By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
I still remember exactly where I was sitting decades ago, during the short film shown in class: For a few painful minutes, we watched a woman talking mechanically, raspily through a hole in her throat, pausing occasionally to gasp for air.

The public service message: This is what can happen if you smoke.

I had nightmares about that ad, which today would most likely be tagged with a trigger warning or deemed unsuitable for children. But it was supremely effective: I never started smoking and doubt that few if any of my horrified classmates did either.

When the government required television and radio stations to give $75 million in free airtime [Read More]

More than 10,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Michigan as of Dec. 8.

The 191 deaths added to the state’s toll brought Michigan to 10,138. Another 5,909 cases brought that number to 410,295. The current fatality rate to COVID-19 is 2.47 percent.

On a nationwide scale, Michigan ranks ninth among the states by total deaths, according to The New York Times, although The Times has Michigan at 10,415 deaths as of today. On a per-capita basis, Michigan is 11th at 104 deaths per 100,000 people.

As a result, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered U.S. and Michigan flags within the Capitol Complex and upon all public buildings and grounds across Michigan to be lowered [Read More]

By EWA MATUSZEWSKI
The move to virtual office visits has been swift and far-reaching. But are we perhaps going too far? I know of at least two physician practices that aimed to be completely virtual (with some exceptions) from the onset of the virus until January 2021. Why? As of this writing, the case count is far higher than it was when the initial switch to virtual visits occurred in April. Even with the promise of multiple vaccines, we are likely at least a year away from getting out of pandemic mode in terms of how we work, socialize, educate and entertain. We must commit to a new era of healthcare [Read More]

By DUSTIN WACHLER
Effective November 22, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) final rule “Modernizing and Clarifying the Physician-Self Referral Regulations” aims to reduce the regulatory burdens of compliance with the federal self-referral prohibition most commonly known as the Stark law. The final rule eliminates unnecessary requirements within the Stark law that imposed undue regulatory burdens and increased administrative costs on healthcare providers. The final rule also eliminates regulatory barriers to value-based, coordinated healthcare delivery and payments systems at the foundation of integrated care models, alternative payment systems, and other arrangements that improve patient care while reducing costs to governmental healthcare programs. ,

The final rule reflects the [Read More]

Opinions expressed in the article below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Healthcare Michigan, its publisher or staff.

By ALLAN DOBZYNIAK, MD
The motives driving the battle to control healthcare are suspect. Many physicians—likely the majority—do not buy into the public deception that has been attributed to them. In fact, a small contingent of progressive, “woke” physicians amplify this deception.

Most doctors are too busy with their own lives, families and professions to get involved with politics and leftist, “politically correct” healthcare thinking. They have become disinterested in the deteriorating professional organizations charged with guiding them through healthcare’s questionable evolution.

Physicians who try to participate in hospital decision-making—with [Read More]

By KIMBERLY RUPPEL
New and modified safe harbors to the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback statue allow healthcare providers and entities more flexibility to create and expand telehealth platforms in compliant fashion.

On Nov. 20, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) finalized the rules modifying the safe harbors under the Anti-Kickback Statute and exceptions under the Stark Law, creating seven new safe harbors for value-based arrangements, modifying four already in place and codifying one new exception.

These changes offer opportunities for healthcare providers and entities to make better use of telehealth options in a “value-based enterprise” as opposed to the former regulatory framework [Read More]

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

Nesbitt Calls On Gordon To Resign
Senate President Pro Tem Aric Nesbitt (R-Lawton) called on Department of Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon to resign after extending by 12 days the three-week shutdown of restaurants, entertainment venues, in-person high school instruction, and youth sports.

Just as former Unemployment Insurance Agency director Steve Gray “recently resigned in shame,” Nesbitt said Gordon has overseen a state department that’s experiencing “bureaucratic disasters . . . directly linked to poor leadership.”

Nesbitt flagged Gordon for putting seniors at risk for contracting COVID by putting positive patients in nursing homes with a [Read More]

By VICTORIA KNIGHT & JULIE APPLEBY
In the waning days of the campaign, President Donald Trump complained repeatedly about how the United States tracks the number of people who have died from COVID-19, claiming, “This country and its reporting systems are just not doing it right.”

He went on to blame those reporting systems for inflating the number of deaths, pointing a finger at medical professionals, who he said benefit financially.

All that feeds into the swirling political doubts that surround the pandemic, and raises questions about how deaths are reported and tallied.

We asked experts to explain how it’s done and to discuss whether the current figure — an estimated 231,000 deaths since [Read More]

This story courtesy of MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

The state’s chief medical executive said Oct. 19 attacking COVID-19 via the herd immunity strategy without the aid of a vaccine “would be inhumane, irresponsible, and scientifically negligent.”

Dr. Joneigh Khaldun was before the Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic today and addressed the concept of herd immunity in her opening remarks.

She echoed what other medical experts have said in that to achieve herd immunity without the aid of a vaccine, 6 million more people in Michigan would need to be infected and roughly 30,000 more people would die as a result, which she called “unacceptable.”

“Let me also [Read More]

By EWA MATUSZEWSKI
A giant in Michigan’s healthcare community, an advocate for primary care physicians and physician organizations, and someone who has come to be a dear friend and mentor, is retiring—and I cannot let this milestone pass without lavishing praise. Dr. Tom Simmer, until Dec. 31, the Chief Medical Officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, will not like this attention—but he certainly deserves it.

Tom advanced the goals and efforts of primary care in a brilliantly simple way: understand the role that physician organizations play in optimizing patient outcomes in primary care, then tap into their reach for population health for a greater patient impact. As population health became [Read More]