Lansing Lines is presented in cooperation with MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

School Outbreaks, Sports Guidance
The number of ongoing COVID outbreaks in school settings went up for the fourth week in a row, according to numbers released by the state Feb. 8.

With 32 new outbreaks among the 131 overall the first week of February, that eclipses the 105 from last week, the 70 from Jan. 25, and the 60 the week before that.

The 32 new outbreaks in schools were down from the 35 new ones reported the prior week, however. Before that, the numbers had been on the rise, up from the 26 from the week of [Read More]

By EWA MATUSZEWSKI
I hope as you are reading this that Michigan primary care physicians are vaccinating their patients against COVID-19. However, as I write this, the primary care community has been shut out of offering solution-oriented strategies for maximizing vaccinations among Michigan residents. Note, I do not include publicly traded primary care companies here, which was tapped early on by large health systems for vaccination administration assistance. If you sense irritation on my part, you are correct.

For those vaccines that do not require polar temperature refrigeration, the physician’s office should not have been overlooked. Not only are primary care physicians experienced in vaccination storage, monitoring and distribution, they know their [Read More]

By ROLF LOWE
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released proposed changes to the Health Insurance and Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information (the Privacy Rule) on December 10, 2020. The proposed modifications to the Privacy Rule are intended to address existing standards HHS has identified as impeding the transition to value based care, while continuing to protect the privacy and security of individuals’ protected health information (PHI). HHS specifically identified obstacles currently in place hindering care coordination and case management communications among individuals and covered entities, (which include hospitals, physicians, other health care providers, payors and insurers). The proposed rule changes [Read More]

By JEREMY BELANGER
On Dec. 2, 2020, the CMS and the OIG published the rules modifying the safe harbors under the Anti-Kickback Statute and exceptions under the Stark Law . This article presents an overview of the value-based rules, which became effective on Jan. 19, 2021.

CMS and OIG coordinated many aspects of the value-based rules, and this section will align them as much as possible. It is important to remember that these rules do not protect remuneration based on ownership interests, only for compensation.
A value-based arrangement must be designed to achieve: (i) coordination and management of care; (ii) improve the quality of care; (iii) reduce the costs to, or growth [Read More]

By ANERI PATTANI
The nurses at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, declared on March 6 — by filing the official paperwork — that they were ready to vote on the prospect of joining a national union. At the time, they were motivated by the desire for more nurses and support staff, and to have a voice in hospital decisions.

A week later, as the COVID-19 pandemic bore down on the state, the effort was put on hold, and everyone scrambled to respond to the coronavirus. But the nurses’ long-standing concerns only became heightened during the crisis, and new issues they’d never considered suddenly became urgent problems.

Staffers struggled to find masks and [Read More]

It’s not just Republicans complaining about Michigan’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout so far.

Democratic leaders of some of Michigan’s population centers – Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter and Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel – have publicly railed against the speed of the distribution so far.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, for her part, announced she’s now asked the feds for permission to directly purchase up to 100,000 doses. She said her letter to the feds asking for more vaccines to be released hasn’t seen a response.

“We remain ready to accelerate distribution to get doses into arms,” Whitmer said she wrote in the letter. “Toward that end, I am writing to request permission for the state [Read More]

PO’s Adoption of BCBSM’s Blueprint for Affordability Reflects Value Of Trusted Partnerships

By EWA MATUSZWEWSKI
Amid the flurry of pandemic responses and mitigation initiatives that physician organizations added to their plates in 2020 was a separate event that had been under consideration since just before the pandemic. I’m referring to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s Blueprint for Affordability program, which was launched in January 2020.

Designed to hold the line on healthcare costs as it enables improved care quality, coordination of care, and outcomes for patients, Blueprint for Affordability is a value-based compensation model where each physician organization partner has annual cost-of-care targets and clinical quality benchmarks to meet. The targets are [Read More]

CMS Releases New Measures to Address Social Determinants of Health

By KAITLIN A. NUCCI
On January 7, 2020, CMS published a State Health Official letter to provide guidance in the adoption of policies to address social determinants of health in both Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The reasoning behind such strategy stems from the fact that even though the United States spends more money than almost any other country in the world on healthcare, the United States is often is outperformed on key health indicators such as life expectancy, reducing chronic heart disease, and maternal and infant mortality rates. This is due to a range of social, environmental and [Read More]

Baraga County Tells Whitmer: We’re Done
Lansing Lines is presented in cooperation with MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

The sum of Baraga County government passed a resolution telling Gov. Gretchen Whitmer it will no longer be participating in any more shutdown orders designed to protect the population from COVID-19.

All five county commissioners signed a resolution Jan. 11 along with the county’s sheriff, prosecutor, clerk, and treasurer that “we have no intention of participating in the unconstitutional destruction of our citizen’s economic security and liberty.”

The county officials also said they will “take no action whatsoever in furtherance of this terribly misguided agenda.”

County Commission Chair Bill Rolof said the people in his [Read More]

Employers Can Mandate Employees Have the COVID-19 Vaccine…With Restrictions

By SARA H. JODKA
On December 16, 2020, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) issued “What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and Other EEO Laws” (the Guidance). The Guidance does not even specially address the question as to whether employers can mandate employees have the vaccine, rather, the Guidance jumps right in assuming employers already knew they could have mandatory vaccine policies and goes into the limited restrictions as to when an employer may have to pause and engage the employee in interactive discussion regarding the employee’s medical, religious or other reasons for not wanting the [Read More]