Healthcare Story Archives - Page 9 of 10 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Healthcare Representatives Say Obamacare is Good for W.Va.

The MBA program at Shepherd University hosted a panel discussion in Martinsburg Wednesday night that drew in a large crowd. The topic – the Affordable Care Act. The goal of the discussion was to look at the good, the bad, and the unknown and discuss how it directly affects West Virginians.

Dozens of people attended the event at the historic McFarland House in Martinsburg. Like most controversial pieces of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, has received plenty of attention since it was first enacted in 2010 – good and bad.

Four panelists from various healthcare organizations were invited to speak Wednesday both in support of and against the law more commonly called Obamacare.

Louise Reese is the CEO of the West Virginia Primary Care Association and was one of the four speakers. She says it’s highly unlikely the nation will see a full repeal of the law like many opponents have called for.

“We have implemented so many components of the Affordable Care Act that trying to repeal or bring it back would create more chaos then it would be to correct the problems,” Reese explained, “so even if our political change is shifted to a Republican base where they would prefer to repeal Obamacare, I don’t think that, that is a reality once they begin to look at all the successes of the program that it would do more harm than intended if they were to try and repeal it.”

Reese believes many who call for the repeal don’t fully understand how the Affordable Care Act works. For West Virginia, Reese says Medicaid expansion alone under the ACA was a game changer.

“When people realize that they will have access to primary care, that they can go to have a radiology procedure that they were afraid to have done because of the cost, there’s just a tremendous burden taken off their shoulders. So most of the patients that the health centers are serving are thankful when they learn that they will now qualify for Medicaid.”

Reese says before the ACA passed, West Virginia had one of the highest rates of uninsured Americans. In the first year of expansion, more than 70,000 West Virginians were able to obtain coverage under Medicaid.

The third open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act will begin on November 1 and end in late January 2016.

W.Va. Wellness Center to Receive $200K in Federal Funding

The Williamson Health and Wellness Center will receive $200,000 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin announced the funding on Tuesday.

The money is designated for enhancing psychological and social health care services for people with diabetes, congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The goal of the Rural Health Care Coordination Network Partnership Program is to provide more effective care for rural patients living with chronic conditions by integrating behavioral health care into primary care.

Senators: Use Mine Cleanup Funds to Pay for Miner Benefits

Members of the U.S. Senate will soon consider a bill that could affect the pension and healthcare benefits of nearly 28 thousand retired West Virginia coal miners.

Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito, along with Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, introduced the Miners Protection Act Tuesday, aimed at protecting the lifetime healthcare and pension benefits promised to coal miners by the federal government.

On a conference call with reporters, Manchin said the economic state of the country over the past several years has put the pension and healthcare system at risk. Before the 2008 economic downturn, Manchin said the benefits program was funded at 94 percent compared to 71 percent today.

The bill finds a new source of funding for the benefits in the federal abandoned mine lands, or AML, program. AML funds come from a tax on each ton of coal produced in the country.

The first $490 million of that revenue are required to be used for the reclamation of abandoned mines across the country that may cause environmental harm to its surrounding area. Under the Miners Protection Act, the rest of the revenue would be dedicated to the miners’ benefits.

“It’s a way to fix something that we’re responsible and obligated [for] and we’re going to end up paying one way or another,” Manchin said. “This is a better way to handle it.”

In 2014, the AML fund had an unappropriated balance of $2.48 billion.

United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts expressed his support of the bill in a written statement.

“There are literally thousands of retirees and widows throughout America’s coal-producing regions for whom this legislation is a matter of life or death,” Roberts said. “This legislation would preserve [their] benefits, and ensure that they have the dignified retirement they deserve.”

Specialists Work to Fill Medical Void in Mingo County for 10 Years Running

Managing chronic diseases is the public health challenge of the 21st century, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The organization reports that 7 of 10 Americans die every year from chronic diseases, like heart disease and stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, obesity, respiratory diseases, and oral conditions. But that burden is worse for aging and low-income populations, like those found in Mingo County.

A man living in Fairfax County, Virginia, will likely live 15 years longer than one 300 miles away in Mingo County, West Virginia, according to mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

It’s easy to forget about Mingo County. One doesn’t visit a town like Gilbert accidentally. It takes a concerted effort. It’s a world where coal is still the dominant industry, but the population is aging, and according to data from the US Census and the CDC, the region is home to some of the poorest and least healthy communities in the country. But doctors from all three of the medical schools in West Virginia make monthly trips there to offer specialty care to residents in the region. It all started 10 years ago with the Doctors Brick.

Traveling South

Once a month for the past decade brothers, rheumatologist Dr. James Brick and neurologist Dr. John Brick, make the trip to Gilbert. They used to wake up at 3 am and drive four or five hours from Morgantown. But today they can usually cut the first leg of the trip substantially…

“We’re on the West Virginia University foundation plane,” Dr. James Brick said over the roar of the plane engine. “We just left Morgantown. And we’re going to Charleston.”

After twenty minutes of reminiscing about past trips, the brothers and the president of WVU Gordon Gee along with a couple of medical students touched down at the Yeager Airport in Charleston.

Dr. John and Dr. James are identical twins from Dunbar. Dr. James Brick is a professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at WVU and Dr. John Brick is a professor and chair of the Neurology Department at WVU.

In the hour and half winding and scenic van ride from Charleston to Gilbert the brother doctors told attending med students about the community. Dr. John talked about the economy.

“It’s a small town, maybe 300 people,” Dr. John Brick said. “The major source of jobs was the mining business and Mr. Harless had sawmills there. The sawmills are closed, but there are still mines in the area.”

Buck Harless

The doctors Brick love to reminisce about their old friend and former patient who was instrumental in bringing them to southern West Virginia, the late Buck Harless. Mr. Harless, they say, had an epic life. He started in the world orphaned and died a legend, with timber and sawmill interests in five states, manufacturing operations in four states and also holdings in real estate and coal. But Gilbert, they say, was always Buck Harless’ home.

And he invested in it. Harless built this huge facility, 55,000 square feet, that looks kind of out of place in this tiny town for his community, and named it after his deceased son. The Larry Joe Harless Community Center houses a track, a pool, cinema, basketball courts, and the health clinic.

Specialty Care

“I’ve been coming to see the rheumatologist here ever since this clinic opened because I live just up the street,” said Marica White.

Marica says Dr. Brick saves her from having to make the two-hour trip to Huntington, where her regular rheumatologist is.

“While I can drive if I feel like or have family that will take me, a lot of local people have trouble with transportation,” White said. “So it’s very important to have a neurologist and a cardiologist that these people can see.”

Dr. James Brick explains how it can be difficult for a specialty doctor to sustain a practice in a sparsely populated, rural region. But he said there is a need because the aging population has a lot of chronic illness.

“This was a town that has a lot retired folks living in it, retired miners, people retired from working in the sawmills,” Dr. James Brick said. “I see lots of osteoarthritis—that’s the most common form of arthritis, and Rheumatoid Arthritis, gout, fibromyalgia… Those are the most common diagnoses, but also the most common diagnoses we see in Morgantown.”

But Mingo County is a little different. It’s in an area that has one of the worst life expectancy rates in the nation. In fact, according to mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics, while life expectancy has slowly been increasing throughout the nation, it’s been dropping in regions of southern West Virginia.

Data visualizations by Dave Mistich.

Special People

The Doctors Brick see some patients fairly regularly, and it’s clear that both he and his brother have an affinity for the town and the region.

They sponsor local basketball teams, fire off trivia with visiting med students about the area, and were recently honored by leaders in community for dedicating time every month for over a decade.

However, Dr. John, the neurologist, also observes that medically, the patients he sees are not different from those he treats in the rest of the state.

“They have the same problems as virtually every other population in WV, but I do think the people are unique. They’re wonderful people,” he said. “I get a lot of satisfaction from taking care of them. This is my job but if I could finds a way, I’d do it anyway. They share a little piece of their life with me and that’s what makes it worth it.”

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Interim president of Marshall University, Gary White says the clinic in Gilbert is a successful example of the power of collaboration because all three of the main medical schools in the state, WVU, Marshall, and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine work together to provide equipment and services.

“Here in the little town of Gilbert we can provide the services that folks desperately need and fulfill the vision that Mr. Harless had,” White said. “I think it can be replicated all across the state.”

A native of neighboring Logan County, White says towns like Gilbert will languish and die without creative and motivated community members. White says the area faces stark challenges today, especially economically, as the coal industry the community relies on has been declining, but he has hope for the future. He believes his community will adjust, and that the last generation has paved the way (literally) to make that possible.

Tomblin Signs Bills for Insurance Transparency, Caregiver Assistance

Governor Earl Ray Tomblin was joined by lawmakers and patient advocacy groups from across the state at the Capitol Thursday for the ceremonial signing of two healthcare related bills.

Senate Bill 366 creates the Patient Protection and Transparency Act which offers protections to people who sign up for insurance through a federal health care exchange website.

Tomblin also signed House Bill 2100 known as the Caregiver Advise, Record and Enable Act.

Backed by the AARP, the CARE Act allows a patient to name a layperson as their caregiver when he or she enters the hospital. That caregiver then has access to patient health and discharge information, as well as training about how to care for the patient when they return home.

“We believe it’s important because not only will the patient have a better outcome and recovery at home, but we could be actually saving money in Medicare and Medicaid by reducing costly hospital readmissions,” Gaylene Miller, state director of the West Virginia AARP, said of the bill Thursday

Miller estimated there are more than 300,000 family at home caregivers in the state which make up about $2.8 billion worth of uncompensated care.

W.Va. Free Health Clinics Asked to Do More with Less

West Virginia has been plagued for the past few years with budget deficits. To deal with the shortfalls, the governor has cut state agency budgets across the board, implemented hiring freezes and dipped into the state’s Rainy Day Fund.

This year, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin cut the House and Senate approved budget by an additional $11 million, leaving some service programs to wonder how they’ll keep their doors open. The Charleston Health Right is just one of those service programs.

The West Virginia Health Right clinic located in Charleston’s East End is a free and charitable clinic that provides medical, dental and vision services to more than 15,000 uninsured and underinsured West Virginians each year.

Beginning July 1, 2015, though, the Charleston clinic, along with nine other clinics across the state, will see a significant reduction in their budget. Executive Director Angie Settle said the cut for her location will be nearly 33 percent.

After two years of 7.5 percent across the board cuts from Tomblin, Settle’s location will have 48 percent less funding than three years ago. Settle said they’ve looked to cut waste wherever possible, but there is little left to find.

Because of the clinics’ ability to bill Medicaid, something the Charleston clinic began doing in January 2014,Tomblin said in his veto message those clinics should be able to recover part of the money cut.

But Settle said that statement just isn’t true for her clinic. In 2014, her clinic brought in $188,000 from Medicaid billing, but spent nearly $100,000 on a person to do the billing and the software and IT upgrades to make it possible.

Settle said even though the start up costs are complete, Medicaid billing won’t make up for her 2016 33 percent budget cut for two reasons. First, because of notoriously low Medicaid reimbursement rates, and second because of the population she serves.

Executive Director of West Virginia Health Right Angie Settle.

“More than half of the patients we see are the working poor,” she said. “West Virginians with two and three jobs.”

Medicaid allows clinics to bill for some services, but Settle said they often won’t reimburse multiple services that occur on the same day. Because she serves a population who may be prohibited from going to multiple appointments because of their work schedule, child care, or ability to pay for transportation, Settle said her patients just won’t return for multiple appointments.

“It reminds me of almost like a NASCAR pit stop when people come here. We [do] everything we can do for them that day. Talk to them about smoking cessation, dental health, get their blood pressure checked, get their blood work done, get their pap smear if its due, give them a slip to go get a mammogram. Everything we can pack into that visit, as much bang for the buck in that day,” she said of their philosophy of care.

Sometimes Medicaid will cover one or all of those services, and sometimes they won’t, Settle said, but she doesn’t see that as incentive to change the way they serve their population, 50 percent of which have Medicaid coverage and 50 percent of which have no insurance at all.

“By squashing funding to free clinics and saying we don’t want to fund free clinics, it basically tells the people of West Virginia, the working poor, we want you to quit your job so you can get on Medicaid,” she said. “It says we don’t want you to work. We want you to quit your job and get on Medicaid or go without.”

Senate Finance Vice Chair Chris Walters said he and his fellow lawmakers tried to work with the clinics to get their line item appropriations in a workable range, knowing the governor intended to make cuts. He said he understands the importance of the clinics to their communities, but lawmakers had to make tough choices to balance the overall budget.

Walters said the state is expecting another budget deficit in 2016, but said lawmakers are working to come up with ways to increase revenues.