Latest news with #SCPHealth
Fox News
02-07-2025
- Health
- Fox News
‘Crisis brewing' in Trump Country as hospitals shutter at alarming rate, top ER doc warns
There is a healthcare crisis brewing in the nation's heartland, as evidenced by a landmark study conducted by the RAND Corporation in conjunction with top national emergency physicians. The study from the Arlington nonprofit research institute found that emergency rooms (ERs) are no longer the safety net but the proverbial "front door" to the U.S. healthcare system, particularly after a 1986 law passed requiring ERs to stabilize patients or deliver babies from women in labor regardless of their ability to pay. That has led to instability and hospital closures across the heartland, including in states where a dozen or more have closed, like Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. States like West Virginia, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas and Alabama have also been affected. "This RAND study is the first ever that points to this crisis, which is that the emergency departments and the care that patients receive in them usually is so critical that, especially for time-sensitive conditions that patients can have, just the fact that you have to travel as far as you might have to, or that even in some cases if a hospital is close to you, but it still doesn't have the resources to operate efficiently," said Dr. Randy Pilgrim, an ER doctor and chief medical officer for emergency room services company SCP Health in Atlanta. "[I]n emergency medicine, we do time-sensitive, high-quality care as long as we have the resources to do it. And this study shows that we really have a crisis brewing here." Nearly $5.9 billion in emergency services go unpaid every year, the study found. Overcrowding and spates of violence towards staff have exacerbated the problem. EMTALA, the aforementioned law, is essentially an unfunded mandate in many cases, and lack of funding for hospitals that treat a large proportion of that uncompensated care — which tends to fall in rural areas or poor neighborhoods in cities — leads to the dual issue of higher patient volumes and more uninsured patients being seen. Many hospitals outside of cities cannot fully account for the funding gap, Pilgrim said. "The economics of reimbursement for physician care play a huge role. … We need more physicians generally in America, and we need physicians to feel like they can and will go to where they're needed," he said. "Physicians won't go where they are needed if there's not enough resources or reimbursement to attract them." Rural hospitals characteristically pay less than higher-end urban hospitals and have fewer local resources. With hospital demand "higher than ever," all of the above factors mean help is needed now. Pilgrim said he has met with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and other top officials at the agency, to discuss the issue — and hopes Washington can help. "Secretary Kennedy… did a beautiful job of listening to what we were saying about the impending crisis that would probably happen during this administration," Pilgrim said. "And he was concerned about it because he could tell that you can't make patients healthy unless you have a healthy healthcare system for them to engage. So I'm very encouraged about what Secretary Kennedy and his staff are doing to try to make a difference on the pieces that they control." He also said Congress must act, particularly as 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day and are therefore eligible for Medicare, which presents a different environment than separate Medicaid. "That's where we see more volume of patients, more complexity, and much more clinical demand. But if the reimbursement in Medicare doesn't keep pace with that demand, once again, you're in this vicious cycle where emergency departments will be at greater risk, starting with the rural and underserved areas and moving forward from there." Some in Congress have banded together to advocate for healthcare-related issues, including members of the bicameral "Doctors Caucus." One member, Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., is a urologist from Greenville who previously served as chief of staff at a Level-I trauma center. "Congress cannot leave rural America behind," he said. "The most important thing Congress can do is to fix dwindling Medicare reimbursements for rural providers and ensure health insurance companies don't play games with denied care and denied payments," he said, pinning the decrease at 33% since 2001 if adjusted for inflation," Murphy told Fox News Digital. The lawmaker added that many hospitals in his area do not have commercial payers as part of their funding sources to help offset losses from Medicare and Medicaid disbursement amounts — and that all hospitals must root out waste as well. Pilgrim was also asked why Americans outside the heartland with more reliable emergency care should be supportive of added funding or resources miles away from them. "In a large city like Atlanta, if rural healthcare is not healthy and patients have to go somewhere else, they will eventually end up in your hospital… So spending a dollar somewhere else besides in your own hospital if you're in a better place makes a lot of sense for you…" he said.
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
COVID anniversary shines new light on effort to support doctors' mental health
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255). As the fifth anniversary of Covid-19 lockdowns approaches, bipartisan lawmakers and medical professionals across the country are rallying behind a bill that would address a growing crisis in the healthcare field. Dr. Lorna Breen was chief of the ER department at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Known by colleagues as a tireless worker who cared about patients and protocol, Breen committed suicide while on a short break in Virginia in the midst of the pandemic to get a break from the high-pressure world of emergency medical care. A New York Times story quoted Breen's father as calling her death a "casualty" of the pandemic and said she had no history of mental illness, but had seemed "detached" as of late. Proponents of the Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Reauthorization Act told Fox News Digital that the mental strain, burnout, and stress of working in a high-pressure, life-saving field demand stronger support systems. A recent study from a North Carolina healthcare group showed that more than half of doctor-respondents said they wouldn't go into the primary care field if they could "do it all over again." Read On The Fox News App According to its proponents, the Lorna Breen Act provides billions of dollars in resources to help prevent suicide, burnout, and mental and behavioral health conditions among healthcare professionals. Two longtime ER physicians who are leading the charge on the nongovernmental side of things spoke with Fox News Digital this week. Dr. Randy Pilgrim – chief medical officer for SCP Health – and Dr. Bentley Tate, the emergency room company's chief wellness officer – both have decades of experience working in the high-pressure field and said that now, as the U.S. looks back at the COVID-19 pandemic, is the time to bring this issue to the fore. SCP Health works across 35 states and is a leading voice on mental healthcare for physicians, they jointly said. Doctor wellness must be a major priority, and is often overlooked, Pilgrim said, noting that patients come to doctors to better their own health, and that it is, rightly for the patient, a one-way street in that regard. "Patients can't be faulted for the fact that when they come to their clinician, their physician or other clinician, they really are thinking mostly about their own health and how they can improve that," he said. Americans Split On Covid 5 Years After The Pandemic "For many, many centuries there has been this phrase 'Physician, heal thyself', which is variably interpreted. But in the context of this, it means the healthier the doctor is, the more available they are for the patients themselves." "So, as mental health issues became more and more prevalent, more and more transparent, and more and more acknowledged that the stresses of the healthcare workforce are significant. It became very clear that destigmatizing that as well as providing resources to help, that was a very real phenomenon," Pilgrim added. "Patients don't come to us saying, 'Doctor, are you OK?' But at the end of the day, they want to know that we are [well] and it's our responsibility to be that way." Mental health strains on physicians were largely an "underground phenomenon" until COVID-19 put physicians' well-being into the forefront of the news. During the pandemic, gurneys were rolled out in front of overburdened urban hospitals, and physicians, both rural and otherwise, were working long shifts, resulting in burnout and strain. "Physician suicide is the far end and very unfortunate far end of that spectrum," Tate said. Lingering Lung Disorders 5 Years After Covid "But there are so many people who are frustrated, who are weary. And the reality is, we all lose when a physician retires ten years before they thought they were – or 10 years into their career, with so many years of training [goes and] transitions into where they're not seeing patients directly, but some other aspect of health care because they just got so frustrated or worn down or frankly, in a bad mental state." When doctors step away from patients for such personal reasons, the entire healthcare system loses, Tate said. When physicians are well and in the right frame of mind, patients benefit. Pilgrim, who has also worked directly to push for Lorna Breen Act legislation, added that there is bipartisan acknowledgment that U.S. doctors need Congress' full support. "At the end of the day, people realize this is about helping clinicians, but mainly so that they can help patients – But this is a patient-centered act. So, that's really easy to unify around," he said. With the advent of DOGE scrutinizing every dollar the feds spend, there is also a new focus on how to pay for things like this act, Pilgrim added. "People are looking for relatively small amounts of dollars that will have a relatively large and outsized impact," he said. "And this actually is another thing that unifies congressmen and women is that this is a relatively small money in the grand scheme of things. And if you can impact just a single physician and make them him or her better, the hundreds to thousands of patients that benefit from that becomes an exponential impact." Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va. and Roger Marshall, R-Kan. – a doctor himself – are leading the Senate version of the bill, but did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who is joined by Reps. Jennifer Kiggans, R-Va., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., on the House version said Thursday that the act is truly bipartisan and that she will work hard to pass it so that "doctors, nurses, physicians, and all healthcare providers can take care of themselves as they care for their patients." "Healthcare professionals dedicate their lives to serving their patients, often at the expense of their own physical and emotional well-being, and ensuring they have the resources to stay healthy is one of my top priorities," Dingell article source: COVID anniversary shines new light on effort to support doctors' mental health
Fox News
17-03-2025
- Health
- Fox News
COVID anniversary shines new light on effort to support doctors' mental health
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255). As the fifth anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns approaches, bipartisan lawmakers and medical professionals across the country are rallying behind a bill that would address a growing crisis in the healthcare field. Dr. Lorna Breen was chief of the ER department at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Known by colleagues as a tireless worker who cared about patients and protocol, Breen committed suicide while on a short break in Virginia in the midst of the pandemic to get a break from the high-pressure world of emergency medical care. A New York Times story quoted Breen's father as calling her death a "casualty" of the pandemic and said she had no history of mental illness, but had seemed "detached" as of late. Proponents of the Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Reauthorization Act told Fox News Digital that the mental strain, burnout, and stress of working in a high-pressure, life-saving field demand stronger support systems. A recent study from a North Carolina healthcare group showed that more than half of doctor-respondents said they wouldn't go into the primary care field if they could "do it all over again." According to its proponents, the Lorna Breen Act provides billions of dollars in resources to help prevent suicide, burnout, and mental and behavioral health conditions among healthcare professionals. Two longtime ER physicians who are leading the charge on the nongovernmental side of things spoke with Fox News Digital this week. Dr. Randy Pilgrim – chief medical officer for SCP Health – and Dr. Bentley Tate, the emergency room company's chief wellness officer – both have decades of experience working in the high-pressure field and said that now, as the U.S. looks back at the COVID-19 pandemic, is the time to bring this issue to the fore. SCP Health works across 35 states and is a leading voice on mental healthcare for physicians, they jointly said. Doctor wellness must be a major priority, and is often overlooked, Pilgrim said, noting that patients come to doctors to better their own health, and that it is, rightly for the patient, a one-way street in that regard. "Patients can't be faulted for the fact that when they come to their clinician, their physician or other clinician, they really are thinking mostly about their own health and how they can improve that," he said. "For many, many centuries there has been this phrase 'Physician, heal thyself', which is variably interpreted. But in the context of this, it means the healthier the doctor is, the more available they are for the patients themselves." "So, as mental health issues became more and more prevalent, more and more transparent, and more and more acknowledged that the stresses of the healthcare workforce are significant. It became very clear that destigmatizing that as well as providing resources to help, that was a very real phenomenon," Pilgrim added. "Patients don't come to us saying, 'Doctor, are you OK?' But at the end of the day, they want to know that we are [well] and it's our responsibility to be that way." Mental health strains on physicians were largely an "underground phenomenon" until COVID-19 put physicians' well-being into the forefront of the news. During the pandemic, gurneys were rolled out in front of overburdened urban hospitals, and physicians, both rural and otherwise, were working long shifts, resulting in burnout and strain. "Physician suicide is the far end and very unfortunate far end of that spectrum," Tate said. "But there are so many people who are frustrated, who are weary. And the reality is, we all lose when a physician retires ten years before they thought they were – or 10 years into their career, with so many years of training [goes and] transitions into where they're not seeing patients directly, but some other aspect of health care because they just got so frustrated or worn down or frankly, in a bad mental state." When doctors step away from patients for such personal reasons, the entire healthcare system loses, Tate said. When physicians are well and in the right frame of mind, patients benefit. Pilgrim, who has also worked directly to push for Lorna Breen Act legislation, added that there is bipartisan acknowledgment that U.S. doctors need Congress' full support. "At the end of the day, people realize this is about helping clinicians, but mainly so that they can help patients – But this is a patient-centered act. So, that's really easy to unify around," he said. With the advent of DOGE scrutinizing every dollar the feds spend, there is also a new focus on how to pay for things like this act, Pilgrim added. "People are looking for relatively small amounts of dollars that will have a relatively large and outsized impact," he said. "And this actually is another thing that unifies congressmen and women is that this is a relatively small money in the grand scheme of things. And if you can impact just a single physician and make them him or her better, the hundreds to thousands of patients that benefit from that becomes an exponential impact." Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va. and Roger Marshall, R-Kan. – a doctor himself – are leading the Senate version of the bill, but did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who is joined by Reps. Jennifer Kiggans, R-Va., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., on the House version said Thursday that the act is truly bipartisan and that she will work hard to pass it so that "doctors, nurses, physicians, and all healthcare providers can take care of themselves as they care for their patients." "Healthcare professionals dedicate their lives to serving their patients, often at the expense of their own physical and emotional well-being, and ensuring they have the resources to stay healthy is one of my top priorities," Dingell said.
