hollywoodtone.blogspot.com Hospitals to face reduction in Medicare payments over flu shots
hollywoodtone.blogspot.com Hospitals to face reduction in Medicare payments over flu shots
There are always two sides to a story or an argument, and I am not above playing the devil's advocate when it comes to taking sides over whether or not a person should get a flu shot. But there comes a time when even I have to say, "enough, already."
I am one of the millions of people who have no qualms about getting the flu vaccine every year. As a matter of fact, because I have such a difficult time with my asthma, I also happily get the pneumonia vaccine when ever my doctor thinks I need it. But that is me. There are others, many others, actually, that will say the flu vaccine is not safe, and will readily produce the data to prove it. But regardless of what anyone thinks, for or against the flu vaccine, there is one thing I disagree with, and it has popped up this year. Apparently, hospitals are being encouraged to step up their employee vaccination programs, and if they don't, it will effect their bottom lines. For this reason, they have made getting a flu shot "mandatory" in order to work. For the first time, this year, hospitals are being required to report to the CDC the vaccination rates for all health-care employees. This includes those employees vaccinated and those employees who will be required to wear a mask when working with or around patients. Additionally, using a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services quality-reporting program, hospitals that don't comply could end up facing penalties reducing their Medicare and/or Medicaid payments, starting next fall. According to the American Hospital Association, a 100 bed hospital that failed to comply could be expected to lose about $320,000 in payments. Nancy Foster, vice president of quality and patient-safety policy, says
"It's a pretty big number if you fail to report. Hospitals are all working very hard to make it easy for health-care workers to get the flu vaccination."Foster says hospitals are using in-service meetings as well as hand-outs. Many hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities are even going so far as to require employees to have the flu vaccine, and if not, give religious reasons for not complying. Now I can understand the importance of keeping flu from becoming widespread in a hospital or nursing home atmosphere, because I have worked in the medical field and have experienced this very thing happening. and it is a logistical nightmare. There are those who question vaccinating health-care workers in an effort to prevent the spread of the flu virus, but the CDC says vaccination will reduce the spread of the flu. Vice president of hospital purchasing alliance Premier Inc. Safety Institute, Gina Pugliese, says "health-care workers can be infected yet have no or few symptoms and still spread the virus to patients." According to the CDC, the federal government wants to see 90 percent of our health care workers vaccinated yearly for the flu virus by 2020. The CDC also says that the rate of vaccination rose to 72 percent in the 2012-2013 flu season, an increase from 67.9 percent from the previous season. But for employers who required their employees to have a flu shot, the rate of vaccination was 96.5 percent. But, something is bothering me about the whole vaccination program. Especially when it comes to people being fired from their jobs for not being vaccinated, and the government saying they will penalize hospitals by withholding government payments if there isn't a high enough number of employees taking the flu shots. The government's policy has become a source of contention for a number of health-care facilities this year. A number of health-care workers unions say that encouraging workers to have the flu shot is one thing, but making it mandatory is another matter. And that is what has become a problem. Many hospitals and other health-care facilities have adopted the "no shot-no job" approach to getting employees to take a flu shot. Some hospitals have even refused to accept a religious exemption as a valid reason for not getting vaccinated. Our federal government is overstepping the line in putting mandatory requirements on its citizens to get a flu shot. Even though it is not a big problem for me, it does goes against our rights as a free people to be told something as personal as our health and well-being is now being regulated by the state.
hollywoodtone.blogspot.com Hospitals to face reduction in Medicare payments over flu shots