Back by Popular Demand Our Nursing Jobs Photo Contest! Send us a photo at contest@nursingjobs.us for a chance to win $100! Calling All Nurses! Recently we at NursingJobs.us have been looking through stock photography to use for ours campaigns however all we’ve continued to come across is the fake-looking models posing in halloween nurse costumes. Therefore we’ve brought back Continue Reading
Daily Archives: February 13, 2015
2015 Nurse Jobs Photo Contest
Back by Popular Demand Our Nursing Jobs Photo Contest! Send us a photo at contest@nursingjobs.us for a chance to win $100! Calling All Nurses! Recently we at NursingJobs.us have been looking through stock photography to use for ours campaigns however all we’ve continued to come across is the fake-looking models posing in halloween nurse costumes. Therefore we’ve brought back Continue Reading
ANA is Performing System Maintenance Friday Feb. 13, 3 p.m. ET through 1 p.m. ET Tuesday, Feb. 17
ANA Performing System Maintenance
New Nursing Home Legislation Introduced in Congress
Advocates Press For Uninsured To Get Special Enrollment Option After They See Tax Penalties
Sunday’s deadline for signing up for health insurance on the exchanges will have long passed by the time many people file their taxes this March and April. But that may be the first time it sinks in for some people that they owe a penalty for not having insurance last year. Consumer advocates want the government to give them a chance to sign up for 2015 coverage after the enrollment deadline.
But federal officials say they’re not making any promises.
“There’s still a lack of awareness about the requirement to have insurance and opportunities for people to get subsidies to make it more affordable,” says Rachel Klein, director of organizational strategy at Families USA, a consumer advocacy group.
Families USA and other consumer groups are urging the government to create a special enrollment period of up to 60 days for uninsured people who file their taxes after open enrollment ends on Sunday.
“This is a great teachable moment,” Klein says. Last year, Families USA advocated aligning the tax filing deadline with the open enrollment deadline.
Uninsured consumers who miss Sunday’s deadline could be on the hook not only for 2014 taxes, but also for 2015.
Generally, unless people experience a life event such as marriage or loss of on-the-job coverage they can’t buy insurance on the exchanges beyond the annual enrollment period.
Meanwhile, the penalty for not having coverage is getting steeper. For 2014, it’s $95 per adult or 1 percent of annual income, whichever is greater. In 2015, the financial consequences increase to the greater of $325 per person or 2 percent of annual income.
Although administration officials have been quoted in some news accounts saying they might consider a special enrollment period for people who file taxes after Feb. 15, it’s not a done deal by any means.
In a conference call to discuss enrollment progress on the federal exchange earlier this week, Andrew Slavitt, principal deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said, “Consumers should consider February 15 as their last opportunity to get coverage, and we won’t be considering anything until we get through this open enrollment period.”
Please contact Kaiser Health News to send comments or ideas for future topics for the Insuring Your Health column.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
The Same Fight
The same fight
Nurses support the United Steelworkers on their strike lines
Members of the United Steelworkers union on strike from their jobs at the Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery in Martinez, Calif. got a major boost today from registered nurses around the Bay Area who joined their picket line to show support and share stories about why it’s critical for workers to have a say in their work in order to protect the health and safety of themselves and their communities.
“Nurses are here today because so many of the conditions the steelworkers are facing are the same the nurses are facing,” said Katy Roemer, an RN at Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center. “They need the ability to shut down production when they identify health and safety risks.”
The refinery workers reported that they are often forced to work mandatory overtime; required to work consecutive days for weeks without a day off; constantly asked to speed up the throughput of the refinery while at the same time pushed to cut corners; and ignored by management when they put in requests for equipment to be repaired or maintained.
Nope! Steelworkers and Nurses turn back oil trucks.
When the refinery has accidents and gas flares, toxic substances and particulates are often released into the air. Pamela Luiz, an RN who works in the emergency room at Kaiser Antioch and also lives in Antioch, has resided downwind of the Golden Eagle refinery for 20 years. She said that asthmas rates in her community are alarming and every time there’s a refinery release, the nurses observe many more people flooding the ER. She’s constantly worried for her granddaughter, who lives with her and suffers from asthma.
“Before, you’d see more asthma cases with the spring and fall weather changes,” said Luiz. “Now it’s gotten to the point where it’s year round.”
Steelworker Rafael Zabat works on the “alki unit,” a nickname for the “alkylation plant,” where workers operate sophisticated equipment that takes waste gases from the refining process and, using sulphuric acid as a catalyst, converts them into a liquid that is used to blend high-octane gasoline. It’s a complicated process that requires many different chemicals and materials to be held in balance and strict attention to various pressures, levels, and temperatures in order to run within safe parameters.
Rafael Zabat says his company was reluctant to maintain equipment because of lost productivity.
Zabat and his coworkers said that, for years, company has been pushing the operators who control the “board” (kind of the master dashboard of all the equipment readings) to run much higher rates of throughput than the operators believed the system could handle. Sulphuric acid is also expensive, so at the same time, the company had been pushing workers to cut the amount of acid that they were using. Both practices are much harder and more corrosive on the equipment, and workers had over the years submitted multiple requests to management for the pipes to be fixed, cleaned, and maintained. But the company, reluctant to shut down the unit because any stoppage means loss of profits, either fixed equipment very slowly or not at all.
On Feb. 12, 2014, Zabat and another alki operator were putting a piece of equipment into service and checking how much sulphuric acid was still in the system. As they opened a valve, a pipe ruptured about five feet from where they were standing and sprayed both of their entire bodies with sulphuric acid. They immediately rushed to a safety shower and rinsed off as much as they could. They had been wearing personal protective equipment, but the outfit was designed more for flash fires, not chemical spills. “My face was burning,” remembered Zabat. “It got in my mouth, on my lips, face, ears, neck.”
Carson Steelworkers and Nurses picket Tesoro
The two were airlifted by helicopter to UC Davis Medical Center, where they were told they were lucky to have escaped with second-degree chemical burns. All the skin on Zabat’s face bubbled and blistered up; he had scars for another six to eight months. He spent six months off work recuperating, during which the company dismissed his burns as “minor injuries” and pushed him to return to work earlier than he was ready. At one point during his recovery, before various providers had his workers compensation policy number, he received a $42,000 bill for the airlift from the helicopter company. His family was traumatized by the entire incident, and he himself had to go through some counseling before he could go back to his position.
Zabat still works on the alki unit; he would be reluctant to transfer to another area because he is as close to his coworkers as family. He said that the company appeared to shape up after he was burned, but now has fallen into their old habits of deferring maintenance. “It would be nice to see them have a proactive approach to safety instead of a reactive approach,” said Zabat. “So this strike is for the safety of the workers and the communities around us.” — Lucia Hwang
Government To Grade Nursing Homes On Tougher Scale
Starting immediately, the federal government is making it harder for nursing homes to get top grades on a public report card, in part by increasing scrutiny of their use of anti-psychotic drugs and raising the bar on an array of quality measures.
Those grades – in the form of one- to five-star ratings – are part of Nursing Home Compare, a government website to help consumers evaluate nursing homes. While the star ratings, which debuted in December 2008, are lauded as an important tool, critics say they rely too heavily on self-reported data and allow a majority of homes to score high ratings.
The website rates more than 15,000 nursing homes in three broad categories: government inspections, quality measures and staffing levels. An overall score is a fourth category.
The system has come under recent criticism with complaints that some highly rated nursing homes have numerous problems and face fines and other enforcement actions. On Thursday, the federal government said it would require nursing homes to do more to get higher quality scores.
Among the better-known measures that go into quality scores are the percentages of residents who develop bed sores or are injured in falls. The scores will now count the percentage of residents given anti-psychotic drugs, reflecting concern that too many are unnecessarily drugged to make them easier to manage. All of those measures will continue to be reported by the homes themselves, however.
The changes mean many homes could drop a star or more from their January levels, even though nothing may have changed, said officials from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services. They declined to say how many might see a ratings drop.
Consumer advocates welcomed the adjustments, but industry officials said the new rules may confuse patients and their families if scores change suddenly.
“If centers across the country start losing star ratings overnight, it sends a signal to families and residents that quality is on the decline, ” said Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association, the industry lobby.
But Brian Lee with Families for Better Care, a Florida-based advocacy group for nursing home residents and their families, said the shift was necessary. More information is always better, he said. He and other advocates had raised concerns that high rates were too easy to achieve.
Lee said about 55 percent of the nation’s nursing homes had overall scores of either four or five stars on Nursing Home Compare in January. Drilling down, Lee said only about one-third of them got four or five stars on the website for inspections, which he calls the most objective measure because it is based on government, rather than self-reported data. “But when you look at the quality scores portion, 80 percent of homes are four- or five-star rated,” Lee said. “Something is not coming out in the wash.”
The new ratings will be reflected on the website as of Feb. 20. Nursing home administrators will be able to see their scores under the new system starting Friday.
The changes follow others announced in October that require additional verification of self-reported staffing levels and other efforts to confirm quality data submitted by the homes.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Video: MNA Nurses Support Effort to End Workplace Violence
Nurses from St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood describe horrific night when a patient suddenly attacked them. MNA nurses are fighting for workplace safety for all healthcare workers in all facilities.
