Page 51 - 2012-may-jun

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51
MAY / JUNE 2012
  Healthcare Journal of BATON ROUGE
pre-payment review process.
The State is updating the schedule of
Medicaid check write dates for the remain-
der of Fiscal Year 2012, which ends June 30.
The State will not enact the 21-day Medicaid
claims payment cycle. However, as DHH’s ap-
propriation for the current fiscal year was set
based on the planned transition to the 21-day
cycle, the department will delay claims pay-
ments during the last week of June. Providers
will receive payment for those claims along
with the following week’s claims in the first
check write of the next fiscal year, which oc-
curs July 3, 2012. Weekly payments will then
resume on a 14-day processing cycle, and
those check write dates are reflected in the
updated schedule.
LHA Celebrates
Bicentennial Babies
As part of the state’s Bicentennial celebra-
tion, the Louisiana Hospital Association, in
partnership with the Louisiana Bicentennial
Commission, recognized babies born on
April 30, the date of Louisiana’s 200th anni-
versary of statehood. On April 30, each baby
born in a Louisiana hospital received the
Louisiana Bicentennial medal and a special
Bicentennial certificate.
Majority of LSU Med
School Grads Stay
One hundred eight of 171 LSUHSC graduating
medical students participating in the National
Resident Match Program recently, chose to
remain in Louisiana to complete their medi-
cal training. That’s more than the 60% who
stayed last year. The LSU Health Sciences
Center New Orleans residency programs ac-
cepted 132 new residents who will begin their
programs in July.
The Match, conducted annually by the Na-
tional Resident Matching Program (NRMP), is
the primary system that matches applicants
to residency programs with available posi-
tions at U.S. teaching hospitals and academ-
ic health centers. The choices of the students
are entered into a software program, as are
the choices of the institutions with residency
programs. All U.S. graduating medical stu-
dents found out at the same time where they
“matched” and where they will spend their
years of residency training.
Additional good news for the state was
that the percentage of LSUHSC medical
graduates going into primary care is nearly
60% this year as compared to 44% last year.
Primary Care specialties included are Family
Practice, Internal Medicine, Medicine-Prelim-
inary, Obstetrics-Gynecology, Pediatrics, and
Medicine-Pediatrics. OB-GYN is not always
included in primary care data; however, in
some Louisiana communities the only physi-
cian is an OB-GYN.
BAYOU HEALTH Goes Live
in Capital Area, Acadiana,
South Central Louisiana
In April, the Louisiana Department of Health
and Hospitals launched the second phase
of its transformation of the Medicaid pro-
gram, as the second Geographic Service
Area (GSA) of the State went live with BAY-
OU HEALTH. BAYOU HEALTH is the State’s
new approach to coordinating care for nearly
900,000 Medicaid and LaCHIP recipients. Its
focus is on improved access to quality health-
care and better health outcomes for recipi-
ents. Under BAYOU HEALTH, DHH has con-
tracted with five Health Plans – Amerigroup
RealSolutions, Community Health Solutions,
LaCare, Louisiana Healthcare Connections,
and UnitedHealthcare Community Plan – that
are responsible for coordinating healthcare
for their members.
Eligible recipients in the Acadiana, Cap-
ital Area and South Central Louisiana re-
gions, known as GSA B, are the second
group of Medicaid enrollees to begin re-
ceiving services through BAYOU HEALTH.
In GSA B, more than 100,000 eligible Med-
icaid and LaCHIP recipients, nearly 34 per-
cent of all those in BAYOU HEALTH, select-
ed their own Health Plans.
The Greater New Orleans and North-
shore regions, GSA A, transitioned to BAY-
OU HEALTH on Feb. 1 and had a 27 percent
enrollee self-selection rate. That number has
since increased to nearly 29 percent, as en-
rollees who were auto assigned chose new
Health Plans after their Feb. 1 go-live date.
Of the 308,902 eligible recipients in GSA
B, the breakdown of recipients among Health
Plans for the April launch was:
• Amerigroup Real Solutions - 51,895
• Community Health Solutions - 57,175
• LaCare - 61,794
• Louisiana Healthcare Connections
- 56,565
• UnitedHealthcare Community Plan
- 80,875
An additional 598 recipients whose enroll-
ment in BAYOU HEALTH was voluntary, elect-
ed to remain in the current fee-for-service
Medicaid program.
The final area of the state to implement
BAYOU HEALTH, known as Geographic Ser-
vice Area C, includes all parishes in South-
west, Central, and North Louisiana. The go-
live date for GSA C is June 1.
Bunkie General Joins LaHIE
The Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum
(LHCQF) announced that Bunkie General
Hospital in Bunkie, became the first Critical
Access Hospital (CAH) in the state to enroll
as a participant in the state’s health informa-
tion exchange, known as LaHIE. According to
Linda Deville, Bunkie General’s Chief Execu-
tive Officer, the 25-bed acute care hospital is
ready to take the next step. “Being connected
to LaHIE will give our physicians and employ-
ees access to current patient information in
order to deliver safe, timely, efficient, and ef-
fective, patient-centered care. And in turn, we
believe that this sharing of health information
will lead to a higher quality of care and coor-
dination for our patients.”
LaHIE is the mechanism that allows for the
secure exchange of health information among
authorized providers and organizations across
Louisiana’s healthcare system to help improve
patient safety, quality of care, and health out-
comes. Benefits of LaHIE include timely ac-
cess to patient records, improved patient
safety, increased security of records, better
coordination of care and patientmanagement,