From the Open Season advice front, here are recent articles from FedSmith and Govexec .
From Capitol Hill, FedWeek reports that last Wednesday Nov. 3
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has approved:
HR-2662, to give agency IGs authority to subpoena former federal employees; require an administration to provide a “substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons” prior to removing an IG; limit the use of administrative leave for IGs, including during the 30 days following the removal announcement; require acting IGs to be selected from among senior-level employees within the watchdog community; and require regular training to IG employees on their whistleblower rights.
The House already has passed the HR 2662. The Senate Committee amended the House bill before voting to sending the “favorable” substitute bill to the Senate floor for a vote.
From the Delta variant front Medscape informs us that
Pfizer and its European partner BioNTech have asked the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand emergency authorization of its COVID vaccine to allow everybody 18 and older to get a booster dose.
If it goes through, the broader use of Pfizer boosters would be a step toward President Joe Biden’s goal of boosters for all adults. He announced the goal last August but backed off to let the regulatory process by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) play out.
Pfizer is submitting a study of booster effects on 10,000 people to make its case, according to a company news release.
This would be Pfizer’s second bite at the FDA apple for this approach to its booster.
Govexec informs us from the Delta variant vaccine mandate front that
VA Secretary Denis McDonough spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday afternoon, which came after the October 8 deadline for health care employees to get vaccinated but before the November 22 deadline for the rest of the federal workforce.
“We’re still getting all of our data together,” he said. As of this morning, about 91% of the health care professionals at VA “have uploaded their data,” which could be proof of vaccination or requests for one of the exemptions. This is up from about 70% about two and a half weeks ago.
“We’re not going to question the legitimacy of anyone’s individual declaration of a religious exception,” McDonough said. However, “we may find ourselves in a situation where, for example, in an oncology department or in a spinal cord injury facility or in an intensive care unit…or community living center[s], we may have so many people who have claimed a religious exemption that we can’t safely provide care to our veterans in those vulnerable situations, in which case we reserve the right to deny religious exemptions.”
Fedweek cautions that “Both supporters and opponents of the Coronavirus vaccine mandate expect it to increase turnover among federal employees, although it is hard to say how large that increase will be and how much of it will be involuntary versus voluntary.”
From the No Surprises Act (NSA) front, the FEHBlog noticed that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has created a public NSA website. Posted on the site is an October 25, 2021, CMS letter announcing required federal government website and contact information to be included in the consumer notice about the NSA and other NSA related documents.
Website: https://www.cms.gov/nosurprises/consumers. Note, consumer and provider functionality for complaints inquiry and triage will not be operational until January 2022.
Phone number for information and complaints: 1-800-985-3059.
We ask regulated entities not to include the above phone number in any plan documents for any plan or policy years that begin before January 1, 2022.
In other healthcare news
Per Fierce Healthcare, here are the 10 most cost-efficient hospitals in the U.S., according to the Lown Institute:
- Pinnacle Hospital (Crown Point, Indiana)
- Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center (Reno, Nevada)
- Mercy Medical Center Dubuque (Dubuque, Iowa)
- Encino Hospital Medical Center (Encino, California)
- Park Ridge Health (Hendersonville, North Carolina)
- Oroville Hospital (Oroville, California)
- Saint Michael’s Medical Center (Newark, New Jersey)
- UnityPoint Health – Meriter (Madison, Wisconsin)
- East Liverpool City Hospital (East Liverpool, Ohio)
- Maple Grove Hospital (Maple Grove, Minnesota)
“Overall, if all hospitals performed as well as the most cost-efficient hospitals, Medicare would save $8 billion each year.”
Healthcare Dive informs us that
Nonprofit health giant Kaiser Permanente’s operating margin continued to shrink in the third quarter as expenses grew faster than revenue, spurred by labor unrest and surging COVID-19 patients, the Oakland, California-based integrated health system said.
Kaiser reported $38 million in operating income in the quarter, on $23.2 billion in revenue. That’s a 0.2% operating margin — exceedingly low compared to a margin of 2.1% same time last year.
The 39-hospital system’s expenses in the third quarter grew 7.5% year over year to $23.1 billion, while revenue only increased 5.5%. Kaiser said the expense growth was due to higher costs from COVID-19 patients and workforce requirements, as — like other hospital operators — Kaiser has had to pay more for travel nurses and other contract labor to meet rising patient levels during the pandemic.