SBJ Pulse

Budget cuts hurting state's hospitals

The Missouri Hospital Association foresees a grim future for the state's hospitals under the Balanced Budget Act.

According to an impact analysis performed by Baird, Kurtz & Dobson, by 2002, nearly half of all Missouri hospitals will lose money unless Congress and the president grant further relief from hospital payment cuts included in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

The primary culprit is shrinking payments from Medicare, according to a statement from MHA.

MHA states that hospital outpatient departments, skilled nursing units and home health agencies already were operating at a loss prior to the implementation of the Balanced Budget Act. Now the act has increased losses in these areas. According to MHA, the result of this is:

Some hospital-based and freestanding home health agencies have closed because of the cuts in home health payments.

Many hospitals and nursing homes will be forced to close or scale back their skilled nursing units and services as the skilled nursing cuts take their toll on hospital and nursing home margins.

Hospitals will begin to curb the use of outpatient services rather than lose money as the outpatient cuts are implemented next July.

Hospitals may not be able to discharge patients to skilled nursing units, thus keeping patients in the hospital longer.

As a result of the home health payment cuts, patients may have to be admitted to hospitals for care that could have been provided by home health providers.

Services previously provided in an outpatient setting may be shifted to inpatient facilities.

MHA states that these changes will increase health care costs unnecessarily, and hospitals may not be able to shift the losses to commercial insurers.

Akin's Natural Foods turns 65

Akin's Natural Foods Market is celebrating its 65th anniversary. The family owned company, started in Tulsa, Okla., in 1935, will hold an anniversary party 11 a.m.-3 p.m. June 3 at its 1344 E. Battlefield location.

Highlights of the event include free food, vitamin and sports nutrition samples. Product representatives and Akin's specialists will be on hand to answer questions. Attendees may register to win a mountain bike, a tent, a shopping spree and other door prizes.

MRI of Springfield adds system

MRI of Springfield announced in March that it has added an AIRIS II magnetic resonance imaging system, the company's second MRI system.

The AIRIS I imaging system has been in use at MRI of Springfield, at 1420 E. Bradford Parkway in the CastleGate complex, for almost two years, the company stated in a press release.

The AIRIS II is an open MRI unit from Hitachi Medical Systems America Inc. Open MRI systems emphasize patient comfort through its design open on four sides.

Repetitive stress injuries shrinking

Statistics released April 20 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a drop of 15.6 percent in the number of injuries and illnesses attributed to repetitive typing or key entry. A total of 9,784 repetitive typing or key entry cases were reported in 1998 compared to 11,600 in 1997, according to a release from the Center for Office Technology.

The number of keying incidences comprised 0.56 percent of the reported 1.7 million injuries and illnesses resulting in days off work. The number of injuries and illnesses attributed to all repetitive motion in all job categories was 65,866 or 3.8 percent of the cases requiring days away from work.

"This is the fifth year in a row that both overall repetitive motion injuries and illnesses have decreased, as well as those attributed to typing or key entry," said P.J. Edington, executive director of the Center for Office Technology, in the release.

"This certainly demonstrates that these incidences are not the growing menace often reported in the media despite ever increasing computer usage at home and at work," Edington added.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Safety and Health Statistics Report provides estimates of the number of frequency of workplace injuries and illnesses based on logs kept by employers during 1998, the latest year available.