Providing workers with healthcare coverage still makes economic sense for large employers.  However, there are fewer incentives for smaller employers to offer coverage in the new era of healthcare reform.  That was the key message in a new national study for the nonpartisan National Institute for Health Care Reform.

The study, led by University of Minnesota researcher Jean Abraham, who worked with the Center for Studying Health System Change, calculated the economic incentives for employers offering coverage to active workers before and after health reform implementation in 2014.   The analysis used data from the 2008-2010 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.

“The findings indicate that the economic incentives to offer coverage will remain strong under health reform for many businesses, especially larger, higher-wage firms,” Abraham said. “But they will weaken for small and low-wage employers – the very establishments that already were most likely to drop coverage because of rising costs.”

For the nation’s healthcare providers, the study points to the importance of regular verification of current insurance coverage, particularly for patients working for smaller businesses that might decide to drop this benefit. If so, there could well be a significant time lag before the patient purchases coverage from another source.

The institute’s study found that pre-reform, all businesses had an economic incentive to offer health insurance because the U.S. government gave preferential tax treatment for both employer and employee premium contributions.  Post-reform, employer premium contributions remain tax exempt.  In addition, two new policies take effect in 2014: a penalty on larger employers that do not offer affordable health insurance, and premium tax credits for lower-income people to purchase insurance in new state exchanges if they lack access to affordable employer coverage.

In the pre-reform period, the economic incentives of employers to offer health insurance were all positive and increased with firm size.  After reform implementation in 2014, the largest firms with 500 or more workers will continue to have a strong economic incentive, with an average incentive of $2,503 per employee, according to the analysis.  However, the smallest firms with fewer than 50 workers will face lower economic incentives – an average of $990  – in the post-reform period, in large part because these smaller employers will be exempt from the penalty.

With summer approaching, many health care administrators in Florida and across the country are wondering about vacation staffing issues and the benefits of locum tenens programs. At the same time, many physicians are also considering the advantages of taking a temporary position during the peak vacation season through a locum tenens placement.

To answer those questions, All Medical Personnel’s staffing professionals will be on the scene at the Florida Medical Group Management Association (FMGMA)’s annual conference, May 13-15, 2013, at the Caribe Royale in Orlando.  The event will bring together hundreds of administrators and other professionals who belong to MGMA, a well-established organization whose mission is to improve the effectiveness of medical group practices in Florida and the skills of the individuals who manage or lead them.

As a member of MGMA, All Medical Personnel contributes to advancing that mission by providing a wide range of staffing programs, including temporary or long-term locum tenens placements for physicians and other healthcare professionals.  For administrators, locum tenens staffing can meet increases in seasonal demand for services or fill gaps in coverage due to vacations, extended illness, or other causes.

For physicians and other professionals, locum tenens assignments offer variety, providing opportunities to practice skills in a new clinical setting and serve a different patient population.  Many locum tenens physicians also enjoy a change of pace in their lifestyle, such as spending a month or two in a coastal, vacation-oriented community.  Other advantages include flexibility in scheduling.  That might mean working a new shift, taking a temporary assignment for several weeks or moving to a new location for several months or longer.  A locum tenens assignment can also help professionals find a healthy balance between work and family responsibilities.

To find out more about summer staffing options, visit All Medical Personnel’s booth at MGMA2013. For more information on the conference, go to: http://flmgma.com.

Since Monday, April 1, was April Fool’s Day, it’s a fitting time to warn about the dangers of pranks on a job application or in the workplace.   While most job candidates play by the rules, there are always a few jokesters who think it’s fun to fool a recruiter.  They might add an impressive healthcare credential, fabricate a college degree or apply for an administrative position far beyond their current career level.  When discovered, they might say, “Hey, don’t take it so seriously.  It was just an April Fool’s Day joke.”

Unfortunately, those “light-hearted fibs” can come back to haunt a candidate during the job search or even later in life. A healthcare organization that’s been burned by a candidate with a false resume will never, ever hire that person.  An executive recruiter who sets up an interview for a hospital CEO position only to find out the candidate is fresh out of college will not be pleased – to say the least.  At best, these types of “humorous” pranks are a waste of everyone’s time.  At worst they can tarnish the candidate’s reputation for honesty and integrity and cripple long-term career chances.

So, if you were thinking about celebrating April Fool’s Day with an awesome prank, hopefully you played a joke on your family and friends – someone who was able to appreciate your unique sense of humor.  But to avoid negative repercussions, don’t play pranks during your job search or with your bosses once you’ve landed a position.  The lesson for today is simple: Keep your pranks out of the workplace, and you won’t have to spend the rest of your life worrying about the consequences.

In a step that will affect healthcare organizations throughout the country, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently issued a final rule implementing five key consumer protections from the Affordable Care Act. Under the rule, all individuals and employers have the right to purchase health insurance coverage regardless of health status.  In addition, insurers are prevented from charging discriminatory rates to individuals and small employers based on factors such as health status or gender, and young adults have additional affordable coverage options under catastrophic plans.

For providers, the HHS rule is expected to increase demand for healthcare services from the more than 30 million Americans who are currently uninsured for one reason or another.  Now, the HHS is mandating that most health plans include the following key provisions by 2014:

• Guaranteed availability. Nearly all health insurance companies offering coverage to individuals and employers will be required to sell health insurance policies to all consumers. No one can be denied health insurance because of current or prior illness.
• Fair health insurance premiums. Health insurance companies offering coverage to individuals and small employers will only be allowed to vary premiums based on age, tobacco use, family size, and geography.  Basing premiums on other factors will be illegal.  The factors that are no longer permitted in 2014 include health status, past insurance claims, gender, occupation, how long an individual has held a policy, or size of the small employer.
• Guaranteed renewability. Health insurers can no longer refuse to renew coverage because an individual or an employee has become sick.  Consumers have the option to renew coverage.
• Single risk pool. Health insurers will no longer be able to charge higher premiums to higher cost enrollees by moving them into separate risk pools.  Insurers are required to maintain a single statewide risk pool for the individual market and single statewide risk pool for the small group market.
• Catastrophic plans. Consumers will have access to a catastrophic plan in the individual market.  Catastrophic plans generally have lower premiums, protect against high out-of-pocket costs, and cover recommended preventive services without cost sharing.

With these rules slated to go into effect in 2014, hospitals, physician groups and other providers should begin planning how to address the likely increase in patient volume in the new state and national healthcare climate.

If you are wondering where the U.S. healthcare sector is headed, think about mobility.  An explosion of new mobile applications (apps) is helping patients and families use their smart phones and tablets to connect with physicians, hospitals and other providers.  Perhaps most importantly, these new mobile apps have the potential to support wellness and disease prevention, shifting the focus away from acute patient care, while providing more effective monitoring of costly chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension.

One recent example is Heart Health Mobile,  a free mobile app created by the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation as part of a nationwide competition in support of its “Million Hearts” initiative. “The foundation has created an app to give people easy access to some of the most advanced health care analytics available to learn the factors that put them at risk for heart attacks and how to prevent them,” said Farzad Mostashari, M.D., the national coordinator for health information technology. “People can now get information about their risk and share what they know with their doctor to better manage their heart health.”

Heart Health Mobile, which can be downloaded from iTunes, provides information about  a person’s risk for heart disease based on answers to questions about height, weight, cholesterol levels and blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking status.  In areas with participating pharmacies and other retail clinics, the app steers users to convenient locations for cholesterol and blood-pressure screening.  A feature that tracks users’ histories allows people to easily see if they have made progress as they work to lose weight or lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels.

Along with the regular app, Heart Health Mobile has an innovative feature that allows users to play a “game,” earning points for completed tasks and awards for tracking their heart health and reaching their targets.  As Simon M. Lin, M.D., director of the foundation’s Biomedical Informatics Research Center, said, “As health care moves rapidly toward preventing disease, technology such as Heart Health Mobile can help people take charge of their health.”

One of the foundations of the national Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the concept of a state-level health insurance exchange or marketplace. The goal is to make it an easy and affordable for consumers and small businesses to purchase health coverage through private health plans. It’s a particularly important step for millions of individuals who do not get insurance from their employers.

Hospitals, physician groups and other healthcare providers should pay attention to the progress toward creating these two marketplaces – one for individuals and one for small businesses – in their states. After all, having insurance coverage makes it much more likely that individuals, couples and families will access primary care and specialty services.

As of mid February, 20 states and the District of Columbia have been conditionally approved to partially or fully run a marketplace, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The most recent state was Illinois, which plans to be ready for open enrollment in October 2013. “We are forging ahead to make the promise of the Affordable Care Act a reality,” said Illinois Governor Pat Quinn on Feb. 13. “We are going to be working very hard between now and October 1st to educate the people of our state about the health care coverage options they will have through the marketplace.”

Quinn’s remarks reflect the two key challenges that states will face in setting up these new health insurance entities. First of all, each state will need to establish policies, rules and regulations for insurance companies that desire to participate in the marketplaces, as well as reviewing their rate structures and coverage options.  That’s a daunting task in itself.  But state officials will also need to educate the consumers about these new options – a process that may well require telephone or face-to-face discussions with individuals and families.  Since educating consumers is vital to the success of the state marketplaces, healthcare providers may want to become involved in the process, such as holding health fairs that include insurance representatives or posting information, such as FAQs, on their websites.  While getting ready for the full implementation of the ACA next January is a major challenge for the healthcare industry, the reform effort is also creating new opportunities as well.

If you’re wondering which companies across the nation are hiring today, look no further than All Medical Personnel.  Our company was featured at the #2 spot in a recent article, “15 companies hiring in February,” by Debra Auerbach.  Her article appeared on MSN, CareerBuilder, and The Work Buzz.  Commenting on the feature, All Medical Personnel President Neil Bernstein said, “Healthcare is one of the fastest-growing industries in the country, and our recruiting team is always looking for well-qualified professionals.”  For example, All Medical Personnel’s current healthcare staffing positions include bilingual registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), phlebotomists, occupational therapists and laboratory technicians.  All Medical Personnel has been serving the healthcare industry for more than 20 years, providing customized staffing solutions, superior candidates, advanced reporting capabilities, and compliance mirroring.  Our services include executive and physician recruiting, locum tenens physician placements, and temporary, temp-to-hire, and direct hire placements.  Other national companies that made MSN’s February hiring list included Brightstar Corp. (telecommunications), Brookdale Senior Living
(residential living), Clayton Homes (sales), IHG (hospitality), Insight Global Inc.
(information technology), Saia LTL (freight) and Transamerica (insurance and finance).  To see the article on MSN, click here.

If want to take the next step in your healthcare career, it’s important to manage your social media presence.  After all, recruiters and potential employers today will usually go online and see what you have posted on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.  If you’ve posted a personal blog about being a nurse or physical therapist in your local community, you’re likely to be considered a strong candidate for an open position.  But if all the recruiter sees on Facebook are photos of you partying with your friends in a nightclub, your chances of being hired will drop dramatically.

The first step in managing your online presence is to take an inventory of what’s already out there.  You could start by pretending you’re the recruiter and do two searches, one with your name and one with your image, and see what appears.  Next review your online pages to see what information you’ve posted.  Pay particular attention to Facebook and Twitter, since these accounts tend to have much more personal information than LinkedIn. Fortunately, you can use the privacy controls on Facebook to protect your personal information from a casual visitor like a healthcare recruiter.

Once you’ve completed your assessment and done any necessary “damage control” to your image, it’s time to look for ways to make yourself more attractive to a recruiter.  One good approach is to update your credentials and experience on LinkedIn. For instance, if you’re looking for a management position, you can highlight recent accomplishments as a project manager or as a volunteer leader in a community organization. It’s also a good idea to ask your professional colleagues to “recommend” you or “endorse” your skills. Of course, you can do the same for them! These are some of the ways you can use social media to present yourself as an up-and-coming professional who would be a solid asset to any healthcare organization.

For healthcare organizations, the biggest technology trend of 2013 is likely to be the mobility revolution.  Certainly, the widespread adoption of smartphones and tablets – as well as medical diagnostic carts, video-enabled robots and other telemedicine tools – is dramatically changing work practices at physician offices, hospitals, medical laboratories and other healthcare organizations.

For example, 66 percent of physicians who responded to InformationWeek Healthcare’s 2012 Priorities Survey, said they were using iPads or other tablets for medical purposes, up from 45 percent in 2011.  That’s because tablets hit the mobile “sweet spot” for doctors.  They’re lightweight and easily transportable from exam room to exam room, yet have a screen that’s easy to read.  Tablets allow physicians, nurses and other team members to access patient EMR records, diagnostic scans, drug references and other valuable information.

Along with the explosion of mobile devices has come a parallel expansion of mobile applications – some specific to the healthcare sector and others designed for the consumer.  It’s easy for health-conscious consumers to download apps for fitness routines, nutritious diets and a myriad of other wellness objectives. Other apps can be used in conjunction with add-on devices to measure blood pressure, glucose levels and other health indicators.  A recent global survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found about half of consumers, physicians and payers expect mobile apps to improve the cost, quality and convenience of healthcare services in the next three years.

One of the challenges facing U.S. healthcare organizations is determining the best way to use mobile devices and apps to operate more efficiently, market their services more effectively and improve outcomes for their patients.  By addressing these issues in 2013, organizations have an excellent opportunity to capitalize on the benefits of the mobility revolution.

Season’s greetings and enjoy the holiday season!

Whether you are client or a member of our nationwide healthcare team, we thank you for your continued loyalty and support.  We are committed to providing the best healthcare staffing service in the country and look forward to continuing our tradition of excellence.

If you are looking to advance in your career or take advantage or our flexible staffing options, please bookmark our website and check in on a regular basis.  We have some exciting new job opportunities that are now in the planning stage.

If you are a healthcare employer, our team can advise you on optimizing your ongoing personnel arrangements, while fulfilling your immediate staffing needs.

In any case, please accept our best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

Neil Bernstein
President
All Medical Personnel