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HOT JOBS IN EVANSVILLE
Update On Medicaid Policy Changes re: COVID-19
In response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, some policy and program changes have been made to help ensure members in our managed care programs (Healthy Indiana Plan, Hoosier Care Connect, Hoosier Healthwise) as well as our Traditional Medicaid members are able to maintain continuous coverage in this critical time.
Member Eligibility
Member health coverage will not be terminated during the public health emergency. Member coverage will only end if a member voluntarily withdraws or moves out of the state. This applies to all full coverage Indiana Health Coverage Programs. It does NOT apply to presumptive eligibility. Presumptively eligible members must still complete a full IHCP application. This decision was implemented after letters were sent to members whose coverage was set to close on March 31. Those closures will not take place, and new letters will be sent.
Cost Sharing
All cost sharing is suspended for the duration of the public health emergency. Members who typically had co-payments will not have any co-payments applied starting April 1, 2020. This applies to all IHCP programs including HIP. This includes pharmacy co-payments.
Premiums and POWER Account contributions will be waived for the months of March-August 2020. This applies to the CHIP program, HIP and MEDWorks. All members who made payments for the month of March or any future months will have those payments applied as credits on their account when payments are required again.
Member coverage will start when eligibility is determined and will not require a first payment in order to begin. Fast Track payments will not be required and we ask that organizations stop making these payments.
Pharmacy
Pharmacies are now allowed to fill prescriptions with name brand drugs in the event that the generic drug the member takes is out of supply. Pharmacies can also now fill some prescriptions early and can fill maintenance prescriptions for 90-days, if requested.
Additional resources
Members with questions should contact their health plan (Anthem, CareSource, MDwise or MHS) using the information found on the back of their health coverage card, or on this web page. Questions can also be submitted via the webform found here.
Gov. Holcomb to Provide Updates in the Fight Against COVID-19
Gov. Eric J. Holcomb, the Indiana State Department of Health and other state leaders will host a virtual media briefing in the Governor’s Office to provide updates on COVID-19 and its impact on Indiana.
WHO:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Gov. Holcomb
State Health Commissioner Kristina Box, M.D., FACOG
WHEN:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 2:30 p.m. ET, Wednesday, April 1
Media RSVP
Please register HERE by 1 p.m. ET Wednesday, April 1. Late requests will not be accepted. One confirmation will be sent per media outlet. If you are confirmed to attend the event, you will receive additional logistics in a separate email, including details on an opportunity to test the system at 11:15 a.m. today.
Logistical questions can be directed to agray@gov.in.gov.
Media outlets that wish to broadcast the press conference live are encouraged to use the high quality livestream. The livestream is also available to the public. Direct Link:Â https://livestream.com/accounts/18256195/events/9054752/player?width=960&height=540&enableInfoAndActivity=true&defaultDrawer=feed&autoPlay=true&mute=false
Gov. Holcomb Extends Restaurant, Bar Restrictions in COVID-19 Fight
Governor Eric J. Holcomb today signed two executive orders to aid in the fight against COVID-19. To see copies of the executive orders, click here: https://www.in.gov/gov/2384.htm
Executive order 20-14 extends the requirements for bars, nightclubs and restaurants to stay closed to dine-in patrons until April 6 at 11:59 p.m. They may continue to provide take-out and delivery services.
The Governor expects bars, nightclubs and restaurants to comply with the directive for the safety of Hoosiers in their communities without the need to call for enforcement measures. However, the state and local boards of health and the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission (ATC) have been directed by the Governor to take all available administrative and enforcement actions against establishments that continue to offer in-house dining services, in violation of the governor’s order.
Executive order 20-15 eases government operations including permitting electronic notary services to remotely review and approve documents.
Additional steps taken by the state today include:
The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) will hold a virtual job fair for more than 1,000 construction and related positions at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday, April 16.
o  To register for the INDOT Virtual Job Fair, go to https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7684424500148015117.
o  All registrants will receive a link to the recording of the virtual job fair whether they are able to participate live or not.
- The Indiana Commission for Higher Education will offer free virtual FAFSA filing help for students and families from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 4.
o  Help will be available through the Commission’s Learn More Indiana social media platforms: Facebook (facebook.com/LearnMoreIN), Instagram (@LearnMoreIndiana) and Twitter (@LearnMoreIN)
Click here to download public service announcements (PSAs) recorded by the state for your use: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/egf210ognxxyx4h/AADYd7E-tBn7P6gtiLSZUiVBa?dl=0
More information may be found at the ISDH website at coronavirus.in.gov and the CDC website at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html.
Semi-truck Leaves I-69 Crashing into Two Homes
On Monday, March 30, 2020 at 8:32 PM the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office responded to the 7600 Block of Pendleton Avenue off Fuquay Road in reference to an accident with injuries. A 911 caller reported that a semi-truck pulling an empty trailer had driven off I-69 and struck two houses in a subdivision.
Sheriff’s deputies arrived and located the driver of the semi-truck. The driver explained that he had been traveling southbound on I-69 when he believed he experienced a mechanical issue. He heard a noise and shortly after the semi-truck began veering to the right and struck a guardrail. The semi-truck then struck a concrete barrier then traveled down an embankment into a nearby backyard. The driver was able to maneuver the semi-truck in between two homes, coming to a stop after becoming wedged in between the houses.
Both houses had major damage from the accident. The residents in both homes were uninjured. The driver of the semi-truck sustained only minor injuries and refused any medical treatment.
I-69 near Covert Avenue was shut down for a little over an hour while crews removed the semi and the trailer.
This crash is still being investigated, but alcohol or narcotics are not believed to have been a f
States, Hospitals Grapple With Medical Rationing
States, Hospitals Grapple With Medical Rationing
Over the weekend, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a reminder that people with disabilities have the same worth as everybody else.
That the agency felt compelled to issue such a directive reflects the anguishing choices that American medicine has begun to confront: When medical personnel, equipment and supplies are limited, who gets lifesaving care and who doesn’t?
The HHS bulletin appeared to respond to a complaint filed with the federal agency last week by Washington state groups that serve people with disabilities. The groups argued that a draft of an emergency health plan, proposed by Washington state health officials and hospitals, gave lower priority to those with disabilities.
State and local health departments across the country have developed detailed emergency health plans in recent years, often in response to major natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, or outbreaks of diseases, such as the avian and swine flus. Many of these plans, such as those in Minnesota and New York, included guidelines for rationing care in the event of shortages of medical supplies or personnel.
Federal health agencies have not issued guidelines on how to make such decisions. For example, states say they don’t understand the criteria the federal government has been using in allocating limited medical resources from the U.S. stockpile.
At least some of the state plans include the sort of language that prompted the protest in Washington state. The emergency health plan Alabama drafted in 2010, for example, states that “persons with severe mental retardation, advanced dementia or severe traumatic brain injury may be poor candidates for ventilator support.†It’s unclear if that provision is part of the state’s current emergency plan.
On the front lines, medical providers are desperately trying to avoid choosing among patients. New York-Presbyterian Hospital, at the epicenter of the outbreak, began experimenting with sharing ventilators between two patients rather than one.
According to media reports, some U.S. hospitals already are considering issuing do-not-resuscitate orders for infected patients, regardless of the wishes of the patients. Among the hospitals identified as considering that option is Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
“We have not made any policy changes to patient care,†said Christopher King, a spokesman for the hospital. “What we have been doing, and similar to health systems around the country dealing with COVID-19, is conducting internal discussions and scenario planning on how to care for patients with COVID-19.â€
A Change in Decision-Making
To be sure, some medical professionals have long experience making such choices — those who have operated in war zones or provided care in the wake of natural disasters, for example. And doctors and hospitals often have to choose who will get healthy organs for transplants when precious few are available.
In the last decade or so, some states have expanded these conversations.
For example, in 2006 New York health officials created emergency protocols in response to an avian flu outbreak in Asia. Their guidelines addressed an issue rattling health systems now: how to ethically allocate ventilators when the supply doesn’t meet the demand.
“The clinical guidelines propose both withholding and withdrawing ventilators from patients with the highest probability of mortality to benefit patients with the highest likelihood of survival,†the New York guidelines state.
In Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, lawmakers passed measures to indemnify health professionals when they were forced to determine which patients received life-sustaining treatments. The state also convened medical experts to draft plans to determine how those decisions should be made.
Most other states also began creating emergency health plans, especially after the H1N1 outbreak in 2009. Because of the sensitivity of the subject, many of those conversations occurred without public input, which drew some criticism for a lack of transparency.
Others are just now getting to it. New Jersey, for example, has created a bioethics committee that will meet this week to talk about how to parcel out ventilators and other lifesaving care.
The decisions about who should get care should not be based simply on who shows up first, said Nancy Berlinger, resident scholar of the Hastings Center, a New York-based research institution that studies bioethics. Berlinger directed the center’s production of guidelines for medically ethical considerations in the current outbreak.
“One principle that we articulate in our guidance is that ‘first come, first serve’ is not a satisfactory approach,†Berlinger said. “Just because you are part of the first wave shouldn’t give you a claim on a resource so that nobody who comes in after you has access to it.â€
Philip Rosoff, an emeritus professor of pediatrics at Duke University and longtime chairman of the Duke Medical Center ethics board, said decisions should be made on the best and most current clinical evidence and with one question uppermost: Who stands to best benefit from the limited quantity of lifesaving treatment?
Those guidelines, Rosoff said, should explicitly state that “allocations will be based on clinical evidence only and without consideration of social, ethnic, economic and other non-clinical considerations of people. You don’t want to exacerbate pre-existing social disparities that already prevail in this country.â€
Bioethicists say providers should focus first on a patient’s underlying health condition and whether that condition lowers the chance of recovery.
“If I have limited amounts of lifesaving treatment, and the chances of you responding well to it are 5% because of an underlying condition, and someone else who doesn’t have that condition has a 50% chance of doing well with it, what should you do? You have one treatment. Who should get it?†Rosoff said.
“That’s not discrimination; it’s just the way it is.â€
Rosoff agreed that such strategies would tend to favor young and healthy people over older ones, who are far more likely to have chronic and serious medical conditions.
“That being said, if two people come in and their clinical characteristics are such that they have an equal chance of survival, they should have an equal shot of getting on advanced lifesaving treatment,†Rosoff said, whatever their respective ages.
For years medical ethicists have debated whether age alone should be the deciding factor in determining who gets lifesaving care first. The idea that youth should be given preference even has a name, one derived from the sport of cricket: the fair innings argument. It posits that an older person has already had a chance to live a long life.
IRS Releases More Info On How To Get Coronavirus Stimulus Checks ASAP
IRS Releases More Info On How To Get Coronavirus Stimulus Checks ASAP
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said payments will go out “within three weeks” for people who have their direct deposit information on file with the IRS.
By Sahil Kapur
WASHINGTON — New information from the IRS on Monday shines more light on what people can do to get the checks from the government as quickly as possible while many families worry about paying the bills and buying food during the coronavirus crisis that has cost millions of people their jobs.
For Americans eligible for stimulus cash under the new relief law, the fastest way to receive it is to make sure they’ve filed a tax return for 2019 or 2018 with bank information so the government can directly deposit the money.
The IRS says it will use a person’s 2019 return to calculate eligibility and automatically send the money to those who qualify. If they haven’t filed a 2019 return, it’ll be based on the 2018 return.
The agency said it would publish additional information about the new forms soon on irs.gov/coronavirus.
Payments up to $1,200 per person, with an additional $500 per child under 17, will be made to U.S. residents with a Social Security number who earn under $75,000. The amount decreases by $5 per every $100 earned after that, zeroing out at $99,000. For married couples, the phase-out range is $150,000 to $198,000.
The IRS said Americans who weren’t required to file taxes in the last two years will have to file a “simple tax return” with basic information like filing status, number of dependents and bank information so the government can send the money.
“Low-income taxpayers, senior citizens, Social Security recipients, some veterans and individuals with disabilities who are otherwise not required to file a tax return will not owe tax,” the IRS said.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said payments will go out “within three weeks” for people who have their direct deposit information on file with the IRS.
“We will create a web-based system for people where we don’t have the direct deposit they can upload it so that they can get the money immediately as opposed to checks in the mail,” Mnuchin said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Number Of Long-Term Care Facilities With COVID-19 Cases Tops 400 Nationwide
Number Of Long-Term Care Facilities With COVID-19 Cases Tops 400 Nationwide
Signs from multiple states point to a rapid increase in cases in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
By Laura Strickler
WASHINGTON — More than 400 long-term care facilities nationwide now have residents who are infected with the coronavirus, an increase of 172 percent from 146 on March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Signs from multiple states point to a rapid increase in cases in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
On Friday, a Washington state official told NBC News that 53 facilities had reported cases. New Jersey health officials announced Monday that 70 homes had cases. In New York, it’s 155, according to the state Health Department. Los Angeles County’s public health director announced Monday that the county had cases in 11 nursing homes
In other words, just those four jurisdictions, which make up one-seventh of the national population, account for nearly reported 300 cases, even though the CDC’s official total of 400-plus is for all 50 states.
And the number of cases in each home keeps rising. In Maryland, state officials say, one nursing home has more than 60 cases.
While some state and local facilities have provided the numbers of cases in nursing homes, federal and state officials are tight-lipped about naming the facilities.
Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
A CDC spokesperson declined to name the facilities, saying the agency does not collect the names. The CDC also did not provide a total number of infected residents in the 400-plus homes.
A spokesperson for the New York State Department of Health cited patient confidentiality in saying the agency would not name the 155 facilities statewide.
Reporters in Colorado and Rhode Island have had to submit open records requests to get lists of facilities with ongoing cases.
Nursing homes are required by the federal government to notify a sick resident’s family of an illness. They are not required to provide notification to relatives of other residents, according to the New York Health Department.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not respond to a request for comment about notification guidance to facilities.
Some families with loved ones in nursing homes say they have not received timely updates from the facilities themselves.
“I wish I could count on their communication, but now I’m going to the news for information rather than the facility,” said Niki Smith, a resident of Nashville, Tennessee, whose father is in Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing, a nursing home where more than 100 cases have been reported.
Smith said she learned of the cases when her brother called to say he had read about them on Facebook, as first reported by NBC affiliate WSMV.
CareRite, the New Jersey-based company that owns Gallatin, did not respond to a request for comment.
“We’ve encouraged facilities and family members to make sure they have the most updated emergency contact information, and we encourage facilities to continue to keep loved ones updated about residents and the entire facility,” said a spokesperson for the American Health Care Association, a long-term care industry trade group. “Each facility may have different ways they do that, so we have not given exact direction on how they implement that process.”