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Monday, January 13, 2003
Taft Signs Caps Bill
Gov. Bob Taft last week signed legislation to cap non-economic medical malpractice damages to amounts ranging between $350,000 and $1 million depending on the severity of the injury. Senate Bill 281, which takes effect 90 days following the governor’s signature, also requires judicial approval for high fees for personal injury lawyers, among other things.

The legislation is aimed at stabilizing the medical malpractice market in the long-term. Providers are not expected to see reduced liability insurance rates immediately. OHA will continue working to address remaining concerns with Ohio’s medical malpractice market, including finding relief for providers from high medical liability rates in the short-term. Watch for an OHA bulletin to outline the specifics of the legislation. (Bridget Gargan, bridgetg@ohanet.org)

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(Editor’s note: The news clips are being password-protected on the OHA Web site. OHA members will be notified separately of the password. HEALTH e-NEWS Plus subscribers can still access news clips through the daily e-mail without a password.)

Tuesday, January 14, 2003
New Fire Safety Code Adopted
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has adopted an updated fire safety code for inpatient facilities that care for Medicare beneficiaries. The updated code will ease a regulatory burden for health care providers while ensuring the health and safety of patients and staff. According to CMS, the old rule was outdated and created additional confusion and work for providers. The 2000 edition of the National Fire Protection Association’s Life Safety Code (LSC) continues to allow waivers to be granted on a case-by-case basis if specific provisions of the LSC would lead to unreasonable hardship on the provider, and if the safety of the patients would not be compromised.

Although CMS will not begin enforcement of the updated rule until Sept. 11 this year, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations will enforce the new code beginning March 1. The final rule was published Jan. 10 in the Federal Register, online at www.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aces140.html. For more, see a CMS news release at www.cms.gov/media/press/current_pr.asp. (Rosalie Weakland, rosaliew@ohanet.org)

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Wednesday, January 15 , 2003
JAMA Study Shows Quality Improvement for Seniors
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) yesterday released a study tracking national and state changes in performance on 22 quality indicators for care of Medicare beneficiaries. The report compares 2001 data to 1998 baseline data published in JAMA in November 2000.

Nationally, performance improved on 20 of 22 clinical quality indicators, including administration of aspirin after heart attack, regular testing for diabetes, and mammogram screening for breast cancer. Ohio made improvements in several areas such as a 23 percent improvement in lipid profiles for diabetes, a 5 percent improvement in mammography for breast cancer and a 10 percent improvement in providing the correct antibiotic for pneumonia patients. However, Ohio’s overall state ranking fell from 33 to 38, which is partly correlated to decreases in areas related to treatment of heart attack patients.

Ohio hospitals have made gains in care to cardiac patients since 2001. OHA is sharing the Dayton model - which reduced mortality of heart attack patients by 36 percent - with hospitals throughout Ohio to help improve heart attack treatment. The work of Dayton hospitals in this area was recently honored with the Codman Award of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The full report is available at http://jama.ama-assn.org/. (David Engler, davide@ohanet.org)

ODH Proposes Changes to X-Ray Rules
The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) has proposed revisions to several regulations that govern radiation-generating equipment. Among the proposed changes is a narrowing of training requirements for those people who are marginally involved in cardiac catheterization labs. The full text of this draft rule (3701:1-66-07) is available at www.odh.state.oh.us/Rules/rulesdraft.html.

A second proposed change (3701:1-66-04) would require that a hospital’s senior administrator, or a person empowered to make facility-wide policy and financial decision on radiation-generating equipment, attend radiation quality assurance committee meetings. The draft regulation would also prohibit the use of a designee of such an administrator. ODH invites comments on these changes until Jan. 31, and the Radiation Generating Equipment Committee will review these comments at its February meeting. (Rick Sites, ricks@ohanet.org)

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Thursday, January 16, 2003
Workers’ Comp Helping Employers Cost-Cut
The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) is holding the 2003 Public Employer Summit to help employers lower workers’ compensation costs and create a safer workplace. The series of four free meetings is scheduled from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. on the following days: Cambridge, Jan. 27; Canton, Jan. 28; Mansfield, Jan. 29; and Wilmington, Jan. 30. For more information or to register, visit www.ohiobwc.com and choose the Ohio employers page, or call 1-800-OHIOBWC, press 22, then 3. (Marilyn Steitz, marilyns@ohanet.org)

Free Disaster Planning Seminars Available
Hospitals are invited to send up to five representatives to one of 28 locations around the state to learn about the Hospital Emergency Incident Command System, which offers hospitals a common communication language with each other and outside disaster organizations in the event of a crisis. The train-the-trainers seminars, targeting safety officers, security personnel, facilities management representatives and others with responsibility for disaster preparedness, run through May. There is no registration fee, but pre-registration is required. For more information or to register for the program, visit www.ohanet.org/terrorism_preparedness/heics/. (Carol Jacobson, carolj@ohanet.org)

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(Editor’s note: StateHealthClips.com has gone to a subscription service. Please note that the link to access clips will change daily. If you visit www.statehealthclips.com, you will be required to enter a subscriber password. No password is required for the link published in HEALTH e-NEWS Plus.)

Friday, January 17, 2003
Hospital Spending Jumps as Consumers Increase Demands
The U.S. health care budget made a record jump in 2001, prompted in part by increases in hospital spending across the country. The U.S. government’s annual report on health care spending showed an 8.7 percent increase from $1.3 trillion in 2000 to $1.4 trillion in 2001, the fastest growth in the past decade.

Hospital spending accounted for 30 percent of the total, making it the largest single contributor, but prescription drug spending continued to outpace all other sectors, increasing by 15.7 percent. Public funding for health care followed the same pattern, with Medicaid and Medicare swelling by 10.8 percent and 7.8 percent respectively. Medicaid growth was at its fastest rate since 1993.

Within the burgeoning hospital spending, the largest contributing factor was an increase in use of services-more consumers are using hospitals more often. Admissions to Ohio hospitals increased in 2000 for the first time in more than a decade. In 2001, this figure grew by an additional 2.5 percent and the trend can be expected to continue as the baby boomer population ages and Ohio’s overall population grows. The average length of inpatient stay has continued to decrease and the number of outpatient visits maintains steady growth.

The 2001 national health spending report appears in the January/February 2003 issue of Health Affairs. For more information, see the January issue of OHA HealthBeat at www.ohanet.org/healthbeat/2003/healthbeat0103.htm.

Medicare PPS Wage and Salary Data Mailed
Hospitals only have until Feb. 10 to submit corrections to their fiscal year 2000 Medicare Cost Report wage and salary data that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will use to calculate area wage indexes for the 2004 Medicare inpatient and outpatient prospective payment systems (PPS). OHA mailed hospital-specific, wage and salary data to member chief financial officers this week. Corrections must be submitted to AdminaStar Federal audit managers with supporting documentation by Feb. 10. Additional information is available from CMS Program Memorandum A-02-094 at www.cms.hhs.gov/manuals/pm_trans/A02094.pdf.

PPS wage indexes are used to adjust Medicare payments for local differences in the cost of labor. Since 1993 CMS has based them on wage and salary data taken from the most recently available Medicare cost reports, and for federal fiscal year 2004, which starts Oct. 1, CMS is using data from 2000.

Ensuring the figures are correct is a vital job for every hospital because Medicare PPS wage indexes are based on information from all hospitals within the boundaries of each metropolitan statistical area (MSA) or statewide rural area. If any hospital’s data is wrong, it can affect the payments of every hospital in its MSA. (Charles Cataline, charlesc@ohanet.org)

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