News & Updates

In cooperation with the American Ambulance Association, we and others have created a running compilation of local and national news stories relating to EMS delivery. Since January, 2021, over 1,800 news reports have been chronicled, with 49% highlighting the EMS staffing crisis, and 34% highlighting the funding crisis. Combined reports of staffing and/or funding account for 83% of the media reports! 96 reports cite EMS system closures/agencies departing communities, and 95% of the news articles reference staffing challenges, funding issues and response times.


Click below for an up to date list of these news stories, with links to the source documents.

Media Log as of 3-27-24 READ Only.xlsx

  • 27 Nov 2017 6:00 PM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    Texas Health Aetna, a joint venture between Texas Health Resources and Aetna, has launched a new app aimed at providing patients with more immediate, virtual emergency care.

    Emergency physicians are often at the “front line of an undesirable healthcare experience” for many patients, so it was to the benefit of both physicians at Texas Health Resources’ 24 Dallas-Fort Worth-area hospitals and Texas Health Aetna members to develop the Texas Health Aetna ER Doc app, said Genevieve D. Caruncho-Simpson, chief operating officer at Texas Health Aetna, in an interview with FierceHealthcare.

    “To change healthcare there needs to be a recognition that there needs to be better local healthcare solutions,” Caruncho-Simpson said. “Healthcare is fundamentally a local market.”

    Patients with the app can text, send photos or video chat with an emergency doctor and are guaranteed a response within three minutes, she said. Most (90%) of patients’ needs can be resolved in these conversations.

    When patients do need to see a doctor in person, the app helps coordinate the appointment with doctors in the ER at Texas Health Resources hospitals.

    A transcript of the virtual visit will be sent to the patient’s primary care provider, and the clinicians working with the app can schedule same-day or next-day followups with primary care providers, Caruncho-Simpson said.

    The independent doctors working with the app are on staff at Texas Health Resources facilities and in its emergency departments, but when they’re on-call for the ER Doc app, that will be their only focus.

    Patients can use the app 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there are no copays for a consult.

    Caruncho-Simpson said patients so far have been surprised that they could have this type of care experience, but those that try it tend to become regular users.

    “It’s a bit of a paradigm shift for many of our consumers,” she said.

    A number of hospitals and health systems are turning to telemedicine to reduce emergency room overcrowding and wait times.

    Baptist Health South Florida, for instance, offers “tele-triage,” which allows patients to connect with doctors through video conferences to move them through emergency care more quickly. Predictive analytics can provide a guide for future usage trends that allows providers to develop more effective strategies.

    Original article can be accessed here.

  • 27 Nov 2017 7:00 AM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    An ambulance crew transporting a terminally ill woman to a local hospital on Australia’s east coast last week took a small diversion to a nearby beach after the woman said she wanted to see the ocean, perhaps for the last time.

    “Tears were shed and the patient felt very happy,” the Queensland Ambulance Service said.

    The caption appeared beneath a photo on Facebook showing the woman on a gurney, with paramedic Graeme Cooper at her side, overlooking Hervey Bay from a small beachside bluff on Wednesday.

    Cooper told reporters the patient was on “her last journey back to (palliative care) where she was going basically to pass away,” news.com.au reported Thursday. “We popped her up on the hill where she could see the pier and Fraser Island and right through to Point Burrum and she was ecstatic with it all.”

    Cooper, who got permission for the side trip from his superiors, said if it hadn’t been such a rocky coastline he would have taken the patient right down to the water.

    “I thought the next best thing was I can get some ocean and bring it to her,” Cooper said. “She actually tasted the salt water.”

    Danielle Kellan, who took the photo of the poignant scene, said she asked the elderly woman what she was thinking as she looked over the incoming waves at Hervey Bay.

    “She said, ‘I’m at peace, everything is right.'” Kellan said, according to news.com.au.

  • 22 Nov 2017 3:09 PM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    What would Americans do if federal law compromised how and how quickly paramedics can treat them or their child in a medical emergency? Thanks to an increasingly outspoken group of emergency physicians and bipartisan congressional collaboration, the bill that today became law ensures that they will never have to find out.

    Yet this victory is just the first step in upending long-enduring misconceptions of emergency medical service’s (EMS) role, which hampers patient care quality and raises emergency medical treatment costs nation-wide.

    The ability of EMS providers, such as paramedics, to provide rapid medical care relies on a combination of training and “standing orders,” which allow them to immediately perform certain procedures without waiting for a physician director’s permission. Any such delay in care can make a critical difference in the patient’s survival and suffering – but this exact delay nearly became law.

    A few years ago, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) began deliberations on an unenforced provision of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which required a physician-written prescription to administer controlled substances. Despite intervention led by the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) and allied stakeholders, the DEA proceeded with the intention to criminalize EMS administration of certain life-saving standing orders.

    If this does not seem terribly frightening, consider what this would mean for patients. For example, a three-year-old girl having a seizure would be deprived of medication until paramedics got a physician on the radio or phone and then detailed her information or worse, until she arrived at the hospital – all while the seizure continues. Or consider a 50-year-old man with a mangled leg from a car accident, unable to receive pain medication as he is excruciatingly pried from his vehicle and transported to a distant trauma center.

    The passage of the Protecting Patient Access to Emergency Medications Act means this tragic scenario will not come to pass. Guided by NAEMSP, the law does exactly what its name professes: protect every patient’s timely access to life-saving emergency medications. For that, and the years of determined advocacy and support from the EMS industry and congressional supporters, all of us are grateful.

    But this narrowly-avoided crisis is just one consequence of a major, unresolved problem harming patient care quality and raising emergency medical care costs: the government’s fundamental failure to recognize EMS as a critical part of the U.S. healthcare system.

    Immediate medical intervention for emergencies is a public expectation, but we only need to go back half a century to find a time when this was not the case. Fifty years ago, ambulances were simply a mode of transportation to the hospital, devoid of medical professionals capable of providing life-saving treatment. EMS has since matured into the nation’s front line of healthcare, but it’s not reflected in the laws governing it. Some of these laws exacerbate patient costs, shortchange the value of paramedics’ work, and stunt the advancement and even threaten the efficacy of this system of care. Few realize that Medicare reimburses EMS as if it were a taxi: by the miles traveled, not the care received, and only if transport to a health care facility takes place. This not only fails to recognize EMS as a provider of health care, but also incentivizes transport to hospital emergency departments – whether or not it’s the most appropriate facility.

    We hope that the quiet passage of this important bill is the beginning of a change in how the government recognizes and utilizes EMS. In an era of unsustainable growth in health care expenditures and ever-more crowded emergency departments, we must put the needs of patients first with high-value, low-harm care. EMS is eager to be part of the solution through initiatives such as mobile integrated healthcare, which could treat patients in their home or take them directly to the most appropriate facility for each patient’s needs. Indeed, the industry is already making advancements through small initiatives led by dedicated individuals and organizations, such as NAEMSP. But in order to sustain these efforts and build a better system of care for all Americans, the federal government’s understanding of EMS and its reimbursement structure must modernize to recognize EMS’ contribution to the health and prosperity of the communities they serve, as well as to give patients the medical care they need and deserve.

    The brave and highly-trained first responders who make up EMS and America’s front line of health care have pledged to help us in our most vulnerable moments. It’s time all of our laws and health care systems reflect their place in the health care continuum, so they can help build a better system and continue to keep this pledge, as they did today.

    Dr. Sahni is the Medical Director of the Lake Oswego Fire Department, Clackamas County EMS, and Washington County EMS, and is NAEMSP’s Advocacy Committee Chair and Past-President. Dr. Dorsett is a Senior Clinical Instructor of Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medicine and EMS Physician at the University of Rochester Medical Center and a member of the National Association of EMS Physicians. Dr. Moy is Medical Director for ARCH/Air Methods Helicopter EMS system in Missouri, Assistant Medical Director for Christian Northeast, Assistant Medical Director of Saint Louis Fire Department, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Washington University Saint Louis, and the Communications Committee Chair for NAEMSP.

  • 21 Nov 2017 3:07 PM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    One patient got a $3,600 bill for a 4-mile ride. Another was charged $8,460 for a trip from one California hospital that could not handle his case to a facility that could. Still another found herself marooned at an out-of-network hospital, where she’d been taken by ambulance without her consent.

    These patients all took ambulances in emergencies and got slammed with unexpected bills. Public outrage has erupted over surprise medical bills — generally out-of-network charges that a patient did not expect or could not control — prompting California and 20 other states to pass laws protecting consumers in some situations. But these laws largely ignore ground ambulance rides, which can leave patients stuck with hundreds or even thousands of dollars in bills, with few options for recourse, finds a Kaiser Health News review of 350 consumer complaints in 32 states.

    Patients choose to go to the doctor or a hospital, but they are vulnerable when they call 911 — or get into an ambulance. The dispatcher picks the ambulance crew, which, in turn, often picks the hospital. Moreover, many ambulances are not summoned by patients. Instead, the crew arrives at the scene having heard about an accident on a scanner, or because police or a bystander called 911.

    Betsy Imholz, special projects director at the Consumers Union, which has collected over 700 patient stories about surprise medical bills, said at least a quarter concern ambulances.

    “It’s a huge problem,” she said.

    Forty years ago, most ambulances were free for patients, provided by volunteers or town fire departments using taxpayer money, said Jay Fitch, president of Fitch & Associates, an emergency services consulting firm. Today, ambulances are increasingly run by private companies and venture capital firms. Ambulance providers now often charge by the mile and sometimes for each “service,” like providing oxygen. If the ambulance is staffed by paramedics rather than emergency medical technicians, that will result in a higher charge — even if the patient didn’t need paramedic-level services. Charges range widely from zero to thousands of dollars, depending on billing practices.

    The core of the problem is that ambulance and private insurance companies often can’t agree on a fair price, so the ambulance service doesn’t join the insurance network. That leaves patients stuck in the middle with out-of-network charges that are not negotiated, Imholz said.

    This happens to patients frequently, according to one recent study of over half a million ambulance trips taken by patients with private insurance in 2014. The study found that 26 percent of these trips were billed on an out-of-network basis.

    That figure is “quite jarring,” said Loren Adler, associate director for the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative and co-author of recent research on surprise billing.

    The KHN review of complaints revealed two common scenarios leaving patients in debt: First, patients get in an ambulance after a 911 call. Second, an ambulance transfers them between hospitals. In both scenarios, patients later learn the fee is much higher because the ambulance was out-of-network, and after their insurer pays what it deems fair, they get a surprise bill for the balance, also known as a “balance bill.”

    The Better Business Bureau has received nearly 1,200 consumer complaints about ambulances in the past three years; half were related to billing, and 46 mentioned out-of-network charges, spokeswoman Katherine Hutt said.
    While the federal government sets reimbursement rates for patients on Medicare and Medicaid, it does not regulate ambulance fees for patients with private insurance. In the absence of federal rules, those patients are left with a fragmented system in which the cost of a similar ambulance ride can vary widely from town to town. There are about 14,000 ambulance services across the country, run by governments, volunteers, hospitals and private companies, according to the American Ambulance Association.

    For a glimpse into the unpredictable, fragmented system, consider the case of Roman Barshay. The 46-year-old software engineer, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., was visiting friends in the Boston suburb of Chestnut Hill last November when he took a nasty fall.

    Barshay felt a sharp pain in his chest and back and had trouble walking. An ambulance crew responded to a 911 call at the house and drove him 4 miles to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, taking his blood pressure as he lay down in the back. Doctors there determined he had sprained tendons and ligaments and a bruised foot, and released him after about four hours, he said.

    After Barshay returned to Brooklyn, he got a bill totaling $3,660 — which is $915 for each mile of the ambulance ride. His insurance had paid nearly half, leaving him to pay the remaining $1,890.50.

    “I thought it was a mistake,” Barshay said.

    But Fallon Ambulance Service, a private company, was out-of-network for his UnitedHealthcare insurance plan.

    “The cost is outrageous,” said Barshay, who reluctantly paid his nearly $2,000 of the bill after Fallon sent it to a collection agency. If he had known what the ride would cost, he said, he would at least have been able to refuse and “crawl to the hospital myself.”

    “You feel horribly to send a patient a bill like that,” said Peter Racicot, senior vice president of Fallon, a family-owned company based outside Boston.

    But ambulance companies are “severely underfunded” by Medicare and Medicaid, Racicot said, so Fallon must balance the books by charging higher rates for patients with private insurance.

    Racicot said his company has not contracted with Barshay’s insurer because they couldn’t agree on a fair rate. When insurers and ambulance companies can’t agree, he said, “unfortunately, the subscribers wind up in the middle.”

    It’s also unrealistic to expect EMTs and paramedics at the scene of an emergency to determine whether the company takes a patient’s insurance, Racicot added.

    Ambulance services have to charge higher rates for patients they transport because the crews must be ready around-the-clock even if no calls come in, said Fitch, the ambulance consultant. When ambulance crews drive out to a call, a third of the time they end up not transporting any patients and typically aren’t reimbursed for the trip, he added.

    In part, Barshay had bad luck. If the accident had happened just a mile away inside Boston city limits, he could have ridden a city ambulance, which would have charged $1,490 instead of $3,660, according to Boston EMS. That’s still “a huge bill,” said Imholz of Consumers Union.

    There is little protection for consumers: Very few states have laws limiting ambulance charges, and most state laws that protect patients from surprise billing do not apply to ground ambulance rides, according to attorney Brian Werfel, consultant to the American Ambulance Association. And none of the state surprise-billing protections applies to people with self-funded employer-sponsored health insurance plans, which are regulated only by federal law. That’s a huge exception: Sixty-one percent of privately insured employees are covered by self-funded employer-sponsored plans.

    Some towns that hire private companies to respond to 911 calls may regulate fees or prohibit balance billing, Werfel said, but each locality is different.

    Insurance companies try to protect patients from balance billing by negotiating rates with ambulance companies, said Cathryn Donaldson, spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans. But “some ambulance companies have been resistant to join plan networks” when insurance companies offer Medicare-based rates, she said.

    Medicare rates vary widely by geographic area. On average, ambulance services make a small profit on Medicare payments, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. If a patient uses a basic life support ambulance in an emergency, in an urban area, for instance, Medicare payments range from $324 to $453, plus $7.29 per mile. Medicaid rates tend to be significantly lower.

    There’s evidence of “waste and fraud” in the ambulance industry, Donaldson added, citing a 2015 study from the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The report concluded Medicare paid over $50 million in improper ambulance bills, including for supposedly emergency-level transport that ended at a nursing home, not a hospital. One in 5 ambulance services had “questionable billing practices,” the report found.

    Most cases reviewed by Kaiser Health News did not appear to involve fraudulent charges. Instead, patients got caught in a system in which ambulance services can legally charge thousands of dollars for a single trip — even when the trip starts at an in-network hospital.

    That’s what happened to Devin Hall, a 67-year-old retired postal inspector in Northern California. While he faces stage 3 prostate cancer, Hall is also fighting a $7,109.70 out-of-network ambulance bill from American Medical Response, the nation’s largest ambulance provider.

    On Dec. 27, 2016, Hall went to a local hospital with rectal bleeding. Since the hospital didn’t have the right specialist to treat his symptoms, it arranged for an ambulance ride to another hospital about 20 miles away. Even though the hospital was in-network, the ambulance was not.

    Hall was stunned to see that AMR billed $8,460 for the trip. His federal health plan, the Special Agents Mutual Benefit Association, paid $1,350.30 and held Hall responsible for $727.08, records show. The health plan paid that amount because AMR’s charges exceeded its Medicare-based fee schedule, according to its explanation of benefits. But AMR turned over his case to a debt collector, Credence Resource Management, which sent an Aug. 25 notice seeking the full balance of $7,109.70.

    “These charges are exorbitant — I just don’t think what AMR is doing is right,” said Hall, noting that he had intentionally sought treatment at an in-network hospital.

    He has spent months on the phone calling the hospital, his insurer and AMR trying to resolve the matter. Given his prognosis, he worries about leaving his wife with a legal fight and a lien on their Brentwood, Calif., house for a debt they shouldn’t owe.

    After being contacted by Kaiser Health News, AMR said it has pulled Hall’s case from collections while it reviews the billing. After further review, company spokesman Jason Sorrick said the charges were warranted because it was a “critical care transport, which requires a specialized nurse and equipment on board.”

    Sorrick faulted Hall’s health plan for underpaying, and said Hall could receive a discount if he qualifies for AMR’s “compassionate care program” based on his financial and medical situation.

    “In this case, it appears the patient’s insurance company simply made up a price they wanted to pay,” Sorrick said.

    In July, a California law went into effect that protects consumers from surprise medical bills from out-of-network providers. That means if a patient goes to an in-network hospital, then takes an out-of-network ambulance to transfer facilities, the law could limit the patient’s bill to in-network rates. But Hall’s case occurred before that law took effect, and the state law doesn’t apply to his federal insurance plan.

    The consumer complaints reviewed by Kaiser Health News reveal a wide variety of ways that patients are left fighting big bills:
    • An older patient in California said debt collectors called incessantly, on Sunday mornings and at night, demanding an extra $500 on top of the $1,000 that his insurance had paid for an ambulance trip.
    • Two ambulance services responded to a New Jersey man’s 911 call when he felt burning in his chest. The private ambulance company charged him $2,100 for treating him on the scene for less than 30 minutes — even though he never rode in that company’s ambulance.
    • A woman who rolled over in her Jeep in Texas received a bill for a $26,400 “trauma activation fee” — a fee triggered when the ambulance service called ahead to the emergency department to assemble a trauma team. The woman, who did not require trauma care, fought the hospital to get the fee waived.

    In other cases, patients face financial hardship when ambulances take them to out-of-network hospitals. Patients don’t always have a choice in where to seek care; that’s up to the ambulance crew and depends on the protocols written by the medical director of each ambulance service, said Werfel, the ambulance association consultant.

    Sarah Wilson, a 36-year-old microbiologist, had a seizure at her grandmother’s house in rural Ohio on March 18, 2016, the day after having hip surgery at Akron City Hospital. When her husband called 911, the private ambulance crew that responded refused to take her back to Akron City Hospital, instead driving her to an out-of-network hospital that was 22 miles closer. Wilson refused care because the hospital was out-of-network, she said. Wilson wanted to leave. But “I was literally trapped in my stretcher,” without the crutches she needed to walk, she said. Her husband, who had followed by car, wasn’t allowed to see her right away. She ended up leaving against medical advice at 4 a.m. She landed in collections for a $202 hospital bill for a medical examination, which damaged her credit score, she said.

    Ken Joseph, chief paramedic of Emergency Medical Transport Inc., the private ambulance company that transported Wilson, said company protocol is to take patients to the “closest appropriate facility.” Serving a wide rural area with just two ambulances, the company has to get each ambulance back to its station quickly so it can be ready for the next call, he said.

    Patients like Wilson are often left to battle these bills alone, because there are no federal protections for patients with private insurance.

    Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who has been pushing for federal legislation protecting patients from surprise hospital bills, said in a statement that he supports doing the same for ambulance bills.

    Meanwhile, patients do have the right to refuse an ambulance ride, as long as they are over 18 and mentally capable.

    “You could just take an Uber,” said Adler, of the Schaeffer Initiative. But if you need an ambulance, there’s little recourse to avoid surprise bills, he said, “other than yelling at the insurance company after the fact, or yelling at the ambulance company.”

    California Healthline correspondent Chad Terhune contributed to this report.
    This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

  • 21 Nov 2017 8:00 AM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    A shrinking taxpayer base, swelling beneficiary numbers and growing healthcare costs all threaten Medicare’s long-term viability, according to the HHS, and the agency warned the program would need to increase its revenue or drastically reduce benefits to balance its budget.

    In a wide-ranging report issued last week, HHS said the Medicare trust fund “is not projected to be sustainable over the long term with the projected tax rates and expenditure levels.”

    The agency estimates that the ratio of workers paying taxes to beneficiaries eligible for Medicare will drop from 3:1 in 2016 to 2:1 by 2091. In addition, healthcare costs continue to rise faster than the taxable wages used to support the program. The shortfall is expected to equal $3.3 trillion over the next 75 years.

    The CMS would need to significantly increase its revenue or reduce Medicare benefits to balance its budget, HHS said.

    While providers have made an effort to move to value-based care and decrease Medicare spending, the move isn’t happening fast enough, according to the agency.

    “It is conceivable that providers could improve their productivity, reduce wasteful expenditures and take other steps to keep their cost growth within the bounds imposed by the Medicare price limitations,” HHS said. “For such efforts to be successful in the long range, however, providers would have to generate and sustain unprecedented levels of productivity gains—a very challenging and uncertain prospect.”

    But there’s another wrinkle. It’s unclear whether providers will continue to want to see Medicare beneficiaries in the coming years, according to Ernst & Young. The firm conducted an independent audit of HHS’ finances and found some clinicians may find it financially unfeasible to continue to participate in Medicare.

    Medicare trustees raised similar concerns in their annual report this summer.

    “Absent an unprecedented change in healthcare delivery systems and payment mechanisms, the prices paid by Medicare for most health services will fall increasingly short of the costs of providing these services,” the consulting firm said.

    HHS itself echoed the concerns in the report, noting that projected MACRA payments for high-performing Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and alternative payment model providers are scheduled to expire in 2025 under current law, resulting in a significant one-time payment reduction for most physicians.

    In addition, under MACRA the annual physician payment update for 2017 through 2019 will be 0.5%. For 2020 through 2025, there will be no payment update.

    “Absent a change in the delivery system or level of update by subsequent legislation, access to Medicare-participating physicians may become a significant issue in the long term under current law,” HHS said.

  • 20 Nov 2017 3:05 PM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    Shareholders and company executives finalized the Advisory Board Co.’s $2.58 billion deal with UnitedHealth Group and a private equity firm that will split the consulting group’s healthcare business from its education arm, the companies announced Friday.

    UnitedHealth’s Optum health-services segment will take over the Advisory Board’s healthcare business for an estimated $1.3 billion, including its debt. The Advisory Board provides independent research, advisory services and data analytics for more than 4,400 healthcare organizations.

    Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners Management will acquire the Advisory Board’s education business known as EAB, which includes the high-performing Royall & Co. division, for $1.55 billion. EAB provides research and technology services for more than 1,200 educational institutions and will operate as a stand-alone business.

    Advisory Board shareholders will net estimated cash per share of $53.81, down from the initial valuation of $54.29, which includes a fixed payment of $52.65 per share and the amount in cash equal to $1.16 based on the per-share, after-tax value of its equity stake in Evolent Health.

    Optum has relationships across the healthcare spectrum that span more than 300 payers and 115 million consumers, which will expand the combined organization’s research breadth, said Advisory Board CEO Robert Musslewhite, who will continue to lead the healthcare research and technology business.

    “They bring a ton of data and analytics that strengthen everything we can do in our research, and they bring some technologies we do not have on the consulting side that will allow us to develop deeper relationships,” he said. “The challenges our members have been wrestling with transcend the acute-care market. This positions us to help tackle the changes happening in the industry and how they interplay with other sectors of the broader system.”

    The Advisory Board has had trouble maintaining steady revenue growth on the healthcare side following the presidential election and subsequent uncertainty in the market, as some providers dialed back their purchases. But that political uncertainty has also been a boon for its education arm, similar to other consulting firms that are increasingly relied on by healthcare organizations to help them navigate issues like caring for a rising number of uninsured if the Affordable Care Act is repealed.

    The company saw its net income plummet in the third quarter to $685,000 on revenue of $183.1 million, down from $37.5 million in net income on $200.5 million of revenue in the third quarter last year.

    Given the financial pressures providers are facing as hospital admissions dip, reimbursement dwindles and more difficult cost-cutting strategies like reducing clinical variation loom, there has been more demand for services that deliver return on investment in the short term. Providers seek Advisory Board’s solutions surrounding revenue cycle, cost reduction and risk-adjusted reimbursement, while demand has waned in areas like new technology where return is more difficult to capture and decision making is heavily affected by the ever-changing regulatory environment, Advisory Board executives said.

    The organization slimmed down its workforce by 220 employees and narrowed its services to offset the financial headwinds. It has focused its research on optimizing revenue cycle, health system growth and reducing variation and dropped topics including care management workflow and infection control analytics.

    Analysts at Canaccord Genuity said that the transaction price is fair given that the Advisory Board’s healthcare business underperformed over the last several years while the education arm has done relatively well.

    Some critics have expressed concern that the merger would skew the Advisory Board’s insights to benefit Optum. But Advisory Board and Optum executives were quick to dismiss that notion.

    “Delivering credible, objective and independent insight is a fundamental part of our model and that won’t change,” Musslewhite said.

    “You don’t acquire the breadth and depth of a client portfolio (like Optum) unless you are thoughtful and focused on the appropriate security, confidentiality and rigor in service delivery models to ensure you are objective,” said Eric Murphy, CEO of OptumInsight, Optum’s advisory consulting branch.

    The company has been exploring “strategic alternatives” including a potential sale since 2016 and officially announced it was shopping the Advisory Board around in February, not long after activist hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. and related entities bought about 8.3% of its shares.

    “We felt that those business were on different investment and growth strategies,” Musslewhite said. “Throughout 2016 and early 2017, we restructured our healthcare business that had slower revenue growth and accelerated our timeline in exploring strategic alternatives. We felt at some point we needed to have each business make independent decisions rather than allocate capital between them.”

    The company spent $7.8 million in the third quarter and $17.2 million over the first nine months of 2017 on merger expenses, according to the company’s third-quarter report.

    Advisory Board shareholders approved the transaction along with the executive compensation packages Wednesday. Since the deal cleared, Musslewhite will receive a $2 million transaction bonus, Advisory Board Chief Legal Officer Evan Farber $1 million, Advisory Board Chief Financial Officer Michael Kirshbaum $750,000 and Advisory Board President David Felsenthal $750,000.

    Musslewhite and Cormac Miller, the Advisory Board’s chief product officer, will receive an annual base salary of $700,000 and $360,000, respectively, an annual short-term incentive equal to 100% and 50% of base salary, respectively, and annual long-term incentives equal to $3.85 million and $785,000, respectively.

    Should the executives leave the company, their golden parachutes would entail a cash and equity package totaling $12.35 million for Musslewhite, $7.69 million for Felsenthal, $3.51 million for Advisory Board Chief Operating Officer Richard Schwartz, $3.31 million for Kirshbaum and $2.35 million for Miller.

    Optum has built a business that focuses on operational efficiency and effectiveness—combining relevant insights on the provider side of the market is a natural fit, Optum’s Murphy said.

    “If you take that capability and insight and expand it to health plans and life sciences organizations and bring forth the technology and managed services to capture what those insights mean for them, you start to impact the overall healthcare ecosystem,” he said.

  • 20 Nov 2017 4:30 AM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Dedalo Sousa, an 85-year-old with type 2 diabetes, has seen the inside of a hospital more times than he can remember.

    He has a regular doctor. But sometimes, “when he gets scary things, we don’t want to wait for his doctor visit,” said Sousa’s wife, Emilia Torres.

    Once it was a cyst on his back. Another time, Torres said, he had something like heartburn.

    Torres admitted that her husband’s emergency room visits are often for “minor things.” She added, however, “I panic when he gets sick.”

    That impulse — combined with the fact that health problems crop up outside of office hours, or that even daytime problems can present a transportation challenge — drive many older patients to turn to 911 for help. And laws in many places, including Massachusetts, are very clear: A 911 call means a trip to the hospital.

    But hospitals and insurers have begun trying to change that story by changing how emergency medicine is delivered. The idea is, instead of transporting patients to the hospital, emergency medical technicians respond to their needs in their own home. Many patient needs — for instance, slightly elevated blood pressure, a dip in blood sugar — are simple enough to not need a trip to the hospital. Avoiding hospitals saves insurers money, is easier on patients, and reduces the risk of hospital-acquired infections.

    It’s called mobile integrated healthcare; currently, more than 100 such programs exist nationwide. In Massachusetts, a number of pilot programs in mobile integrated health have sprouted up in recent years. The Department of Public Health has waived certain rules governing EMS providers for two Boston-area pilot programs.

    One such program was started in 2014 by nonprofit Commonwealth Care Alliance. Its participants are so-called “dual eligible” individuals — residents who qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare. This group tends to have multiple complex health issues, often including behavioral health conditions.

    They also make up a disproportionate share of health care spending. According to a 2016 MedPAC report, while dual-eligible beneficiaries account for 18 percent of beneficiaries with traditional Medicare coverage, they accounted for 31 percent of spending in 2012. This is due, at least in part, to frequent ER visits.

    But avoiding emergency rooms can be trickier than it seems. In evenings when doctors are gone and clinics are closed, a 911 call is some patients’ best bet for medical attention. And Massachusetts law — and similar ones in many other places — dictates that when a person calls 911, the ambulance that responds must transport them to a hospital, regardless of the seriousness of their health needs.

    Pilot mobile health projects take a different tack. In the case of the program run by CCA, participants enroll by signing up online or through their doctors. Instead of 911, those participants are given another number on a refrigerator magnet to call if they have a medical emergency between 6 p.m. and 1 a.m., the state rules for their hours of operation.

    A nurse practitioner answers the phone and assesses the patient’s condition, and contacts EasCare Ambulance Service, which contracts with the organization.

    A patient calling during the program’s hours of operation will usually have a paramedic at the door within an hour. Calls at other times are queued for that evening’s shift.

    Once at a patient’s home, the visit proceeds much like a home health care visit — vitals are taken and symptoms are noted. The EMT then relays this information to a doctor over the phone, before beginning treatment such as running an IV, administering medication, or taking tests.

    Because the modified ambulances don’t carry stretchers, if the EMTs determine a patient needs to go to the hospital, they call for a regular ambulance.

    But generally, that isn’t needed. According to a survey CCA conducted of 275 patients who received mobile care through July 2017, 84 percent avoided any emergency room visits during that time.

    According to a CCA-coauthored 2016 report, those avoided visits amount to about $800 to $3,600 in savings per patient, relative to what it would have cost if the patient received the same treatment in a hospital emergency department.

    Still, despite the growing enthusiasm of insurers for mobile integrated health programs, their overall efficacy hasn’t been thoroughly studied.

    “We’re able to anecdotally note that there is a benefit, but we need to measure how beneficial these programs really are,” said Dr. Stephen Dorner, an emergency medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital who co-authored a 2016 journal article on mobile integrated health programs. Dorner also serves as a consultant to CCA.

    He and his co-authors pointed out that while mobile health programs are sprouting up across the country, “their performance has rarely been rigorously evaluated.”

    CCA’s program is a good example, he said.

    “We know that it saved money when people avoided going to the hospital,” Dorner added. “But we’re talking about avoiding something that it’s hard to predict in the first place. There hasn’t been a full-scale, retrospective analysis.”

    Currently, CCA’s mobile integrated health service is only available to participants in the Boston area; it hopes to extend its coverage to 28 southeastern Massachusetts cities and towns in the first half of 2018.

    But the state would have to change the program’s waiver to allow, among other things, emergency medical technicians to perform some of the duties of paramedics.

    “We’re not allowed to do that yet, but we want to, so we can help people more,” said Ron Quaranto, chief operating officer of Cataldo Ambulance Service. Cataldo operates its own mobile health program, called SmartCare Community Paramedics. The program, also created under a DPH waiver, serves Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center patients with severe health problems that put them at high risk for repeated hospitalizations.

    “At least we can continue the pilot program,” Quaranto added. “But we’d like the state to extend the special project waiver.”

    For now, they’ll have to wait, said Ann Scales, spokesperson for Massachusetts Department of Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel. The current state budget does not provide funding for mobile integrated health pilots to become permanent.

    “Until the necessary program startup and operating costs are appropriated, the Department of Public Health cannot promulgate the Mobile Integrated Health regulations and implement the program,” she said.

    For his part, Sousa is glad he can be treated in his own home.

    “He’s a gentleman who will not go to the hospital,” explained Torres, his wife.

    “No, no, no,” laughed Sousa, sitting in his recliner, answering freely, with a smile that said he didn’t entirely disagree.

  • 17 Nov 2017 3:05 PM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    ROCKVILLE, Md. – A new program that targets frequent 911 callers in Montgomery County will receive $400,000 in additional funding once approved by the county council.

    Montgomery County Council Executive Ike Leggett announced the Mobile Integrated Healthcare program Wednesday following what officials call a “successful” pilot period.

    The program reduced the 33 participants’ 911 calls from 424 to 233.

    This was done by sending officials to common callers’ homes to identify anything potentially hazardous, like areas poorly lit or where people could fall.

    “All the things that we have seen cause a person in escalating years to have accidents at home, those things can easily be eliminated,” said Chief Scott Goldstein, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Department.

    The program is a collaborative effort by Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Additional coverage at http://wjla.com/news/local/new-program-reduces-increase-in-911-calls-in-montgomery-county

  • 13 Nov 2017 3:00 PM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    A program launched to help unclog excessive 911 callers from the city’s emergency system is no longer operating due to staffing challenges facing the City of San Diego’s ambulance service provider, AMR.

    In an email to NBC 7 Investigates, AMR attributed the problem to a “paramedic staffing shortage” across San Diego County.

    Last November, NBC 7 Investigates rode along with community paramedics involved in the Resource Access Program (RAP) or Community Paramedic Program.

    The program’s goal was to reduce the call load for the 911-system and help frequent callers find services best suited to help them.

    “We have about 1,200-1,300 people in San Diego that call 911 a lot,” Anne Jensen, who oversaw the program with the city of San Diego Fire Department told NBC 7 Investigates earlier this year. “Some call six times a year, others call more than 100 times a year.”

    At the council hearing last month, San Diego Fire Chief Brian Fennessy told the council the city has seen a 22% increase in 911 calls over the last four years and 30% of those transported to the hospital did not actually need to be transported.

    The Community Paramedic Program was designed to address those types of patients. Earlier this year, the Fire Department began tracking who was making the most calls to see if personal intervention on the part of the Community Paramedic team might help resolve any long-running problems by the callers. Data provided to NBC 7 Investigates showed there was a 72.7% drop in usage by the top 25 most frequent callers into the 911 system.

    Click here to see NBC 7 Investigates’ original story.

    AMR moved employees assigned to the community paramedic program at the end of last year to other areas of the city.
    In an email to NBC 7 Investigates, Madeleine Baudoin, Manager of Government and Public Affairs for AMR said, “Last year, we redeployed our resources across the city, including the four RAP medics, due to the ongoing paramedic shortage in San Diego County. This action allows us to best serve the community with the resources we have. We will be working with the fire department to study the long-term feasibility of the RAP program.”

    NBC 7 Investigates asked the city’s Fire Department if officials could elaborate on when the program stopped and why ending the program was not addressed when an NBC 7 Investigates report talking about the program’s success aired earlier this year. In an email, Deputy Chief Gina La Mantia said the program ended in “late December 2016.“ She also said, “the [AMR] staffing shortages lasted longer than anticipated.”

    The community paramedic program was a pilot program that required an exemption from the state. According to California state law, paramedics are only allowed to treat at the emergency scene and during transport. California Emergency Medical Services Director, Doctor Howard Backer pushed and obtained the exemption in order to allow for the paramedic’s role in non-911 settings to be expanded.

    NBC 7 Investigates contacted Backer about the program not operating any longer and are waiting to receive a response.

    Last month, AMR asked the San Diego City Council to approve rate increases for how much the ambulance provider can charge patients needing emergency services. AMR representatives told city staff, “on-going recruitment challenges” and “the over-triaging of non-life-threatening calls” were among the reasons why a rate increase was necessary to bring stability to the system.

  • 13 Nov 2017 7:30 AM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    Matt Lavin had just arrived in Charlottesville, Va., for a business trip when he started feeling sick.

    By the time he got to his hotel around 11 p.m., he felt excruciating pain.

    ‘I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew something wasn’t right,’ said Lavin, a lawyer who lived in Washington, D.C., at the time but is also the medical director for a Florida-based chain of addiction recovery centers. He had good insurance through his employer, but still second guessed calling an ambulance for help.

    ‘My deductible was like $5,000 or something like that. And it was the beginning of the year. I didn’t know how much the ambulance was going to cost me, and I’m away from home in this hotel,’ Lavin said.

    So he requested a ride on Uber.

    The driver arrived in just three minutes, helped him into the car and sped to the hospital, with Lavin keeled over from intense pain his abdomen.

    Later Lavin, 48, would find out his appendix burst. He ended up having emergency surgery that night. But Lavin says he saved himself thousands of dollars by choosing Uber, the ridesharing company that connects passengers with taxi-like independent drivers through a smartphone app, instead of calling 911.

    ‘I knew they would be fast,’ Lavin said of Uber. ‘But I think (the driver) was pretty freaked out. I was in a lot of pain and I had to lie down. He was new to Charlottesville and didn’t know where the hospital was.

    If I’d taken an ambulance, I would have gotten a bed right away. Instead I had to walk in and wait like anyone else. But I think I paid $20, which is much better than the $5,000 I paid the one time I was in a car accident.’

    Lavin isn’t alone. Ridesharing drivers in Tampa Bay and beyond are noticing an uptick in rides to and from the emergency room as consumers try to avoid spending what could be thousands of dollars for an ambulance.

    It’s an updated version of a role long played by cabs. What’s new is that the ridesharing experience, with its ability to tell people how soon a car will arrive, is seen by many as more nimble and better suited to a spur-of the-moment decision like rushing to the ER.

    Dulce Maurer, who has been an Uber driver in St. Petersburg since July 2016, had no issues taking a bleeding passenger to the emergency room recently.

    She said she accepted a ride from a passenger who was bleeding from his forehead when she picked him up at his house.

    ‘I arrived in the back alley of a residence and a man got in with paper towels on his head,’ said Maurer, 32. ‘I saw his destination was the hospital and asked if he was okay or needed more napkins.’ Maurer said the passenger had been drinking and slipped in the shower, where he cut his forehead open.

    ‘He did not want to pay for an ambulance,’ she said. ‘(Uber) was really the best option for him. He was stitched up within 15 minutes at 3 a.m. and it was cheaper and faster.’ Maurer said she didn’t mind helping him get to the hospital. It wasn’t that much different from the late-night riders who sometimes have to use the puke bucket she permanently keeps in the back seat. But Maurer says she would draw the line if a woman was in labor or if someone was ‘bleeding profusely.’ ‘I don’t want the liability of someone’s life,’ she said.

    The decision to choose an Uber or Lyft ride over one with trained paramedics comes with some clear drawbacks.

    ‘We’ve heard of this before, but my question is, what is the driver going to do if their passenger needs medical attention right away?’ said Charlene Cobb, a spokeswoman with Sunstar, the company under contract with Pinellas County to provide ambulance and paramedic services. ‘A driver may not know which hospital to take you to, as some in the area specialize in certain things. Paramedics are trained to know that, and provide assistance on the way. In an emergency, seconds count.’ Rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft don’t openly condone this kind of service in the case of an emergency, even though their websites share positive stories of drivers helping women in labor get to the hospital on time.

    ‘We’re grateful our service has helped people get to where they’re going when they need it the most,’ said Javi Correoso, a spokesman with Uber. ‘However, it’s important to note that Uber is not a substitute for law enforcement or medical professionals. In the event of any medical emergency, we encourage riders and driver-partners to call 911.’ Both Uber and Lyft partner with hospital chains to offer discounted rides for routine appointments or medical services, but not emergency rides. Those services aren’t available in Tampa Bay yet. During Hurricane Irma, Lyft and Uber offered relief rides to get people in need to shelter.

    Most hospitals in the Tampa Bay area don’t track how often ridesharing drivers drop off or pick up patients, but at Tampa General, they are ‘here quite a bit over the course of a day,’ said spokesman John Dunn.

    Cobb, the Sunstar spokeswoman, doesn’t deny that an ambulance ride can be expensive.

    In Pinellas, she said, consumers can buy a supplemental insurance policy through the county that covers ambulance fees and complements the insurance they already have.

    She said she hopes that costs can come down in the future by training emergency dispatchers to help decide when an ambulance ride is really needed.

    ‘There’s a program in Texas where a nurse is on the line and helps people make an informed decision on whether or not they need an ambulance ride to the hospital if it’s a non-emergency,’ Cobb said.

    ‘People call for ambulances and often times they don’t need them,’ she said. ‘But when you need medical care right away, there is no substitute.’ Jeff Abbaticchio didn’t need an ambulance ride when he was headed to Palms of Pasadena Hospital for a hernia surgery, which is why he chose Uber.

    ‘I knew I couldn’t drive myself and the last thing I wanted to do was to ask a friend or family member to get up so early to drop me off,’ said Abbaticchio, the director of marketing for the Sirata Beach Resort on St. Pete Beach.

    He said he’d do it again in a heartbeat.

    ‘Both times, the rides were incredibly nice. It was so early in the morning and the driver was on time and it wasn’t expensive,’ he said.

    But for Lavin, the threat of exorbitant medical bills will always make him second guess calling for ambulance.

    ‘Getting stuck with a bill like that, it can change your life. It will ruin your credit,’ he said. ‘And that’s for someone who has insurance. Imagine if you’re uninsured or on state-funded insurance. That’s not going to cover much of anything.’

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