Tag: 2013 News

Wider adoption of electronic health recrords (EHR) is critical to the broader health care improvement efforts, including efficiencies within the workers’ compensation health system. These efforts – improving care coordination, reducing duplicative tests and procedures, and rewarding hospitals for keeping patients healthier – are all made possible by widespread use of EHRs. Health IT systems give doctors, hospitals, and other providers the ability to better coordinate care and reduce errors and readmissions that can cost more money and leave patients less healthy. In turn, efforts to improve care coordination and efficiency create further incentive for providers to adopt health IT.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced this week that more than half of all doctors and other eligible providers have received Medicare or Medicaid incentive payments for adopting or meaningfully using electronic health records (EHRs). HHS has met and exceeded its goal for 50 percent of doctor offices and 80 percent of eligible hospitals to have EHRs by the end of 2013.

Since the Obama administration started encouraging providers to adopt EHRs, usage has increased dramatically. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey in 2012, the percent of physicians using an advanced EHR system was just 17 percent in 2008. Today, more than 50 percent of eligible professionals (mostly physicians) have demonstrated meaningful use and received an incentive payment. For hospitals, just nine percent had adopted EHRs in 2008, but today, more than 80 percent have demonstrated meaningful use of EHRs.

“We have reached a tipping point in adoption of electronic health records,” said Secretary Sebelius. “More than half of eligible professionals and 80 percent of eligible hospitals have adopted these systems, which are critical to modernizing our health care system. Health IT helps providers better coordinate care, which can improve patients’ health and save money at the same time.”

The Obama administration has encouraged the adoption of health IT starting with the passage of the Recovery Act in 2009 because it is an integral element of health care quality and efficiency improvements. Doctors, hospitals, and other eligible providers that adopt and meaningfully use certified electronic health records receive incentive payments through the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs. Part of the Recovery Act, these programs began in 2011 and are administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology.

Congress is again being asked to amend the Medicare Secondary Payment Act, just six months after enacting reform legislation dealing with the issue, which took five years to pass congressional muster. The Medicare Secondary Payer and Workers’ Compensation Settlement Agreements Act of 2013 was introduced this month in the House, sponsored by Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., and Mike Thompson, D-Calif. The new legislation seeks to reform the processes and procedures used by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in its review of workers’ compensation settlement agreements.

According to the story in Property Casualty 360, strong supporters include members of the American Insurance Association and the Coalition for Medicare Secondary Payer Reform. The bill seeks to resolve the serious delays and confusion in the review of workers’ compensation Medicare set- asides by CMS, says to Melissa Shelk, AIA vice president for federal affairs, and Douglas Holmes, president of Strategic Services on Unemployment and Workers’ Compensation (UWC) and coordinator of the Coalition for Medicare Secondary Payer Reform.

“The CMS workers’ compensation Medicare Set-Aside (WCMSA) review process is broken, and this legislation seeks to fix the costly delays and problems within the system,” Shelk said. “We believe that the CMS review process needs clear and consistent standards, timely resolution of coverage decisions and the ability to enable appeals when necessary.”

Holmes said reform is being sought because the current procedure for review of workers’ compensation settlements provides no effective recourse. He said, “There is no avenue to compel a timely decision or appeal a bad one. The legislation introduced by Representatives Reichert and Thompson corrects this situation and many other costly problems and delays, for the benefit of all parties involved.”

In December, Congress passed legislation sought by the insurance industry and other stakeholders since late 2008 that streamlines enforcement of the Medicare Secondary Payment program. The legislation is H.R. 1063, the SMART Act, or The Strengthening Medicare and Repaying Taxpayers Act. The bill is example of how difficult it is to get special interest legislation through Congress is so difficult. The SMART Act was first introduced in Congress in the fall of 2010, but momentum for passage was not generated until last September, when the House Energy and Committee staff coalesced on a rewritten bill crafted with bipartisan support and passed it in late September.

The reason that bill finally got through Congress is that supporters included plaintiffs and defense attorneys, brokers, insureds, insurers, insurance and trade associations, self-insureds and third-party administrators.

The DWC published the following update on the processing of QME panels

“The Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and the Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) are commencing a thorough review of the existing delays in processing represented injured workers’ requests for Qualified Medical Examiner (QME) panels. DIR is committed to addressing the root cause of the delays and is taking steps to ensure that it is addressed systemically .

The delays were eliminated in the past through significant amounts of overtime work by DWC staff as well as the use of temporary student assistants. While those efforts were successful in the short-term, they were not sustainable, leading to reoccurring problems in processing QME panel requests for represented injured worker cases.

All available resources are currently being directed towards reducing the timelines in represented cases. We are conducting a thorough review of the work processes and the applicable regulations, and exploring long-term solutions to reduce the amount of staff time required to process panel requests and make the process more efficient. A technological infrastructure repair is underway.

We further estimate a reduction in the rate of incoming panel requests after July 1, 2013, when Independent Medical Review becomes applicable to all dates of injury. We are confident that the combination of re-directing resources, implementing new technology and the expected IMR – related decrease in panel requests will result in the permanent elimination of the processing delays . Thank you for your patience during this transition.”

CorVel Healthcare, a workers’ compensation system MPN, terminated the contract of Douglas J. Roger M.D., an orthopedic surgeon for two reasons: First, he was unreachable by independent reviewing physicians hired by the network to evaluate four nonstandard treatments he was regularly prescribing for his workers’ compensation patients. Second, he was prescribing those nonstandard treatments on a wholesale basis, and not taking the time to justify their application to particular patients. The Court of Appeal in the unpublished case of Roger v. CorVel Healthcare held that CorVel was well within its rights in terminating his contract.

The case becomes more complicated. The MPN did not comply with the contract as regards the process of termination. The contract provided for a graduated, three-step disciplinary process based on first, second, and third offenses: first a warning letter, second a set of counseling “sessions,” and only then, third, actual termination. And that did not happen. The network terminated the physician after one lengthy telephone discussion with one independent reviewing physician about one patient. The record is clear that Dr. Roger was not about to change his practice to conform to the network’s utilization review procedure, either by making himself readily accessible for peer review consultations, or by taking the time and effort to justify his nonstandard treatments on a patient-specific basis.

Dr. Roger regularly prescribed four nonstandard treatments for his workers’ compensation patients. The first is known as a “surface EMG.” An EMG can be done by needle, which is considered a separate procedure from surface EMGs, or it can be done by surface electrodes – hence the term “surface EMGs.” Surface EMG’s are controversial. Insurers, generally speaking, don’t like them. The other nonstandard treatments were two ointments and one “medical food.” The two ointments were a capsaicin compound referred to by the parties as wasabi-rub, the other a compound of various ingredients called Gaba-2K rub. The “medical food” was theramine tablets.Dr. Roger did not dispute that none of these four treatments are recommended for use in the medical treatment utilization schedule (MTUS) adopted by California Division of Workers’ Compensation. He prescribed them over 90 times, either individually or in some combination, over the course of the year following his sign-up with CorVel. And in each of those more than 90 cases, the proposed treatment was not “certified” for payment. Dr. Roger denigrates the non-certification memos as “cut and paste jobs” performed by nurses rather than actual doctors (even though they were signed by doctors), but cites no evidence to that effect. But Dr. Roger made himself practically unreachable during his tenure with CorVel. He testified he operated four offices during this period, and he had a personal policy of never returning any phone call from an independent reviewing physician unless he was at the office where the patient’s file was kept.

Even worse – and “worse” is the precise word the trial judge used for it – Dr. Roger resorted to the unethical practice of upcoding in order to be paid for the surface EMGs he prescribed.

Dr. Roger’s main theme, which is that a network like CorVel has no business telling fully qualified physicians – under the guise of utilization review – that they can’t prescribe what they think is best for their patients if it is otherwise perfectly legal. The Court of Appeal noted that “Dr. Roger himself was perfectly willing to accept denial of a prescribed treatment and simply assert a workers’ compensation lien later.”

The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court judgment that Dr. Roger take nothing by his breach of contract action. The Court noted that “While Dr. Roger’s workers’ compensation business may have declined considerably as a result of his termination, we cannot say that his termination was as a result of CorVel’s failure to follow the three-step termination process. Termination was inevitable, independent of that process.”

The Baird Formula is a method of reducing EDD liens proportionately, when a worker’s compensation claim is settled for less than its full amount. The formula was approved by the California Supreme Court in California-Western States Life Insurance Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission (Baird), 59 Cal.2d 257, 28 Cal.Rptr. 872, 379 P.2d 328 (1963). It seeks to assure fairness in proportional reductions of EDD liens by showing a reasonable estimate of the full value of the claims as if the worker had prevailed. The EDD lien is reduced so that the EDD does not receive a greater percentage of full recovery then does the injured worker. So, the question becomes, is it similarly possible to reduce the amount allocated to protect the interests of Medicare in a Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set Aside (WCMSA) situation so that CMS does not receive a greater percentage recovery than the claimant? While there are no cases on this point in the world of workers’ compensation claims, there are some new cases that may seem to agree with this concept in cases where a Liability Medicare Set Aside (LMSA) is required during the settlement of a liability case.

The United States District Court, W.D. Louisiana decided Benoit v. Neustrom, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55971. on April 17, 2013. Michael Benoit suffered injuries while incarcerated. Michael Neustrom, as Sheriff of Lafayette Parish was sued for allegedly not recognizing his health condition, causing a delay in medical care leading to disabling neurologic injury. The Parties agreed to a settlement of $100,000 and Medicare claimed $2,777.78 for conditional payments it made related to the claim. Although the Parties did not contest what was owed to Medicare, there was concern regarding future Medical and CMS statements that its future interests must be protected. To do so, Plaintiff secured a LMSA with cost projections in the range of $277,758.62 – $333,267.02. Based on the settlement amount of only $100,000, an issue of how to fund the LMSA was obvious.

CMS was served notice of a Motion for Declaratory Judgment asking the Court how to proceed, but declined to appear. In lieu of its appearance, the U.S. Attorney sent its standard letter which included a handout from the MSP regional Coordinator for CMS in Region VI. According to such handout, Medicare’s interests must be protected, but CMS does not mandate a specific mechanism to protect those interests. It goes on to state the law does not require a “set – aside” in any situation, but it is [CMS] method of choice for workers’ compensation settlements .The law makes no distinction between workers’ compensation and liability cases. The implication therefore is that the LMSA would be a vehicle, but CMS has no approval mechanism in place. Absent a CMS approval, the LMSA could be later challenged by CMS.

Since CMS provides no other procedure to determine the adequacy of protecting Medicare’s interest for future medical, the Court decided it must act to fill the vacuum that is left. In doing so, the U.S. District Court made several important findings of fact, important to its determination which covered: 1) Jurisdictional basis; 2) Agreement that both liability and medical issues were contested; 3) The potential damage elements plaintiff would have recovered for had the case been tried; 4) The settlement amount of $100,000 represents a reasonable compromise; 5) Plaintiff will take more than 30 months to reach age 65; 6) A calculation of the allocation based on the settlement amount; 7) The need for Plaintiff’s wife to administer the fund, based on Plaintiff’s incapacitation; 8) The requirement to reimburse Medicare its conditional payment claim in full; and 9 ) No Party is attempting to maximize the settlement.

To arrive at the appropriate figure, the Court took the net settlement proceeds, after reimbursement of conditional payments to Medicare, attorneys’ fees and costs and divided it into the mid – point of the LMSA range that was presented to the Court, arriving at a ratio of 18.2%. That ratio was then applied to the net proceeds where the Court arrived at the $10,138 figure to fund the set-aside. The Court looked to the 11th Circuit decision in Bradley v. Sebelius for guidance. 621 F.3d 1330 (11th Cir. 2010). Bradley was an allocation case under the MSP with respect to conditional payments, holding that CMS must respect a judicial allocation based on the merits of the case.

Based upon the logic of these new federal decisions, perhaps it is time for the judicial creation of a “Baird” type formula for the resolution of conditional payments and set-aside allocations under California workers’ compensation law.