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Omnibus Provides Diverse Funding Options For Health Care Workforce
Inside Health Policy | By Bridget Early
As a worsening health care workforce crisis continues to plague providers across the country, federal legislators envision a financial fix including $1.3 billion for the health care workforce in the fiscal 2022 omnibus spending package, which passed the House and Senate this week and would address staffing shortages and bolster retention efforts across a multitude of struggling sectors.
Legislators and stakeholders have discussed a number of ways to slow the skyrocketing rates of resignations and retirements that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Student and educator loan forgiveness, increased graduate medical education slots, fast-tracked visa processes for foreign national providers, and broad additional funding for facilities have all been considered.
The omnibus funding encompasses all of these options, according to an explanatory statement that accompanies the legislation, with a special focus on groups experiencing the most acute worker shortages, including nurses, maternal care specialists, behavioral health specialists and rural providers.
Loan forgiveness and scholarships. The omnibus package includes $3.5 million in scholarships for disadvantaged students to educate midwives. The explanatory statement says this is meant to address the national shortage of maternity care providers and the lack of diversity in the maternity care workforce.
For nurses, the package includes $280.5 million for staff education and retention efforts, loan forgiveness and scholarships, which experts have recently lauded as a prime method of expanding the nursing pipeline. A complementary fund for loan forgiveness for nurse faculty would receive $28.5 million, the explanatory statement says.
The omnibus package also includes several separate funding pots for the education of health care providers, the explanatory statement says, such as $55 million for medical student education; $20 million for graduate psychology education; $24 million for substance use disorder treatment and recovery loan repayment programs; and $5 million for pediatric subspecialty loan repayments...
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From Alabama to Utah, Efforts to Vaccinate Medicaid Enrollees Against Covid Run Into Obstacles
KHN / By Phil Galewitz
Medicaid enrollees continue to get vaccinated against covid at far lower rates than the general population despite vigorous outreach efforts by government officials and private organizations to get low-income people inoculated, according to data from several states.
That leaves many Medicaid enrollees — who tend to be sicker than those with private insurance — at higher risk for severe illness, hospitalization, or death from the virus.
Nationally, more than 215 million Americans — including 75% of adults and 57% of children ages 12 to 17 — are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among children 5 to 11 years old, who have only been eligible for a shot since early November, about 25% have been fully vaccinated. A vaccine has not yet been authorized for children younger than 5.
Read more @ KHN |
Biden Administration Launches Nationwide Test-to-Treat Initiative Ensuring Rapid ‘On the Spot’ Access to Lifesaving COVID Treatments
[The] Biden-Harris Administration is launching a new nationwide Test to Treat initiative that will give individuals an important new way to rapidly access free lifesaving treatment for COVID-19.
Through this program, people who test positive for COVID-19 will in one stop, be assessed by a qualified health care provider who can prescribe antiviral pills on the spot. This ensures that, if people who are at high risk for developing severe disease test positive and if administration of an antiviral is appropriate, they can get treatment quickly and easily.
The Test to Treat Initiative will also include new actions to educate the public about the availability of new treatments and the importance of starting them soon after the onset of symptoms; and provide information to health care providers about these new treatments.
A full fact sheet about this initiative from HHS can be found through the link below:
https://aspr.hhs.gov/TestToTreat/Documents/Fact-Sheet.pdf |
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Almost a Third of People Report Lingering Symptom 6-12 Months After COVID-19 Study
Almost a third of people report at least one ongoing symptom between 6 and 12 months after their coronavirus infection, a survey of 152,000 people in Denmark has found.
The study includes one of the largest groups yet of people who were not hospitalised with COVID, and followed them for longer than other major studies, the researchers from Denmark's State Serum Institute (SSI) said.
The questionnaire-based study suggested that the most commonly reported long-term symptoms were changes in sense of smell and taste, as well as fatigue.
Read more @ Reuters |
Several Important Health Care Provisions in Omnibus Federal Funding Bill
The Senate passed a $1.5 trillion Omnibus spending package to fund the federal government for the current fiscal year, after Democrats and Republicans resolved disagreements to quickly send $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine.
Several anticipated healthcare features were cut from the draft. For example, $15 billion in health care COVID-19 relief funding was pulled out with reports that it will be run as a standalone to, among other things, continue and fund the federal government’s supply of coronavirus therapeutics.
The bill is also missing continued relief from the 2% Medicare sequestration payment cuts. This means that beginning April 1, 2002, and through June 30, 2022, there will be a 1% across-the-board reduction in Medicare payments. The full 2% cuts would begin July, 2022.
On a positive note, hospice several telehealth waivers will be extended for 5 months after the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE), allowing hospices to perform the face-to-face (F2F) recertification visit via telehealth; use audio-only; and allow patients to receive telehealth servings in their own homes and in non-rural parts of the country. The flexibility for hospices to deliver routine home care using telehealth and telephone technology would not be extended by the bill. Neither would certain telehealth CPT codes that have been used by palliative care providers during the pandemic be continued for that purpose.
A summary of the House’s Labor-Health and Human Services portion of the bill, where most of the health care provisions can be found, can be accessed HERE.
Additional summary and explanatory documents related to the House's bill can be found on the House Appropriation Committee’s press release page HERE. Full text of the Senate's bill was not available at the writing of this article. |
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