Covid19 |

Generational Differences Should Be Addressed In Benefit Offerings, Research Finds

August 9, 2023 By Jay Baldauf

Generational differences should be addressed in benefit offerings, research finds | BenefitsPRO

As the workplace continues to evolve, employers will need to offer a wider variety of benefit options to meet the expectations of different generations within their workforce.

“Since the pandemic, employers have faced a dramatically different workforce dynamic with a sustained increase in hybrid and remote workers, which is reshaping expectations,” said Patrick Leary, corporate vice president and head of LIMRA Workplace Benefits Research. “In this highly competitive job market, benefits remain a powerful tool to attract and retain talent. Employers recognize that expanded benefits are key to meeting employees’ post-COVID-19 needs and expectations.”

Employers believe demand for nonmedical benefits, such as paid family medical leave, emergency savings and financial wellness programs, will increase significantly, according to new research by LIMRA and Ernst & Young. Traditional employer-paid products and services will remain at the core of benefits packages, with widespread expectations for more holistic offerings. Most employees expect their employers to provide medical insurance, while paid family leave, dental, vision and life insurance also are highly valued benefits.

The study shows benefits that promote wellbeing, including offerings focused on mental, physical and financial health, have become even more important to younger employees. Younger generations were much more likely to express interest in mental health treatment and physical wellness benefits, tuition and student loan assistance, and caregiving benefits.

“A majority of employers recognize that in the future, it is somewhat or very likely that employees at their company will expect a wider variety of benefits options,” said Chris Morbelli, Ernst & Young’s Americas Life and Group Insurance transformation leader. “Employers — particularly smaller organizations — will have to balance building a more comprehensive benefits package with budgetary constraints and will likely look to provide more employee-paid benefits to meet the demand.”

One of the biggest challenges for employers is that workers lack awareness and understanding of the benefits they offer. Given the diverse needs of the workforce, an employer will need to customize communications to effectively engage and educate employees of different generations. Most workers — more than 90% across all generations — believe guidance can be provided at least somewhat successfully through digital channels.

“Digital capabilities are becoming points of differentiation in carrier selection for employers,” Leary said. “When considering a new insurance carrier, 59% of employers say they would select a carrier that works well with their benefits technology platform, even if their product is a little more expensive. Moreover, almost half of employers would switch to a different benefits carrier if that carrier was not integrated to their benefits technology platform.”

Filed Under: ACA, Doctors, Drugs, Employer Benefits, General Health, Reform Tagged With: benefit offerings, Covid19, demand, emergency savings, employer Benefits, expanded, financial wellness, FML, generational differences, nonmedical benefits, research finds, should be addressed

Nursing Homes Will Get A 4% Medicare Pay Bump Next Year Under CMS Final Rule

August 2, 2023 By Jay Baldauf

In what the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today described as a “parity adjustment recalibration,” the agency said it will increase payments to skilled nursing facilities by 4%, or $1.4 billion, starting in fiscal year 2024.

The payment bump will, in part, make up for a $2.2 billion underpayment to the facilities as a result of the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) for SNFs that replaced the former payment system in 2020, CMS said in a fact sheet. In its final rule, the agency says that it overestimated overpayments to nursing homes, and that resulted in a 2.23% reduction in fiscal year 2023.

The final payment policy reflects a 3% SNF market basket increase plus a 3.6% market basket forecast error adjustment and less a 0.2% productivity adjustment, as well as a negative 2.3% reduction, or approximately $789 million, from the clawback related to the PDPM parity adjustment recalibration, CMS said.

The final rule updates payment policies and rates for SNFs under the new measures that aim to address staff turnover under an executive order by President Joe Biden. The implementation of the PDPM in 2020 led CMS to estimate an unintended increase to SNFs of about 5%, or $1.7 billion.

One of the reasons nursing homes were underpaid is CMS didn’t account for the Consolidated Appropriations Act’s requirement to exclude marriage and family therapist (MFT) services and mental health counselor services (MHC) from SNF billing. “Exclusion from consolidated billing allows these services to be billed separately by the performing clinician rather than being included in the Medicare Part A SNF payment,” the final rule states. “We are finalizing regulatory text changes required to codify this new legislative requirement to exclude MFT and MHC services from SNF consolidated billing for services furnished on or after January 1, 2024.”

CMS notes that the PDPM utilizes the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10), to use an individual’s primary diagnosis to assign patients to clinical categories. “In response to stakeholder feedback and to improve consistency between the ICD-10 code mappings and current ICD-10 coding guidelines, CMS is finalizing several changes to the PDPM ICD-10 code mappings,” the final rule states.

Beginning in fiscal year 2025, CMS will adopt a discharge function score when considering payments to SNFs. “This measure assesses functional status by assessing the percentage of SNF residents who meet or exceed an expected discharge function score and uses mobility and self-care items already collected on the Minimum Data Set (MDS),” the final rule states.

LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit, mission-driven providers of aging services, including nursing homes, issued a statement saying the final payment rule “does not address the reality of providers’ operating environments, and will, ultimately, limit older adults’ access to much-needed care and services.”

“Of course, our nonprofit and mission-driven members welcome any increase in payment rates, the 4% provided in this rule will surely be offset by the increasing costs of care, which will most certainly continue to rise in the coming year—on top of the expected staffing standards,” Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, said in a statement .”We encourage Congress and HHS to ensure any proposed standards meet the provisions outlined in LeadingAge’s Get Real on Ratios proposal.”

In addition, COVID-19 continues to cast a shadow over nursing home operations, seeing as how the facilities had been the main nexuses for the disease. Beginning in fiscal year 2025, CMS will track the percentage of healthcare personnel in nursing homes who are considered up to date on their COVID vaccinations.

“The prior version of this measure reported only on whether HCP had received the primary vaccination series for COVID-19, while the modified measure requires SNFs to report the cumulative number of healthcare providers who are up to date with recommended COVID-19 vaccinations in accordance with the CDC’s most recent guidance,” the final rule states.

CMS will also begin to monitor nursing staff turnover beginning in fiscal year 2026 as part of the Biden administration’s focus to ensure adequate staffing at nursing homes.

Filed Under: ACA, Doctors, Drugs, Employer Benefits, General Health, Medi-Cal, Medicare, Reform, Senior Health Tagged With: CMS, Covid19, final rule, HCP, ICD-10, Medicare, MFT, MHC, next year, nursing homes, pay bump, PDPM, SNF

‘Fairly Shocking’: Secret Medical Lab In California Stored Bioengineered Mice Laden With COVID

August 2, 2023 By Jay Baldauf

Illegal lab in California carried bioengineered mice, infectious agents A monthslong investigation into a rural California warehouse uncovered an illegal laboratory filled with infectious agents, medical waste and hundreds of mice bioengineered “to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus,” according to Fresno County authorities.

Health and licensing said Monday that Prestige Biotech, a Chinese medical company registered in Nevada, was operating the unlicensed facility in Reedley, California, a small city about 24 miles southeast of Fresno. The company, according to Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba, had a goal of being a diagnostics lab.

“They never had a business license,” Zieba told USA TODAY. “The city was completely unaware that they were in this building, operating under the cover of night.”

The Fresno County Public Health Department launched its investigation into the facility in December 2022 after a code enforcement officer saw a garden hose attached to a building that was presumed to be vacant and had no active business license, Zieba said.

Further inspection in March revealed that the facility housed various chemicals, suspected biological materials, bodily fluids and hundreds of lab mice, among other lab supplies, according to court documents.

County public health officials said they also found medical devices believed to have been developed on-site, such as COVID-19 and pregnancy tests.

“Being a small, rural town of 26,000 − walking into what we believed to be a vacant building and finding lab supplies, live white mice … was was fairly shocking,” Zieba said.

After several attempts to communicate with Prestige Biotech, Fresno County officials are accusing the company of not being forthcoming with information and failing to comply with orders, such as providing a plan for hazardous and medical waste disposal.

Fresno County Public Health staff completed biological abatement work of all the materials found in the facility by July 7, according to court documents.

CDC detected at least 20 infectious agents

Zieba said officials had to conduct a separate investigation into the warehouse for several weeks because it was private property.

After authorities discovered that people were working inside the building, Zieba said, federal, state and local agencies joined the investigation, including the county health department and the FBI. Authorities were then able to serve an inspection warrant in March.

“Certain rooms of the warehouse were found to contain several vessels of liquid and various apparatus,” court documents said. “Fresno County Public Health staff also observed blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums; and thousands of vials of unlabeled fluids and suspected biological material.”

Hundreds of mice also were found at the warehouse, where they were “kept in inadequate conditions in overcrowded cages” with no food or water, according to court documents. An associate with Prestige Biotech told investigators the mice were “genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID virus,” the documents added.

Under an abatement warrant, the city seized the mice in April and euthanized 773 of them. Nearly 180 mice were already dead, court documents said.

Zieba said officials called in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after about 30 freezers and refrigerators were found, with some set to minus 80 degrees. The CDC detected at least 20 potentially infectious agents, according to court documents.

“Ultimately, what we did find is some viruses, such as HIV, COVID, chlamydia, rubella, malaria, things of that nature,” Zieba said.

What is Prestige Biotech?

Prestige Biotech had been operating the unlicensed and unregulated laboratory since October 2022, according to court documents.

Emails between city officials and Xiuquin Yao, the company president, showed that Prestige Biotech had assumed assets from the now-defunct company Universal Meditech Inc. (UMI). Prestige Biotech was a creditor to UMI and became its successor, court documents said.

The assets were then moved to the Reedley warehouse from a site in Fresno, court documents said.

Authorities were unable to find any California-based addresses associated with the company except for UMI’s Fresno location. Court documents noted that other addresses provided were either “empty offices or addresses in China that could not be verified.”

During the investigation, Zieba said the company reported it was making COVID-19 and pregnancy tests with “a goal of being a diagnostics lab.”

Filed Under: ACA, Covid19, Doctors, Drugs, Employer Benefits, Federal Government, General Health, Reform, vaccinations Tagged With: bioengineered mice, California, catch and carry, CDC, Chinese company, Covid19, Fairly Shocking, fresno, Prestige Biotech, Reedley, registered Nevada, secret medical lab, unlicensed, unregulated, USA today