The Pennsylvania Department of Health has released the 2019-2023 Pennsylvania Cancer Control Plan, recently adopted by Secretary of Health Rachel Levine. The plan contains 15 cancer control goals Pennsylvania is working to achieve over the next five-year period.  The new website, pacancercoalition.org also includes a Cancer Plan Report Card which will be used to monitor progress toward meeting the goals.

As the effort to count every resident in the United States begins, the Urban Institute provides data on rural populations living in hard-to-count areas and steps for achieving a more accurate count.  Population counts from the U.S. Census are used to allocate federal funding, provide data for research and policy-making, and plan economic development, among countless other needs for quality of life.  In addition to traditional challenges to counting in rural areas – remote homes, migrant workers, literacy – the 2020 Census will add a digital response option and many rural areas have low rates of internet access at home.  More information is available by clicking here.

An examination of the cost and utilization of alternative payment models for oral health care over a patient’s lifetime.
By Sean G. Boynes, DMD, MS, Carolyn Brown, DDS, MEd and Eric P. Tranby, MA, PhD

According to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, the United States pays the most for health care and achieves the lowest performance among comparable countries.^1,2 In fact, dissatisfaction with U.S. health care continues to shape political talking points. It also encourages disruptive business models and drives demand for greater transparency, accountability and consumerism.^3–6 This changing health ecosystem also affects dentistry. Agencies, organizations and care teams are shifting operational and financial constructs to better align with the changing health care landscape. Currently, the transition includes a switch from a silo-based construct driven by tertiary care to a person-centered format based on inclusive, holistic health care and enhanced quality of life.^7–11

Continue reading “Exploring Alternative Payment Models for Oral Health Care” →

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — While the overall supply of dentists in Pennsylvania is sufficient to meet the current demand when assuming equal access for all residents, geographic access to oral health services is not equal across rural and urban areas. In a report, researchers in the Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health (PORH) at Penn State found that urban rates of dentist supply are nearly twice that of rural rates, and that inequalities exist between areas of higher socioeconomic status and those of lower socioeconomic status.

Continue reading “Oral health assessment of children in rural Pa. demonstrates disparities” →

In an effort to better prepare and assist small rural hospitals in moving from a fee-for-service and volume-based payment system to one that is drive by value and quality, the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) administers the Small Rural Hospital Transition Project (SHRT).  The program provides technical assistance through onsite consultations to eligible hospitals that have 49 beds or less and are located in a federally-designated persistent poverty county. Core areas of technical assistance include: 1) financial operational assessment, and 2) quality improvement projects. Last month, nine hospitals were identified through the objective review process to receive this assistance in the 2019-2020 cohort of the project.  Now in its fifth year, the SHRT program shares what’s learned on issues relevant to rural health stakeholders through the National Rural Health Resource Center.  See the full list of hospitals by clicking here.

This document is a practical guide for ambulance services to use in their pursuit of sustaining effective and efficient delivery of patient care and developing into an integrated system with other agencies. It provides insights from agencies to promote integration to the benefit of the agencies, the staff, and, most importantly, to the patients.   The guide can be accessed here.

The primary goal of the Rural Community Ambulance Agency Transformation Readiness Assessment and associated resources is to help ambulance agency leaders in rural America assess the state of their agency’s readiness in the core competency areas outlined below. This assessment follows the Critical Access Hospital (CAH) Blueprint for Performance Excellence, adapted specifically for rural ambulance agencies, from the Baldridge Excellence Framework for Health Care. It provides resources and tools to assist rural ambulance agency leaders to succeed with moving from volume to value in their agency’s culture and operations. Leaders are encouraged to complete the assessment periodically to monitor their progress and receive updated resources to guide their journey.  The toolkit can be accessed here.

On November 20, 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that 737,352 people signed up for federal exchange plans during the third week of the Affordable Care Act’s current open enrollment period, bringing total federal exchange plan signups to about 1.7 million since the open enrollment period launched Nov. 1. Total signups so far this open enrollment period are down 13% when compared with the same point in last year’s open enrollment period. (Source: Modern Healthcare, 11/20

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on its Nursing Home Compare website has added a new icon—a red circle with a white stop hand in the center—to ratings for 760 facilities, indicating that the facilities have been cited for an incident of abuse, neglect, or exploitation. Consumer advocates have applauded the move, but some in the nursing home industry say the alerts are misleading. (Source: Wall Street Journal, 11/19)

Hospitals and health insurers are criticizing new rules the Trump administration released last week that aim to increase price transparency in the U.S. health system. Four major hospital groups have threatened to file a lawsuit challenging the regulations. (Source: Axios‘ “Vitals,” 11/19)