Med Center Health decided to require all medical staff, students, residents, fellows and vendors to receive the COVID-19 vaccine after the hospital saw a “sharp increase” in COVID-19 patients, Med Center Health Executive Vice President Wade Stone told the Daily News.

People in leadership positions have through Aug. 9 to receive their first dose of the vaccine, and all other staff have through Sept. 1, Med Center Health said Thursday in announcing the requirement.

A Med Center Health news release said more than 59 health and medical groups – including the American Medical Association, American Nurses Association and American College of Physicians – have called for all health care and long-term care employers to require the vaccine.

“This is the right thing to do for our staff, our patients and our community,” Med Center Health President and CEO Connie Smith said in a statement. “We have an obligation to do everything in our power to protect the health and well-being of others and to help end this pandemic.”

Stone said Med Center Health was seeing COVID-19 patients in the low single digits in recent months. But that number spiked in recent days to more than 20, and the sickest patients are unvaccinated.

“We are a role model for leading health care in this region, and it’s important for us to lead by example,” Stone said. “Similar to the way we led efforts to get our vaccine clinic organized, we felt it was important for us to move on this as well. We feel vaccination is clearly the key to ending this pandemic.

“We consulted with our leadership group and we are 100% certain this is the right path,” he said. “Our mission is to improve the quality of life for our region, and we are going to do whatever it takes to do so. This is an important step to make sure we do that. If you are going to be taking care of patients, you need to be vaccinated. We are the safety net hospital for this entire region.”

Stone said about 65% of The Medical Center’s staff has been vaccinated.

When asked why a large section had not received their shot, Stone said it was a reflection of what’s happening with the general population.

“I believe nearly all of our medical staff have been vaccinated,” he said. “The public should seek information from local physicians and hear their thoughts. It’s clear: Vaccination is the key to ending the pandemic. We need to see vaccinations go up in this area. That’s just how it is.”

In the 10-county Barren River region, seven counties have a “critical” COVID-19 incidence rate as defined by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Warren County is among those seven.

Two counties in the region have a vaccination rate above 40% – Simpson and Logan. No counties in the region have a vaccination rate of at least 45%.

“Time is of the essence here. We felt like it was very necessary,” Stone said of Med Center Health’s requirements. “Hopefully, other health organizations follow suit as well. We all realize these are not normal circumstances. The time is now. That decision was based on having our entire community in mind.”

Stone said Med Center Health has administered more than 87,000 shots of COVID-19 vaccine across its system, but there has not been a large push from the public to get vaccinated since the latest spike from the arrival of the delta variant.

“Hopefully, that will change,” he said. “We have no worries about running out of hospital beds now, but the concern is that if this spike continues it could certainly impact our capacity here at the hospital. It could affect our ability to care for patients and that’s definitely a concern.”

Last week, Medical Center Urgentcare started administering Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines for adults and children ages 12 and older from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week. Individuals age 12 or older can make an appointment to receive the vaccine by texting “COVID” to 270-796-4400 or by calling 270-796-4400.

The COVID-19 vaccine clinic is located on the first floor of The Medical Center – WKU Health Sciences Complex. Limited walk-ins are available, and those under age 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

The University of Louisville health system was the first in Kentucky to require vaccinations.

– Follow reporter John Reecer on Twitter @JReecerBGDN or visit bgdailynews.com.

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The Georgia Department of Public Health announced Friday that the COVID-19 case rate in the state has increased 204% over the last 14 days and is urging all residents to get vaccinated. According to the press release, new cases in the state totaled 4,612 on Thursday, the highest daily number since mid-February. Additionally, hospitalizations statewide have increased by about 50% in the last 14 days and deaths have increased by 18% in the same time period, according to DPH.

Read the full article:
Macon Telegraph 

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By Rebecca Grapevine

Georgia is in line to recover $500 million from state Medicaid insurers for overpayments in 2020 and 2021, according to an insurance industry official who represents the companies.

The half-billion-dollar payout will come from two separate Medicaid recoveries, said Jesse Weathington, the executive director of the Georgia Quality Healthcare Association. Due to the federal role in financing Medicaid, much of the returned money would likely go to the U.S. government.

The insurers were told the reduction was due to many Medicaid patients skipping medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with other adjustments, said Weathington.

“It was surprising in terms of timing and the amount,” Weathington said. He added that the three Medicaid insurers were not given detailed breakdowns of how the state actuary arrived at the numbers.

The Georgia Medicaid insurers – Peach State, Amerigroup and CareSource – are paid a per-member, per-month rate to care for Medicaid members.

These insurers continued to receive those payments from Medicaid while there was a dropoff in patient visits.

The repayments are known as clawbacks: When an organization believes it has overpaid for services, it takes steps to get back the money.

“Clawbacks mean people did not get health care,’’ said Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, a consumer advocacy group.

“Essentially, people may have missed services they needed last year. That’s no fault of the [Medicaid insurers] because we saw that happen access the board regardless of the type of insurance.  The state still has a right to address that based on their contract,” added Colbert.

The Department of Community Health, which runs Medicaid in the state, did not respond to GHN’s requests for comment.

The $202 million retrospective rate adjustment for 2020 is now awaiting approval from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Weathington said. Another $300 million midyear adjustment for 2021 is currently under negotiation, he added.

Medicaid, jointly financed by the federal government and individual state governments, covers low-income and disabled residents. Georgia pays the Medicaid insurers over $4 billion each year to provide care to low-income children and other vulnerable populations. The state covers about one-third of those costs, with the feds funding the rest.

It’s unclear how much of the recovered funds will go to the feds and how much to Georgia’s coffers. But if it’s split by the normal funding formula, the state would gain more than $165 million.

The projected $500 million recovery comes after Medicaid insurers posted big profits during 2020, according to the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University.

Before the pandemic, many states had measures in place to limit the profits that state Medicaid insurers could make on their contracts and ensure taxpayer dollars went to patient care. Georgia was not one of those states, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Other states have adopted or bolstered measures to recover taxpayer dollars that went to Medicaid programs while patients stayed home during the pandemic. There are different ways states can do this.

For example, Virginia directed state Medicaid insurers to increase payments to medical providers.

Two of the Georgia insurers – Peach State and Amerigroup – are owned by publicly traded, for-profit corporations, Centene and Anthem, respectively. Centene last year acquired WellCare, another Medicaid insurer,  and closed down its WellCare Medicaid operations in May.

A third Medicaid insurer, CareSource, is a nonprofit company based in Indiana.

 

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From Texas Standard:

As the delta variant of COVID-19 sweeps across the country, cases and hospitalizations are on the rise, especially in places with relatively low vaccination rates. And there’s real and growing concern that misinformation flourishing in some of those places is having a direct effect on people’s health care decisions.

But one tool that could help cut through that misinformation is media literacy. Yvonnes Chen, who researches media literacy and health at the University of Kansas, told Texas Standard that giving people the tools to better discern fact from fiction in the media they consume could help them make better decisions about their health.

“I think it’s important to understand the purpose of each media messages and the motives behind each media producer. And it’s also important to recognize that each media message has its own values and viewpoint,” Chen said.

RELATED: Texas’ Fast-Rising COVID Case Count Tied To Delta Variant And Low Vaccination Rates

Knowing your own level of media literacy is the first step toward being a smarter consumer of health news and information. Chen says everyone should ask themselves whether they feel confident determining facts from falsehoods. And they should also be mindful about what they are reading, watching, listening to and engaging with online.

“When everyone reads a piece of news story, it’s important to think about, hmm, who writes that? What is the media organization behind it? What could be the potential media organization’s motives and, perhaps, viewpoints? What about the author: does the author have enough knowledge and background information to be informed enough to tell me more about what I need to know about this piece?” Chen said.

These are all crucial questions to ask, especially during the pandemic. Chen says while many factors, like religious beliefs and education, can contribute to a person’s health care decisions, the media one consumes can also play an important role.

“We certainly see that the consumption of misinformation, especially staying in a siloed media environment, does have an impact on people’s hesitancy toward vaccination as well as their general understanding of the mask mandate,” Chen said.

Anyone can improve their media literacy, at any age, Chen says. But there are programs aimed at teaching media literacy to high schoolers in English classes. The approach is similar to literary criticism, she says, in which a student is taught to take into account an author’s background and the place and time in which they wrote a particular piece to more fully understand its message.

Chen says developing media literacy, including a healthy dose of skepticism, is important for people’s overall health during the pandemic and beyond.

“Media literacy can be applied to a number of contexts, including substance-use prevention, sugar-sweetened beverages … obesity, nutrition education,” she said. “The thing is, when we feel like we have known enough, we actually do not know much at all. And I think media literacy embodies this attitude that everyone has the capacity to develop.”

If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.

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WEDNESDAY, July 28, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Women with acne have strong concerns about appearance and experience mental and emotional health consequences, according to a study published online July 28 in JAMA Dermatology.

John S. Barbieri, M.D., from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues conducted semistructured interviews of patients seen at a large academic health care system (University of Pennsylvania Health System) and a private practice (Dermatologists of Southwest Ohio). Interviews were conducted with 50 adult women (aged 18 to 40 years) with moderate-to-severe acne.

According to the researchers, participants said acne-related concerns about their appearance affected their social, professional, and personal lives, with many altering their behavior because of their acne. Participants commonly reported depression, anxiety, and social isolation. Successful treatment was described by participants as including completely clear skin over time or a manageable number of blemishes. Frustration was expressed by interviewees regarding finding a dermatologist with whom they were comfortable and identifying effective treatments for their acne.

“These findings suggest that ensuring access to care and identifying optimal treatment approaches for women with acne are needed to improve outcomes in this population,” the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text (subscription or payment may be required)

Editorial (subscription or payment may be required)

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Hospitals treating more patients and bracing for even more. Mask requirements returning. The push for vaccinations getting stronger, with more workers facing mandatory shots.

The unsettling rise in COVID cases has prompted a flurry of virus-related activity this week across the state and the nation.

Take Central Georgia. A Public Health spokesman there sent out data Monday that said his 13-county district has seen a major increase in COVID cases. The incidence rate of COVID-19 for district residents has hit 125 per 100,000 population, about four times the number from the  previous two-week period. Emergency room visits and hospitalizations are climbing, too.

Mask wearing “has never been big around here,’’ said Michael Hokanson of the North Central Health District.

Houston Medical Center

 

The 13 counties have lower vaccination rates than the statewide average of 40 percent, he added.

At Warner Robins-based Houston Healthcare, the number of hospital patients with COVID has quadrupled, going from seven at the start of July to 31 as of Tuesday.

Kevin Rowley, a spokesman for Houston, said that “like all health care providers, we are monitoring the situation very closely.”

Nearby, Atrium Health Navicent, based in Macon, has seen a hospital patient increase similar to those during past COVID surges.

This group of patients, though, is tending to be more middle-aged and younger, compared with previous virus waves.

“The vast majority of them are unvaccinated,’’ said Dr. Patrice Walker, chief medical officer at Atrium Health Navicent.

Walker

The rising numbers coincide with concerns about sufficient staffing, Walker added. “We have the same staffing limitations. It’s not just nurses,’’ she said, citing respiratory therapists as a critical need. (Here’s a recent GHN article about staffing shortages.)

The parent company of Navicent, Atrium Health, has decided it will require more than 70,000 employees across 40 hospitals to be vaccinated by Oct. 31, joining a growing list of health systems with that requirement.

The Macon-Bibb School District, meanwhile, decided this week to require masks for all students and staff, as school is ready to begin.

Dr. Jennifer Hoffman, the infectious disease specialist at Coliseum Health System, told the Macon Telegraph that she applauds the move.

“Kids and all unvaccinated people are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19,” she told the Telegraph via text.

Masks back on in Savannah

To prevent further spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, the CDC updated its mask guidance Tuesday to recommend that fully vaccinated people wear masks indoors when in areas with “substantial” and “high” transmission of COVID. That includes nearly two-thirds of all U.S. counties – and almost all of Georgia.

“In recent days I have seen new scientific data from recent outbreak investigations showing that the Delta variant behaves uniquely differently from past strains of the virus that cause COVID-19,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday.

“The Delta variant is showing every day its willingness to outsmart us and be an opportunist,” Walensky said. “In rare occasions, some vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant after vaccination may be contagious and spread the virus to others. . . . This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendations.”

The CDC is also now recommending universal indoor masking for all teachers, staffers, students and visitors inside schools from kindergarten to 12th grade, regardless of vaccination status. That follows a recent recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics that anyone over the age of 2 be required to wear a mask in school.

Dr. Colleen Kraft, associate chief medical officer at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, said Tuesday that the new mask guidance makes sense. “We just really need to stop transmission, and vaccinations certainly stop transmission, but with a low vaccine uptake and a lot of [vaccine] hesitancy, we need to go back to things that work,” she told reporters. “We know the Delta variant can’t get through masks.”

The masking requirement already is playing out in some Georgia schools districts, which are preparing for students’ arrival next week.

In the Athens area, all Clarke County students, regardless of vaccination status or grade, will be required to wear masks effective immediately, the Clarke system announced Monday.

In coastal Chatham County, the local school district did what its school superintendent called a “pandemic pivot.’’

Saying the goal is to teach all students in person five days a week, district Superintendent Ann Levett said Tuesday morning that all staff and students will be required to wear masks inside school buildings, the Savannah Morning News reported.

The City of Savannah, meanwhile, reinstated its mask mandate Monday. It went into effect at 8 a.m. that day and is set to expire Aug. 25.

The order requires everyone, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a mask indoors when not with immediate family, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said.

More people heading to hospitals

Elsewhere in Georgia, hospitals are seeing a steady flow of virus patients.

Northeast Georgia Health System, based in Gainesville, said Monday that it was treating 53 COVID-19 patients as of that day, 23 more than a week earlier.

Phoebe Putney Health System in Albany said it has seen “a marked increase in COVID-19 admissions recently. “In Albany, we admitted a total of 12 patients for treatment of COVID over the last two days,’’ said spokesman Ben Roberts. “We’ve had 26 admissions over the last week, compared to just 32 total COVID-19 admissions for the entire month of June.’’

Phoebe Putney

Both Northeast Georgia and Phoebe Putney treated a flood of patients during previous surges.

Also this week, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association and dozens of other groups representing medical professionals called Monday for COVID-19 vaccines to be mandatory for health care workers, citing the rise of the Delta variant.

In a joint statement, groups including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Nursing, the American College of Surgeons and dozens of others urged health care employers to require COVID-19 vaccinations for their workers.

Here’s a recent article from GHN and WebMD and Medscape about surprisingly low vaccination rates for employees at many hospitals.

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Just 14.8% of white children in Missouri live in poverty, and the rate for Black children is also higher than other ethnic groups. “High school graduation and child poverty are big issues right now in Missouri, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

“When these issues are addressed, it will improve the health of the community as well as drive the economy.” “Aside from this, we now know that tragically during COVID-19, lots of people lost their lives, and it was disproportionately African American women,” Benjamin said.  

Benjamin said those social determinants give insight into what needs to be fixed to improve overall community health. The report demonstrated persistent and growing disparities in maternal mortality. In 2015-2019, Black mothers (43.8 deaths per 100,000 live births) had a maternal mortality rate that was 3.4 times higher than Hispanic mothers (12.7 deaths per 100,000 live births). 

“A national goal should be to make sure everyone has affordable health insurance.” – Dr. Georges Benjamin, American Public Health Association executive director Benjamin quote

Between 2005-2009 and 2015-2019, maternal mortality rates increased 22% among Black mothers, from 35.8 to 43.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the United Health Foundation report. “This is one of the national tragedies we continue to see growth in, African American mothers in particular are dying either in or shortly after pregnancy,” Benjamin said.

“There is a national effort to try to better understand why it happens,” Benjamin said. “I can tell you that stress plays a role in this, particularly with eclampsia and pre-eclampsia.” Preeclampsia is a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure and signs of damage to another organ system. Eclampsia is a severe complication of preeclampsia. It’s a rare but serious condition, In which high blood pressure results in seizures during pregnancy.  “The exact root cause for this is currently unclear, but causes for the maternal mortality lie in post-partum hemorrhages and post-partum infections,” Benjamin said.

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