Health

SEARHC  interim general counsel Michael E. Douglas has been hired permanently for the job.

Douglas has been the attorney for the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium since June and will continue to be based in Juneau. The non-profit health consortium serves Native communities in Southeast Alaska, including the Ethel Lund Clinic in Juneau and Mt. Edgecumbe Hosptial in Sitka.

Douglas is Haida Indian, with a law degree from the University of Washington. He was formerly president of the Northwest Indian Bar Association and a volunteer mentor for the Alaska Court System Color of Justice Program. He coordinates a scholarship program for Alaska Native and American Indian law students through the bar association.

Before moving to Juneau, Douglas worked for Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Miller & Munson, LLP, an American Indian law firm in Anchorage.

 

 

 

A memorial service for former Juneau Assembly Member David Stone will be at Centennial Hall on Wednesday, Dec. 5, from  2 p.m. to 4 pm.

Stone died unexpectedly last week.  He was 55 years old.

He was Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Stone served on the Juneau Assembly for nine years and was Finance Committee Chairman for much of that time.  He also served as Deputy Mayor of Juneau.

 

 

The memorial has been set for two Juneau brothers who died in a boating accident last weekend.

A Celebration of Life for 26-year-old Casey Newman and 23-year-old Kelly Newman will be at the Twisted Fish on Saturday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. They are the sons of Nancy Davis and Joe Newman of Juneau.

They drowned when their 18-foot Lund skiff capsized Friday evening near Tenakee Springs.  Twenty-six-year-old Jim Brown Jr. was able to swim to shore.

The men were returning to Tenakee from a day of hunting across the inlet.

Friends and family are asked to bring food and stories to share at the memorial.

In lieu of flowers, a Casey and Kelly Newman Memorial Fund has been set up at Wells Fargo Bank, to establish a scholarship at Eaglecrest.

Bartlett Regional Hospital must repay the state and federal governments close to a million dollars for six years of Medicare and Medicaid billing errors. The hospital also may have to pay penalties for the errors, which violated federal law.

In a memo to the Bartlett Board of Directors Monday, Hospital Attorney Richard Monkman said Bartlett’s Patient Financial Services Director reported in April that some Emergency Department charges were being submitted to Medicare and Medicaid under incorrect provider names. That’s because a number of Emergency Room providers were not properly enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid. So, in order to bill for those services, hospital staff submitted billings under the name of an enrolled physician.

In addition, some non-physician services were billed to the programs at the physician billing rate without proof that a doctor had seen the patient.

Monkman said the incorrect billing practices have stopped, and an investigation and audit were performed at the direction of the hospital board. The reviews did not find any intent to defraud or misappropriation of funds. All services were provided by licensed, credentialed health care providers.

The amounts to be repaid total $648,227 in Medicare and $308,216 in Medicaid billings. That’s about 0.02 percent of the hospital’s Medicare and Medicaid billings from 2006 through 2012.

Monkman says the standard federal penalty in such cases is 1.5 times the amount of the billing error.

Hospital Spokesman Jim Strader says Bartlett already has the funds on hand, and it will not result in price hikes or funding requests to the Juneau Assembly.

The hospital board is expected to discuss the matter at its regular meeting on Tuesday.

Bartlett Regional Hospital is a City and Borough of Juneau enterprise fund. Its board of directors is appointed by the CBJ Assembly.

Link:

Richard Monkman memo – BRH billing errors

Ten years ago a small group of local residents founded Juneau People for Peace and Justice.  The war in Iraq had just started and people wanted a voice.

Since then, Juneau People for Peace and Justice has been a visible and vocal organization dedicated to cultivating the message of peace.

JPPJ will commemorate the decade on Saturday with a Celebration of Hope that peace really will be given a chance in this war-torn world.

It started in December 2002, when the group took out a newspaper advertisement in the Juneau Empire.

Founding member K.J. Metcalfe says it was signed by people of all political persuasions.

“Had over a thousand signatures of local people saying war was not the answer,” he says.

 Many of those people later joined in a march across the Douglas Bridge that also swelled to more than a thousand people.

“So there was a fair amount of discussion going on in the community and some people would walk that walk and come out and not only talk about peace but also be on the streets,” Metcalf says.

 Similar groups across the country had formed, and their messages were being heard.  JPPJ got the ear of at least one member of the Alaska delegation, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who participated in a town meeting-type forum protesting the war.

It was held the day after Memorial Day. Rich Moniak was there.

“And she said that our event, with all that dissent about the war, was every bit as patriotic as the Memorial Day celebration she had seen the day before,” Moniak recalls. 

 JPPJ is holding a community Celebration of Hope from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday at Northern Light United Church.  Bring a dish to share.

Last week Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius extended the deadline for states to decide whether to establish a healthcare exchange or have the federal government design and run it for them.

Governor Sean Parnell said in July, and reiterated last week, the state will not run its own exchange, which supporters liken to websites that compare and sell airline tickets. Many governors across the country are vetoing the local control of the exchanges and also refusing to expand Medicaid.

AK will not pay to implement a #healthcare exchange. We will allow the federal government to create and run the ambiguous federal mandate.

— Gov. Sean Parnell (@AKGovParnell) November 19, 2012

Governor Parnell commissioned the Lewin Group to study the cost of the expansion. The findings are due out early next month.

U.S. Senator Mark Begich said people will pay more if the state doesn’t expand the roles.

“We have to carry the burden for the 32,000 folks who don’t have coverage,” he said in a Tuesday phone interview. “Because when those 32,000 get sick, they still get coverage, they walk into the emergency room when they should have gotten preventive care. When they walk into the emergency room – that bill they don’t pay, the hospital shares that cost with everyone else who is insured.”

The 32,000 figure is a good estimate of people who could possibly be added to Medicaid, said Josh Applebee, who works on health care policy for the state. But it’s a number that could be refined in the study.

Applebee said the Supreme Court ruling gives the state latitude: Governor Parnell can choose to expand the roles January first 2014, or later, or not at all.

The Medicaid expansion was a key element to the healthcare law; it would have opened roles to Alaskans making up to$18,500 a year. Alaska has its own federal poverty line.

Applebee said it’s unclear whether the state will be able to set its own guidelines for new Medicaid recipients.

“The federal government and the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services has not made a decision on whether they’re going to be flexible in the types of expansion they’ll allow states to do,” he said.

In the past, Governor Parnell has said he’s unlikely to expand Medicaid. The governor would not comment for this story, but his office issued a statement saying the state is moving cautiously. It pointed out that there is no federal deadline for the Medicaid expansion, so just because the report is due next month, does not mean there will be a decision.

Supporters contend there’s an incentive to act quickly: The federal government will pay 100% of the Medicaid expansion for years 2014, 2015 and 2016.