HHS Announces Nov. 14 Listening Session on Protecting the Safety of Patients and Healthcare Workers

AHRQ Stats: Medical and Dental Provider Visits by Insurance Coverage

In 2019, 47.2 percent of Americans with both private insurance and dental coverage visited both a medical and dental provider, compared with just 22.8 percent of those with private insurance and no dental coverage and 29.8 percent of those with only public insurance. (Source: AHRQ Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Statistical Brief #544, Number and Percentage of the Population with Any Dental or Medical Visits by Insurance Coverage and Geographic Area, 2019.)

Today's Headlines:

• HHS Announces Nov. 14 Listening Session on Protecting the Safety of Patients and Healthcare Workers.
• Scant Savings Expected From New “No Surprises” Medical Billing Law.
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
• Safety-Net Hospitals Were Negatively Impacted by Medicare Joint Replacement Payment Program.
• Register Now for Nov. 16 Webinar on Useful Online Tools for Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey Users.
• New Research and Evidence From AHRQ.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

HHS Announces Nov. 14 Listening Session on Protecting the Safety of Patients and Healthcare Workers

Join the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including leaders from AHRQ, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration, as they recommit to the advancement of patient and healthcare worker safety. On Nov. 14, from 1 to 2:40 p.m. ET, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra will convene a livestreamed listening session including chief executive officers of the country's largest healthcare systems, board members, organizational patient safety leaders, and patient and family safety advocates. HHS plans to co-create a National Healthcare System Action Alliance to Advance Patient Safety. Healthcare systems, federal partners, patients and families, and other stakeholders are invited to join The Action Alliance and work together to ensure the safety of patients and healthcare workers. Register now for the livestreamed event, and access more information about the Action Alliance.

Scant Savings Expected From New “No Surprises” Medical Billing Law

The federal No Surprises Act, signed into law in 2022, prevents patients from receiving unexpected emergency department (ED) bills from physicians at in-network hospitals. While the ban reduces out-of-pocket costs for patients, it is unlikely to have the same effect for health plans because potential savings will be largely offset by more ED visits, according to a new study published by AHRQ researchers in The American Journal of Managed Care. They examined 16 million privately insured health maintenance organization enrollees between 2007 and 2018 from 15 states with balance billing bans for ED visits, compared with data from 16 states without such bans in place. Balance billing bans reduced out-of-pocket spending by 14 percent per visit; however, they also were associated with a three percentage-point increase in ED visits, which negated the cost savings. Researchers predict that the federal ban will result in $5.1 billion in savings for patients, but this savings will be largely offset by 3.5 million more ED visits at a cost of $4.2 billion in extra spending. Access the abstract.

Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network

AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network (PSNet) highlights journal articles, books and tools related to patient safety. Articles featured this week include:

• Resident and nurse perspectives on the use of secure text messaging systems.
• Association of rapid response teams with hospital mortality in Medicare patients.
• Improving communication and response to clinical deterioration to increase patient safety in the intensive care unit.

Review additional new publications in PSNet’s current issue or access recent cases and commentaries in AHRQ’s WebM&M (Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web).

Safety-Net Hospitals Were Negatively Impacted by Medicare Joint Replacement Payment Program

Safety-net hospitals were less successful at meeting spending targets under Medicare’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement program than other hospitals, according to an AHRQ-funded study published in Health Services Research. The program’s mandatory bundled payment model incentivizes hospitals to control costs by providing additional reimbursement to those that undershoot annual targets and penalizing those that exceed them. Compared with hospitals overall, safety-net hospitals were less successful at meeting treatment episode spending targets since the program’s inception. Hospital factors such as operating margins, and service area factors such as the proportion of minority, uninsured or unemployed patients, were associated with increased losses. The impact of nurse staffing levels was negligible across all hospitals. Access the abstract.

Register Now for Nov. 16 Webinar on Useful Online Tools for Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey Users

Registration is open for a webinar Nov. 16 at 3 p.m. ET about three online tools that support the work of AHRQ’s Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) survey users. The AHRQ Data Tools provide comparative data from selected CAHPS surveys, including top box scores, percentiles and bar charts. The CAHPS Analysis Program is written for SAS (version 6.0 or later) that allows survey users to conduct analyses needed to produce valid comparisons of performance across similar healthcare organizations. The “Your CAHPS Survey” tool enables users to assemble a customized survey instrument to meet their needs.

New Research and Evidence From AHRQ

• Systematic review: Management of Infantile Epilepsies.
• Systematic review: Pharmacologic and Nonpharmacologic Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Identifying and reconciling patients' allergy information within the electronic health record. Vallamkonda S, Ortega CA, Lo YC, et al. Stud Health Technol Inform 2022 Jun 6;290:120-4. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Hospital discharge during COVID-19: the role of social resources. Schmutz KE, Wallace AS, Bristol AA, et al. Clin Nurs Res 2022 May;31(4):724-32. Epub 2022 Feb 15. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Development and external validation of the KIIDS-TBI tool for managing children with mild traumatic brain injury and intracranial injuries. Greenberg JK, Ahluwalia R, Hill M, et al. Acad Emerg Med 2021 Dec;28(12):1409-20. Epub 2021 Aug 6. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Use of germline BRCA testing in patients with ovarian cancer and commercial insurance. Cham S, Landrum MB, Keating NL, et al. JAMA Netw Open 2022 Jan 4;5(1):e2142703. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

The prevalence of alcoholic and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in adolescents and young adults in the United States: analysis of the NHANES database. Alkhouri N, Almomani A, Le P, et al. BMC Gastroenterol 2022 Jul 30;22(1):366. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Surgical quality assurance at expanding health networks: a qualitative study. Yang P, Diaz A, Chhabra KR, et al. Surgery 2022 Apr;171(4):966-72. Epub 2022 Jan 24. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Association of race and gender with primary caregiver relationships and eligibility for advanced heart failure therapies. Steinberg RS, Nayak A, Burke MA, et al. Clin Transplant 2022 Jan;36(1):e14502. Epub 2021 Oct 26. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Optimizing post-acute care patient safety: a scoping review of multifactorial fall prevention interventions for older adults. Leland NE, Lekovitch C, Martínez J, et al. J Appl Gerontol 2022 Oct;41(10):2187-96. Epub 2022 May 26. Access the abstract on PubMed®.