USAToday has reported that “[o]f more than 2,500 movies rated from May 2007 to May 2010, nearly three-fourths of those that depicted smoking were rated R, and instances of smoking in films not rated R have declined” though this is not enough for the anti-smoking groups.

So what is the difference between a PG-rated film and an R-rated film?  According to the MPAA, a PG-rated film requires

investigat[ion] by parents before they let their younger children attend.  The PG rating indicates… that parents may consider some material unsuitable for their children, and parents should make that decision.  The more mature themes in some PG-rated motion pictures may call for parental guidance.  There may be some profanity and some depictions of violence or brief nudity.  But these elements are not deemed so intense as to require that parents be strongly cautioned beyond the suggestion of parental guidance.  There is no drug use content in a PG-rated motion picture.

(Emphasis added.)  On the other hand, an R-rated film will

contain some adult material.  An R-rated motion picture may include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements, so that parents are counseled to take this rating very seriously.  Children under 17 are not allowed to attend R-rated motion pictures unaccompanied by a parent or adult guardian. Parents are strongly urged to find out more about R-rated motion pictures in determining their suitability for their children.  Generally, it is not appropriate for parents to bring their young children with them to R-rated motion pictures.

(Emphasis added.)  Elizabeth Kaltman, a spokeswoman for the MPAA, told TheWrap that

underage smoking has always factored into movie ratings, but as of May 2007, all smoking is included as a ratings factor, along with language, nudity and other adult content. Kaltman adds that movies depicting smoking in a fantastical rather than realistic manner are more likely to receive slack on the ratings front.

As for Smoke Free Movies’ suggestion that smoking and the PG rating don’t mix? Kaltman notes that the purpose of the ratings system is to provide parents with information, not to service activists.

People younger than 18 years can’t buy cigarettes.  Tobacco companies should not target children and teenagers.  Should the same rules apply to tobacco use in films?  How much responsibility should be imposed on the MPAA (whose rating system has been called into question by This Film Is Not Yet Rated and others) and how much responsibility should rest with parents who can choose not to take their children to a film with smoking in it?  What about re-runs of television shows from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s which show people smoking?  Should Popeye, Maxwell Smart, and Lieutenant Columbo lose their pipe, cigarette, and cigar?  As a kid, I saw re-runs of shows with these characters and I didn’t become a smoker.  Should such shows be banned from television all-together so children aren’t exposed to smoking or only aired after 9pm to limit the chance of exposure?  Where and when do we draw the line?

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