December 4, 2006

Editor's Column:Our Happy Home Restored - For Now
DMC Needs To Learn Fundamental Lessons
Henry Ford ED Expands
'Shadow' Volunteers Needed
The Benefit Of Paying Dues Early
NPI Application

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Editor's Column:
Our Happy Home Restored - For Now

By JOSEPH WEISS, MD
As Robert Frost noted home is where they have to take you in. The signing of a contract between the DMC and WSU guarantees that for the next three-and-one-half years the uninsured will have a place they can call home.

The uninsured are not the only ones who should feel thankful. The medical students and residents are spared a severe dislocation. The public should appreciate the importance of these negotiations, as the supply of medical care they need will not face disruption. The hospitals of Southeast Michigan should be thankful. These institutions are spared the financial burdens they would take on if the DMC-WSU alliance failed. The home accommodates an extended family.

Negotiations brokered a truce not a contract. The final terms look just like the contract of 1998, with a few minor changes to acknowledge the realities. Six residencies shifted from the DMC to WSU. Negotiations took that into account. The WSU doctors already signed a contract with Oakwood Hospital to man the facility in Troy, negotiations accepted that fact. The new contract calls for payment to WSU doctors of $76 million/year with a possible additional $8 million as financial incentives. The probable amount WSU doctors receive likely will be $80 million, the figure, under protest, in the old contract. Finally, for the next 18 months neither WSU nor DMC will undertake the ventures that drove them apart. But what happens during the following 18 months of the “new” contract?

We can congratulate ourselves on awakening public awareness to pressure for a settlement, but the crisis is not ended. Our responsibility is not at an end. We must learn how a contract conflict that festered for five years reached a settlement in five days. What specific roles did the mayor, the governor and the mediator play? Could we call upon those strategies in the future before reaching the near disaster we just experienced? With a three-and-one-half year contract calling for restraints only for the first 18 months, the old tensions will return.

Continued vigilance will be our cost for upkeep on this home.

DMC Needs To Learn Fundamental Lessons

By SUSAN HERSHBERG ADELMAN, MD
Apropos of Dr. Weiss' s editorial (above), I think it is good as far as it goes. I might ask other questions though. I do not know if we really need or want to find out the exact role of the governor in settling the recent contract, for example. I do think we should be watching to see whether the residencies that have new venues work out well. How satisfied are the residents who have been shifted to Oakwood? Oakwood after all is a community hospital, not academic, with a different patient population and a different physician faculty than the DMC. How long will it take the DMC to set up its own residencies? Is the DMC still preoccupied over competition with the medical school? Is there any sign that they might learn that there is room in southeast Michigan for both institutions to work with outlying institutions? This allows them to find and refer patients toward the central campus, as Henry Ford Hospital has done successfully for years. When will they ever learn that there are only a few things that draw patients? For these, I would name: superior service, physicians with skills not available elsewhere, clean hospitals and clinics, and good parking.

Henry Ford ED Expands

The newly expanded Department of Emergency Medicine at Henry Ford Hospital has increased bed capacity and enhanced patient care services.

The $9.5 million expansion involved adding 27 new treatment bays, redesigning nurses’ patient monitoring stations and improving the patient walk-in entrance and patient waiting areas.

The Emergency Department remained open throughout two-year project. The department employs more than 300 physicians, nurses and support staff.

This marked the second expansion in four years at the ED, which opened in 1982 with the capacity to treat 50,000 patients annually. Today, more than 90,000 patients are treated annually. The project also represents the first major accomplishment in the hospital’s $300 million renovation and expansion plan.

More than 4,000 square feet were added to the former 32,000-square-foot facility. Four treatment bays were added to the Category 1 Unit for the sickest patients, 17 bays were added to the Category Two and Three units, and six bays were added for general and mental health use.

'Shadow' Volunteers Needed

We would like to formally invite you to participate in our Physician Shadowing program for fellow members of the Minority Association of Pre-Health Students at Wayne State University. We are interested in building a relationship with local physicians whom would be wonderful teachers and guides for us to achieve our goal of becoming physicians.

Please welcome our invitation for you to participant in this shadowing/mentoring program. We are eager to gain this experience. We would like to begin the program January 2007. It will be designed to have a maximum of two students per physician twice a week scheduled individually to shadow a particular physician. The objective is for our members to gain observant experience in your field of medicine. The program will last as long as the extent of the semester or for the length of your availability.

M.A.P.S. is the daughter organization of the Student National Medical Association (SNMA) and advised by the Black Medical Association (BMA) of Wayne State University. We are dedicated to increase the presence of minority physicians in the United States and provide pre-medical students with ample resources to achieve success.

You may contact our External Resource Chair, Lakisha Willis at (313) 701-8811 or waynestatemaps@yahoo.com if you are interested in participating. Thank you for your patience and support.

The Benefit Of Paying Dues Early

Pay your 2007 Membership Dues by December 31 to receive free CME! Paying your dues in full by December 31, 2006, will enable you to receive one free registration to any MSMS educational program or conference in 2007 (excluding the MSMS Annual Scientific Meeting). Upon receipt of your dues, you’ll receive a coupon for which to use when registering. And don’t forget, up to 86 percent of your dues may be tax-deductible!

NPI Application

The National Provider Identifier (NPI) is an Administrative Simplification mandate of HIPAA. The NPI is a 10-digit number that will be used to identify you to your health care partners, including all payers, in all HIPAA standard transactions. The NPI will replace the identifiers you currently use when submitting claims to the various payers.

All health care providers are eligible to receive NPIs. All HIPAA covered health care providers, whether they are individuals or organizations, must obtain an NPI to identify themselves in HIPAA standard transactions.

You can obtain an NPI by applying online at https://nppes.cms.hhs.gov or by calling (800) 465-3203 to request a paper application.

The NPI compliance date is May 23, 2007. However, you should apply for your NPI as soon as possible so you are prepared for testing when the payers are ready.

For more information about the National Provider Identifier, visit http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalProvIdentStand/.

This publication brought to you by Natinsky Publishing Network.

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