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Teaching hospitals are cheering a federal judge s ruling directing CMS to recalculate payments they say unfairly penalized them for educating fellows.
The nearly 50 teaching hospitals listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit argued that the formula CMS used to calculate the payments was arbitrary and capricious because it resulted in hospitals being paid less if they hosted fellows above a specific cap. The judge agreed that the formula ran contrary to the Medicare statute and directed CMS to recalculate the direct graduate medical education payments it owes the plaintiff hospitals.
The case is the result of five consolidated lawsuits that challenged payments dating back to 2005.
For more than 25 years,
Patti Cooprider has been scooting around town in her car with the personalized license plate: “I ♥ ART.”
Anyone who knew her was aware that ART was not a person but a passion.
Patti lived and breathed art in all forms painting, music, theater, dance. She and her husband, Coop, once visited sculptor
Henry Moore at his English estate and
Marc Chagall in France.
She was an artist who painted nearly every day, a ceramics maker, collector, patron and an enthusiastic coordinator of events supporting the arts.
So, it is not surprising to anyone who knew Patti that, even after she passed away of cancer Jan. 4, with her husband’s help, she still is supporting the arts.
During the pandemic, families could not visit loved ones in hospitals and nursing homes, forcing people to receive devastating diagnoses alone, families to make harrowing medical decisions over the phone, and patients to die alone.
Lesley McClurg/KQED
toggle caption Lesley McClurg/KQED
A patient in the COVID-19 ICU at Mercy Hospital of Folsom, Calif. is not allowed visitors. For many months during the pandemic, family weren t allowed to visit any hospital patients. Lesley McClurg/KQED
Kenneth Newton never imagined his mom would die alone. He lives in Petaluma, Calif. Last winter his mother developed a tumor while she was living in a nursing home in Tennessee. Her health declined quickly. Newton longed to visit, but it was against the rules.
His mom saw people who delivered food and those who made sure she took her medicine. But otherwise she was alone, though Newton and his four siblings talked with her regularly.
Some Question Whether Hospital Visitation Bans During Pandemic Were Too Strict
By Lesley McClurg
May 6, 2021
Kenneth Newton never imagined his mom would die alone. He lives in Petaluma, Calif. Last winter his mother developed a tumor while she was living in a nursing home in Tennessee. Her health declined quickly. Newton longed to visit, but it was against the rules.
His mom saw people who delivered food and those who made sure she took her medicine. But otherwise she was alone, though Newton and his four siblings talked with her regularly.
Then, last January, they received the dreaded call. His mom had died at age 92 without any family present.