The Readmore 2014

• Mike Bonasso - Commercial Litigation
• Stephen Brooks - Medical Malpractice Law and Personal Injury Litigation
• Bob Coffield - Health Care Law
• Tom Flaherty - Personal Injury Litigation
• David Givens - Medical Malpractice Law
• Ted Martin - Medical Malpractice Law
• Mark Robinson - Medical Malpractice Law
• Don Sensabaugh - Medical Malpractice Law and Personal Injury Litigation
• Jeff Wakefield - Bet-the-Company Litigation, Commercial Litigation, Medical Malpractice

• The social media technology tools used by health care providers and hospitals
• Pros/cons and legal implications of social media and health 2.0 services such as blogs, wikis, social networking, podcasting, video sharing, etc.
• Best practices and development of policies and procedures which address staff and employees using social media

• Michael T. Harmon, MPA, CIPP/G, Compliance Specialist for the West Virginia Mutual Insurance Company, a Medical Professional Liability Insurance Company
• Sallie H. Milam, J.D., CIPP/G, Executive Director of the West Virginia Health Information Network and Chief Privacy Officer for the West Virginia State Government
• James W. Thomas, Esq., Manager of the Charleston, West Virginia Business Law Department of Jackson Kelly PLLC whose practice focuses primarily upon health care matters of a business, regulatory and operational nature
  

. . . Nowhere in this debate is the patient, the consumer, and the citizen: the American! We lack accountability, responsibility and civic sensibility. It is Joe Diabetic that snacks on ice cream, misses appointments and doesn't take his insulin that increases the cost of health care. This diabetic will be admitted to your local ER with diabetic ketoacidosis and have many subsequent hospital admissions at our (read: your) expense, not his. This is a fundamental collective action problem.

Our town square is so big that we can get away with malfeasance to our village (and our country) with no shame. Yet, the forces of economics do not defy gravity and the cost of health care is now affecting all of us. Those of us that are untethered from the reality of cost are driving our health care 'car' into the ground. . .

Ms. Miller writes:

The CDC did all the research and evaluation work, so individual communities don't have to. They assembled a group of people with experience in urban planning, nutrition, physical activity, obesity prevention and local government. The group reviewed a couple years' worth of research, evaluated various tactics and settled on 24 recommendations. For each one, the CDC summarizes the evidence behind it and suggests ways to measure progress. Communities should:

1. Make healthier food and drinks available in public places. Schools are key, but think also of after-school programs, child care centers, parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, city and county buildings, prisons and juvenile detention centers.

2. Make healthier food more affordable in those public venues. Lower prices, provide discount coupons or offer vouchers for healthy choices.

3. Improve the availability of full-service grocery stores in underserved areas. One study of 10,000 people showed that black residents in neighborhoods with at least one supermarket were more likely to consume the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables than those in neighborhoods without supermarkets. Residents consumed 32 percent more fruits and vegetables for each additional supermarket in their census tract.

More supermarkets also raised real estate values, economic activity and employment and lowered food prices.

4. Provide incentives to food retailers -- supermarkets, convenience stores, corner stores, street vendors -- to locate in underserved areas or to offer healthier food and drinks. Incentives can be tax benefits and discounts, loans, loan guarantees, start-up grants, investment grants for improved refrigeration, supportive zoning and technical assistance.

5. Make it easier to buy foods from farms.

6. Provide incentives for the production, distribution and procurement of foods from local farms.

Did you know that the United States does not produce enough fruits, vegetables and whole grains for every American to eat the recommended amount of these foods? Dispersing agricultural production throughout the country would increase the amount of available produce, improve economic development and contribute to environmental sustainability.

7. Restrict availability of less healthy foods and drinks in public places.

8. Offer smaller portion options in public places.

9. Limit advertisements of less healthy foods and drinks.

10. Discourage people from drinking sugar-sweetened beverages.

11. Support breastfeeding, which appears to provide some protection from obesity later in life.

12. Require physical education in schools.

13. Increase the amount of physical activity in school PE programs. Modify games so that more students are moving at all times, or switch to activities in which all students stay active. Improving phys ed improves aerobic fitness among students.

14. Increase opportunities for extracurricular physical activity.

15. Reduce screen time in public settings. TV and computer time displaces physical activity, lowers metabolism, increases snacking and exposes children to marketing of fattening foods.

16. Improve access to outdoor recreational facilities, such as parks, green spaces, outdoor sports fields, walking and biking trails, public pools and community playgrounds. Access also depends on how close such places are to homes and schools, cost and hours of operation.

17. Support bicycling. Create bike lanes, shared-use paths and routes on existing and new roads. Provide bike racks near commercial areas. Improving bicycling infrastructure can increase how often people bike for utilitarian purposes, such as going to work and school or running errands.

18. Support walking. Build sidewalks, footpaths, walking trails and pedestrian crossings. Improve street lighting, make crossings safer, use traffic calming approaches. Walking is a regular activity of moderate intensity that a large number of people can do.

19. Locate schools within easy walking distance of residential areas.

20. Improve access to public transportation to increase biking and walking to and from transit points.

21. Zone for mixed-use development, including residential, commercial, institutional and other uses. This cuts the distance between home and shopping, for example, and encourages people to make more trips by foot or bike.

22. Enhance personal safety in areas where people are or could be physically active.

23. Enhance traffic safety in areas where people are or could be physically active.

24. Participate in community coalitions or partnerships.

The American Health Lawyers Association's Public Interest Committee recently published a new white paper on on the federal self-referral law also known as the "Stark Law" which looks at and considers what, if any, changes to the Stark Law might be beneficial under the current health care system and the proposed reform efforts.

The white paper is entitled, A Public Policy Discussion: Taking the Measure of the Stark Law. The white paper was written as a result of the Committee's Convener on Stark Law, held in Washington, DC on April 24 and June 30, 2009.

1. Download the Initial Prize Design
2. Share you comments regarding the prize concept, the measurement framework, and the likelihood of this prize to impact health and health care reform.
3. Share the Initial Prize Design document with as many of your health, innovation, design, technology, academic, business, political, and patient friends as you can to provide an opportunity for their participation

Hospitals:
Overall, West Virginia hospitals remained relatively stable, reporting profits of $184.5 million or 4.4% of net patient revenue (NPR), up from $176.7 million (4.5% of NPR) in FY 2006.

Acute Care Hospitals
The total profit margin for the 35 general acute care hospitals increased by almost 1%, with profits of $165.7 million (4.4% of NPR), up from $123.8 million (3.5% of NPR) in the prior year.

Critical Access Hospitals (CAH)
As a group, the profitability for CAHs continued to improve for the fourth straight year. The aggregate profit was $5.8 million (2.3% of NPR). In FY 2006, profit was $4.3 million (1.8% of NPR).

Long-term Acute Care Hospitals (LTCH)
The two facilities in FY 2007 reported a profit of $1.5 million (5.9% of NPR), a decline from the FY 2006 profit of $3.3 million(12.4% of NPR).

Psychiatric Hospitals
The psychiatric hospitals had an aggregate loss of $8.3 million(35.8% of NPR), with the two state psychiatric hospitals losing $9.6 million combined and the two private hospitals earning profits of $1.3 million. The prior year’s overall loss was $702,000 (2.0% of NPR).

Rehabilitation Hospitals
The five rehabilitation hospitals showed a return to more normal profit levels with aggregate profits of $19.8 million (22.1% of NPR). In FY 2006, these hospitals reported an aggregate profit of $46.0 million (51.7% of NPR) due to the sale of a facility.

Other Facilities:

Nursing Homes
The overall profit margin for the state’s 106 nursing homes increased by 1.5%. Aggregate profits of $44.8 million (6.5% of NPR) were reported, an increase over the $32.6 million (5.0% of NPR) reported in FY 2006.
Aggregate net patient revenue increased $38.6 million in FY 2007; expenses increased $25.1 million.

Home Health
Overall, home health agencies reported total losses of $2.3 million on $84.1 million total revenue; 32 of the 66 agencies were profitable. Eleven home health agencies were acquired during FY 2007.

Hospice
Hospice profits for the 19 agencies were $8.3 million, compared to $9.1 million in FY 2006.

Behavioral Health Facilities
Eighty-nine behavioral health providers reported aggregate profits of $15.1 million, 2.9% of total revenue; 57 of 89 facilities were profitable.

Methadone Treatment Facilities
The aggregate profit for the eight facilities was $6.1 million, 29.7% of total revenue.

Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASC)
Eleven reporting certified ASCs had an aggregate profit of $5.2 million, 21.7% of total revenue.

"It's a protein-lined metal stent that the body thinks is normal artery," Bates said. "Instead of the body thinking it's a foreign body, it lines it with normal cells real quickly. It allows the body and arteries to function normally."

We're not stopping nature from doing its thing," said Bates, who heads Nexeon's offices in Charleston and Carlsbad, Calif. "We're helping nature. The body doesn't recognize [the stent] as something that's not supposed to be there."

About 65 percent of patients across the country now receive drug-releasing stents during cardiac catheterization procedures to open arteries. The remainder have bare-metal stents placed in their vessels.