Saying the country has a “big challenge” on its hands, US Senator Tina Smith is currently working on legislation to help improve Emergency Medical Services in rural areas.
Smith said it is her deeply held belief, as it is with most Americans, that calling 911 for help should result in a direct and expedient response, no matter from where the call originates. However, in most rural areas around the state, EMS offices are staffed by volunteers, and tend to be severely understaffed. According to a report recently released by the Office of the Minnesota Legislative Auditor, the areas rural Emergency Services are required to cover can be enormous. One primary service area, in fact, covered by one emergency office, is the size of Rhode Island.
Yet Smith said the biggest challenge faced by rural EMS providers is one that has become a familiar refrain in recent years. Like health systems and long-term care providers, most of their payments come through Medicaid, which simply does not offer enough money to cover basic costs, and oftentimes, she said, barely covers 50% of those costs. Moreover, the volunteer personnel are not reimbursed by Medicaid at all if they are able to assist someone without taking them to a hospital.
Senator Smith and members of her office have been holding listening sessions around the state gathering information about the problem. She said EMS personnel from the Red Lake Reservation were invited to a recent event in Blackduck, Minnesota, but the very issue they wanted to discuss kept them from attending.
“In that situation, the Red Lake Ambulance service that covers a lot of ground up there said that they really wanted to participate in the meeting, but they couldn’t. They couldn’t even spare somebody to come to the round table because they only had one on call paramedic and they had to be there to be ready to answer the call.”
Smith has co-authored a bill introduced into the Senate last week that would improve the Medicaid reimbursements, and she is working with the State Emergency Medical Service Task Force to find other solutions as well. Smith said the bill has quite a bit of bi-partisan support, and it is her hope that her bill and the companion legislation in the House of Representatives can be passed quickly.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with US Senator Tina Smith can be heard here
NH+C handling after effects of cyber-attack
In the wake of a massive cyber-attack on a cornerstone institution of the American healthcare community, Northfield Hospital + Clinics President and CEO Steve Underdahl is assuring NH+C patients and clients that their information is safe and has not been compromised.
Last month Change Healthcare, a division of the United HealthGroup, was the victim of a ransomware attack.
According to Underdahl, Change Healthcare processes about 80% of the claims for about half of the health care facilities across the country. Nationwide, reports say pharmacies as large as Walgreens and CVS, as well as small, family-owned drug stores, have reported disruptions with insurance claims.
Underdahl said all evidence of the crime points to one perpetrator.
“As far as we know, at this point it seems like a state sponsored attack emanating from Russia. I think sometimes it’s easy to forget that the Russian Government are still generally the bad guys. It’s unclear whether this was just extortion for money or if it was also an experiment in how to disrupt big swaths of American infrastructure.”
Last week, United HealthGroup launched a temporary funding assistance program to help bridge the gap in short-term cash flow needs for providers whose revenue sources have been disrupted by the attack. Nevertheless, Underdahl said, the day-to-day money that would normally flow into the organization, somewhere around $2 million a week, has dried up. NH+C has been able to weather the situation by dipping into its cash reserves, and Underdahl indicated that the money due to them will be paid eventually.
More importantly, he said, the personal information of patients in the NH+C database was not touched by the disruption.
“None of your information, none of your financial information, none of your clinical information was caught up in this. So, any information that you have with us, you don’t need to be worried about that. You don’t have to be concerned if information about your medical care or your personal finance information has been compromised because that’s not the case.”
Underdahl did ask for patience as people try to pay their bills or look for insurance claim information while everything is being sorted out.
‘Mayor for a Day’ winners receive parade, Winter Walk privileges
One of the consistent highlights of the Mayor’s State of the City Address in recent years has been the honoring of the winners of the Mayor for a Day Essay Contest. Students in the 4th and 5th grades throughout the Northfield School District are posed a question about some aspect of life in Northfield and are asked for an essay reflecting on what they see or how they might improve things. Three 4th graders and three 5th graders are then selected based on the quality of their essay, a video presentation of the students reading their essays is made during the State of the City, and the winners are brought on stage to receive a certificate and a round of applause.
This year’s essay question was, “Cities provide a variety of services and programs that make our lives better, including parks and recreation, street maintenance, water and sewer, libraries, police, fire and more! If you were mayor for a day, what would you do to make one of the services that your city provides even better?”
The winners selected this year from the 4th grade are Lucas Larson and Sidney Mosman, both of Greenvale Park Elementary, and Olive Perryman of Bridgewater Elementary. The 5th graders selected are Madelynn Bennett and Addysen Moreno, both of Bridgewater Elementary, and Maddie Cruse of Spring Creek Elementary.
In addition to the recognition at the event, each student will receive $20 Chamber bucks, and be invited to ride on the City of Northfield float in the Defeat of Jesse James Days Parade and participate in the Winter Walk tree lighting ceremony.
The State of the City Address is set for 6:30 pm on Tuesday night in the Krakum Performance Hall of the Weitz Center for Creativity on the campus of Carleton College.
KYMN News 3/15/24
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
