Tag: 2019 News

America’s 82 top non-profit hospital groups have experienced massive growth in annual revenues and asset value even as health care costs for most families and individuals are zooming upward, according to government watchdog Open The Books.

The 82 largest U.S. non-profit hospitals recorded revenues of $296.6 billion for their primary entity in FY2017 (or latest year available). The largest systems ranked by revenues are Kaiser Foundation, Oakland, CA ($54 billion); Partners HealthCare, Somerville, MA ($12.7 billion); University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Group, Pittsburgh, PA ($12.5 billion); MayoClinic, Rochester, MN ($11.1 billion); and Dignity Health, San Francisco, CA ($9.9 billion).

Average net asset growth year-over-year for the 82 non-profit hospitals was 23.6 percent: $164.2 billion grew to $203.1 billion. The largest percentage increases in net assets were individually recorded by Ascension Health, St. Louis, MO(1211%); Highmark Health, Pittsburgh, PA (271%); Baylor Scott & White Health, Dallas, TX (247%); and Texas Health Resources, Arlington, TX (146%).

The 82 large non-profit healthcare providers paid out $297.5 million in compensation to their single most highly compensated employee. On average, the top executive in each organization made $3.5 million.

For comparison, the five for-profit corporations had revenues of $96 billion with disclosed expenses of $80 billion. Their net assets increased by $600 million last year – an increase in assets from $40.1 billion to $40.7 billion (1.5 % growth). The most highly compensated executive was Tenet HealthCare Corporation CEO who made $6.3 million. Furthermore, Medicare/Medicaid comprised 25 percent of their annual revenues.

Only 14 of the 82 non-profit organizations Open the Books studied properly disclosed the amount of revenues derived from Medicare/Medicaid on their IRS 990 returns last year. The 14 hospitals who disclosed their program service revenues had $100.2 billion in total revenues of which $28 billion came from Medicare/Medicaid (28%). Therefore, Open the Books estimated that the 82 non-profit hospitals did $83 billion in Medicare/Medicaid work last year.

Roughly $2 billion flowed into these non-profit organizations from federal agencies via grants primarily used for research (FY2018). The largest recipients were Partners HealthCare, Sommerville, MA ($903.4 million); Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN at $282.9 million followed by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, PA ($182.6 million); Cleveland Clinic in Independence, OH ($101.6 million); and Kaiser Foundation in Oakland, CA ($78.6 million).

These large non-profit hospitals received charitable contributions of $5.2 billion last year (includes affiliated organizations). The largest recipients of charity (excluding government grants) were Partners HealthCare, Somerville, MA ($2.2 billion); Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN ($1.1 billion); Cleveland Clinic, Independence, OH ($179.3 million); Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles, CA ($130.9 million); ProMedica, Toledo, OH ($124.7 million); and Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, TX ($112.2 million).

The 82 non-profit hospital organizations collectively spent $26.4 million on lobbying last year. The top four providers with the most lobbying were University of Pittsburgh Medical Group, Pittsburgh, PA ($2.3 million); Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN ($1.8 million); Dignity Health, San Francisco, CA ($1.7 million); and Christus Health, Irving, TX ($1.3 million). Non-profits cannot use charitable contributions or government payments for lobbying purposes.

The non-profits must re-invest in their communities and therefore construction of new facilities is on-going. For example, in Illinois, the top contractor at Advocate Medical isn’t a healthcare service vendor, but a construction project manager ($26.1 million). Illinois lost population during the last ten-years. This pales in comparison to Partners HealthCare in Massachusetts – the top three vendors are construction contractors who reaped $191.4 million last year.

Neither the non-profit nor the for-profit hospital corporations disclose the real prices actually paid by their patients.

Deliv is a Menlo Park-based crowdsourced, same-day delivery startup. Deliv bridges the last mile gap between multichannel retailers and their customers. Deliv offers same-day service to mall shoppers.

Starting this August, Deliv drivers will be employees with benefits such as coverage for workers’ compensation and unemployment, paid sick leave, access to a retirement plan and health/dental/vision coverage.

According to the report in the SF Chronicle, this is a rare move by a gig economy company to change its employment model. And it’s sure to be closely watched, as California adjusts to last year’s groundbreaking state Supreme Court ruling called Dynamex that makes it harder for companies to claim that workers are independent contractors, and considers legislation that could force other companies to change how they classify their workers.

A pending bill, AB5, would codify Dynamex, extending its reach beyond wage issues to other labor code matters and exempting some professions, such as doctors, architects and hairstylists. Lawmakers, companies and unions are now thrashing out how that would work — with many gig enterprises, such as Uber and Lyft, seeking to be exempted.

Deliv’s change, which applies only to its workers in California, “is the best approach for all our stakeholders,” said Deliv CEO Daphne Carmeli. The company declined to say how much it would cost. It is setting up a California subsidiary to hire the couriers as employees.

Deliv appears to be the first prominent California gig company to change its business model – but it won’t be the last.

Deliv, which operates in 1,400 cities in 35 metropolitan markets nationwide, works with Home Depot, Best Buy and Macy’s as well as smaller companies. Retailers pay it for deliveries and choose whether to pass some or all of that cost along to customers.

While providing benefits and withholding for Social Security and other safety net programs will cost Deliv more, Carmeli thinks that the company will receive economic advantages such as more-efficient drivers thanks to more training and management, lower recruiting costs and less turnover.

Uber and Lyft, the two biggest gig companies in AB5’s crosshairs, both said that their business models, as well as drivers’ stated preferences, rely on flexibility, which they said would be hard to achieve while also meeting requirements such as mandated meal/rest breaks and overtime. Both said they’d likely need to insist that drivers work for only one service, and limit how many drivers work at a time, two changes that would curb drivers’ earnings potential.

The ride-hailing rivals have joined forces to push for a hybrid model that would include some benefits, a guaranteed wage floor and an association to speak for drivers, who would remain independent contractors.

Huge research companies may be putting their thumb on the scale in favor of increasing public use of cannabis world wide.

EMMAC Life Sciences Ltd is the European medical cannabis company, working to join together the latest science and research with cutting-edge cultivation, extraction and production. Hyris is a privately held, UK-based biotechnology company founded in 2014 by an entrepreneurial team with deep experience in biotechnology and electronics.

EMMAC,announced an exclusive collaboration with Hyris Ltd, to develop a comprehensive library of genetic profiles of existing cannabis varieties, and to industrialise DNA-based methods for the identification of its unique branded cultivars.

The Hyris platform will enable EMMAC to gain an exact overview of available cannabis species as well as run specific DNA-based tests for the positive identification of EMMAC proprietary strains, ensuring industry-leading quality control, regulatory compliance and anti-counterfeiting assurance for customers and partners.

The portable, distributed testing platform ensures that all stakeholders (industrial, agronomy, Pharma, patients’ advocacy, regulators) from multiple geographies are able to participate in the creation and exchange of data through a proprietary cloud-based platform in real time, ensuring immediate access to the latest required information.

Barbara Pacchetti, Chief Scientific Officer of EMMAC, commented: “EMMAC is committed to investing in the latest innovations in cannabis cultivation, extraction, production and other value-adding associated technologies, to ensure the highest quality medical cannabis product for our customers. The Hyris platform enables us to provide industry-leading quality assurance for our products, across geographies in real-time to our multiple stakeholders.”

Stefano Lo Priore, CEO of Hyris, commented: “We are excited about this partnership and look forward to providing value to EMMAC, its partners, customers and regulators. As an emerging leader in the DNA-based analysis of plants, Hyris looks forward to the growing number of diverse stakeholders able to generate and process highly relevant genetic data to ensure quality, traceability and compliance.”

Earlier this month, EMMAC bought French hemp-based and cannabis healthcare company GreenLeaf, as the legal use of cannabis for medicinal purposes steadily increases.

Cannabis stocks have been a growing trend on world stock markets, particularly on the Toronto stock exchange after Canada became one of the first major economies to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

A new U.S. study published in JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that Opioid overdoses may be much more likely to happen in families when somebody in the household has been prescribed these drugs.

Even when a family member gets lower doses of opioids – less than 50 morphine milligram equivalents per day – the overdose risk is almost three times higher than it would be in a family where nobody has been prescribed opioids, the study found.

The overdose risk was nearly 8 times greater when a family member was prescribed 50 to 90 morphine milligram equivalents a day; it was more than 15 times higher at doses above 90 morphine milligram equivalents per day.

The new study shows these prescriptions are important risk factors for overdose for others in the household, he said, and overdose reduction and treatment strategies are needed for family members, too.

The team’s findings are drawn from insurance claims data collected from 2004 to 2015 on 2,303 individuals who had an overdose and 9,212 who did not. This study wasn’t designed to prove whether or how opioid prescriptions within families might directly cause overdoses or deaths.

The results underscore the need for precautions when opioids are prescribed.

To reduce overdoses and deaths, many states have implemented programs to restrict and track opioid prescriptions, and some have also enacted or considered caps on the maximum daily doses that can be prescribed.

Still, when one person in a family gets prescribed opioids, the odds go up that another person in the same family will also take these drugs, the study team notes. And having more opioids in the house can make misuse and overdose more likely – especially when people hang on to any unused pills.

The San Diego County District Attorney’s prosecution of Operation Backlash, a large scale, undercover, joint federal and state investigation into multi-million dollar fraud and illegal kickbacks in the California workers compensation has moved forward as another defendant in the state’s case was sentenced. Operation Backlash is the largest healthcare insurance fraud scheme in the history of San Diego County. It resulted in both federal and state charges.

Gonzalo Paredes, 63, was sentenced to five years in state prison on June 14, after a jury trial in November resulted in convictions on 51 felony counts.

Paredes was the office manager for Advanced Radiology, owned by radiologist Ronald Grusd, M.D. The United States Attorney’s Office previously convicted Grusd on 39 federal felony counts for paying illegal kickbacks for patient referrals. Grusd was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

According to the evidence presented at Paredes’ state trial, Grusd and Paredes paid kickbacks to a high volume San Diego-based chiropractor and the chiropractor’s “marketers,” in exchange for referral of patients to Advanced Radiology. Advanced Radiology provided MRIs and other medical procedures to unwitting patients, allowing Advanced Radiology to bill large amounts to workers compensation insurance companies. Advanced Radiology paid more than $225,000 in kickbacks and billed insurance companies over $5 million dollars during the time period covered by the state Indictment.

As the office manager for Advanced Radiology, Paredes helped negotiate kickback agreements, handled day-to-day-interactions with co-conspirators, processed and reconciled covert invoices for illegal payments, and prepared kickback payment checks.

The District Attorney’s Office worked hand-in-hand with the FBI, California Department of Insurance, and the United States Attorney’s Office in the investigation and prosecution of Paredes.

In addition to a 10-year prison sentence for Grusd, two other defendants involved in the scheme were also convicted. Alexander Martinez, 41, was sentenced to three years in state prison and Ruben Martinez, 62, was sentenced to two years, eight months in state prison. Both men also received sentences of 33 months as part of a federal prosecution.