Grumpy Editor

CORONAVIRUS HITS REVENUE OF SOME DOCTORS

Doctors who focus on primary care checkups, endoscopies and other non-urgent services are facing tough times, notes Grumpy Editor.

As Axios points out, hospital care for COVID-19 and social distancing are taking priority, adding some doctors are reporting revenue falling 50 percent to 90 percent, as "loans and bailout money are helping some doctors stay afloat” while “the federal government and health insurers are paying doctors for telehealth visits, but that isn’t making up for lost revenue."

 

A survey of doctors indicates 20 percent of primary care practices believe they will temporarily close within a month.

 

Hospitals, insurance companies and private equity firms, which were rapidly buying practices before the pandemic, will view financially distressed practices as a golden opportunity, especially if the doctors are valuable sources of referrals, sees Axios.

 

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

 

 

SUNDAY TRAVEL, SPORTS SECTIONS SUSPENDED.  With vacations cancelled and professional sports on hold, The New York Times suspends travel and sports sections in its Sunday print edition.  Sports news now is folded into the main section of the Sunday paper while travel coverage appears throughout the paper.

 

NAVY HOSPITAL SHIP READY TO DEPART.  After three weeks in New York harbor — mostly without patients — the U.S. Naval hospital ship USNS Comfort readies for departure.

 

CNN STAFFERS ABANDON OFFICES.  CNN president Jeff Zucker informs the network’s workforce that most staffers will not be returning to their offices until early September as precautions remain to curb the spread of the coronavirus. 

 

FOX CHIEF FORGOES SALARY.  Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch is forgoing his salary amid the coronavirus pandemic and 700 employees at the company will see pay reductions.

 

TV NEWS SHOWS NAKED HUBBY.  Camera of  KCRA-TV, Sacramento news reporter broadcasting from her home during the coronavirus pandemic, accidentally captures her naked husband taking a shower in the background.  

 

MARINES TO CUT TANK BATTALIONS.  The Marine Corps decides it must eliminate tank battalions and reduce its infantry and artillery units in 10 years as it converts its force to one more aligned with taking on potential adversaries such as China.

 

RIGHT TIME TO ORGANIZE?  Writers at Wired magazine form an editorial union as Condé Nast, the publication’s parent company, plans deep cuts amid the coronavirus-fueled economic downturn that has ravaged the media landscape.

 

JOB LOSSES GROW.  A Rasmussen Reports national survey finds 40 percent of American adults say they or someone in their immediate family has lost their job because of the coronavirus outbreak.  That’s up from 32 percent from a month earlier. 

 

WORLD'S INSECTS DWINDLE.  Researchers are alarmed that the world has lost more than a fourth of land-dwelling insects in the past three decades.  Bugs, they add, are disappearing at a rate just under one percent a year.

NOT ALL SURGERY CENTER DOCTORS ARE BOARD CERTIFIED: REPORT

 

Grumpy Editor notes a USA TODAY story that reveals more than one in three outpatient surgery centers employ doctors who are not board certified in their respective medical specialty.

 

The information comes from a survey by Washington, D.C.-based Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit that summarizes trends in safety and quality of care for same-day surgical services.

 

Leapfrog Group also reports nearly 30 percent of those that provide anesthesia at doctor-owned centers are not board certified. 

 

Nonprofit Leapfrog Group polled more than 1,400 hospital and ambulatory surgery centers to give the public information on the facilities that now perform the majority of U.S. surgical procedures.  Patients who undergo operations and other procedures at the centers are released the same day.

 

"Unlike hospitals that keep patients overnight and must report quality measures, comparatively little information is available to the public when evaluating same-day-surgery centers, points out the USA TODAY story.  It adds, "The centers handle more than 60 percent of all surgeries and procedures as doctors and specialists shift away from hospital operations, particularly for healthier individuals who don't required the level of monitoring a hospital provides.”

 

It quotes Leapfrog Group’s CEO Leah Binder:  "“Virtually nothing is known in a systematic way about the safety of these centers. When you go under the knife, you want the reassurance of an independent report on their safety. That’s why we did it.” 

 

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

 

HALLOWEEN OUTLAYS MOUNT.  WalletHub projects Halloween spending reaching $8.8 billion this year, including $3.2 billion going to costumes and $2.6 billion to candy.  It finds 36 percent of parents think children 12 or 13 years old are old enough to trick-or-treat alone.

 

SAILORS ALLOWED TO WEAR FALSE EYELASHES.  Males in the Royal New Zealand Navy, starting Friday, will be allowed to wear discreet makeup, clear or pale nail varnish and "trimmed, neat and natural" false eyelashes when in uniform, under new gender-neutral guidelines. One pair of natural colored stud or sleeper earrings will also be allowed along with moderate amounts of perfume or cologne.

 

MILITARY CASUALTIES IN TRAINING EXERCISES.  It was a bad week for service members undergoing training exercises.  In Laurel, Mississippi, 32 paratroopers were injured, with 18 of them hospitalized, after jumping from a C-130 aircraft when the wind blew them into pine trees. At Fort Stewart in Georgia, an armored vehicle fell from a bridge in post-midnight darkness landing upside down in water, killing three of those inside and injuring three others.  

BLANK FRONT PAGES IN AUSSIE PROTEST.  Australia’s leading media outlets launch a co-ordinated campaign to protest restrictions on press freedom by blacking out texts on front pages.  It comes  amid mounting concerns over what government critics describe as a culture of secrecy, in which national security legislation has been deployed to deliberately target investigative journalism.

BANK HIRES EX-CRIMINALS.  New York-based JPMorgan Chase is expanding its efforts to hire people with criminal backgrounds, continuing the trend of big companies giving people second chances. The bank hired 2,100 people with criminal records in 2018, which equals about 10 percent of total hires last year.  Applicants with criminal records are being considered for entry-level jobs like account servicing and transaction processing.

BILL MAKES ANIMAL CRUELTY FEDERAL FELONY.  The U.S. House of Representatives passes a bill that would make animal cruelty a federal felony. The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act bans abusive behavior including crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impaling and other bodily injury toward any non-humans. Violators could face criminal penalties of a fine, a prison term of up to seven years, or both.

K-9s ASSIST IN MARIJUANA BUST.  Four Connecticut state police drug-sniffing dogs are credited with helping troopers collar two men on drug-trafficking charges by sniffing out 420 pounds of marijuana.

INSURERS NIX FIRE COVERAGE.  Insurance companies are raising premiums and refusing to renew fire coverage in existing policies to 350,000 Californians.

UNION PUSHES RAISES FOR FINANCIAL NEWS OUTLETS.  The union that represents business journalists at The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch.com and Barron’s asks the parent company for raises of at least 3.25 percent over the next three years.

GWEN IFILL ON POSTAGE STAMPS.  Pioneering journalist Gwen Ifill, who died three years ago, is being memorialized on a U.S. Postal Service Forever stamp, the 43rd stamp in the Black Heritage series. After being a reporter for  The New York Times and The Washington Post, Ifill switched to television in the 1990s and covered politics and Congress for NBC News. She moved to PBS in 1999 as host of "Washington Week" and also worked for the nightly "NewsHour" program.

 

USING B-WORD COULD LEAD TO JAIL TIME.  A bill introduced by a Massachusetts lawmaker seeks to make an expletive a fineable offense --- up to $200 --- with jail time, up to six months, a threat for repeat offenders. The word: b----, to accost, annoy, degrade another person "shall be considered a disorderly person."

Shaky US. health care system shows widening cracks

 

Few people recall the days when newspaper staffs included medical editors who focused on doctors, hospitals, medicine and medical developments.  Among natural current topics for such a specialized journalist would be the difficulty one has in trying to contact a specialist to set a date soonest for an office visit or to reach a physician for input on a nagging medical condition.

Grumpy Editor knows of a woman with a severe back problem in late January whose earliest visit to a doctor’s group with 22 orthopedics was in far-off April.  Then there’s a senior bachelor who just returned home after spending three months in a hospital, terming the confinement “just terrible.”

What’s going on?

Dr. Diana Hoppe, an obstetrician and gynecologist, founder of Amazing Over 40 Inc., a health coaching certification program for women and an author/speaker who has been featured on a number of TV shows, including “Dr. Oz,” puts some light on the situation, listing what she calls “staggering, and depressing, statistics.”

• From 2011 to 2014, the rate of physician burnout increased to 54.5 percent from 45.5 percent, with the most common burnout symptom being emotional exhaustion.
• The rate of suicidal ideation among physicians jumped from 4 percent to 7.2 percent, an increase of 80 percent.
• Physician work-life balance is completely awry --- with 44.5 percent of physicians lacking adequate time for their personal and/or family life.

• The U.S. faces a shortage of as many as 90,000 physicians by 2025, including a critical need for specialists to treat an aging population that will increasingly live with chronic disease.
• Health care costs in the U.S. are higher than any other country.
• Eighty-six percent of all health care spending in 2010 was for people with one or more chronic medical conditions.
• About 70 percent of chronic conditions could be treated with lifestyle changes.

Dr. Hoppe hastens to point out that the most common chronic and costly medical conditions in the U.S. today are preventable. Heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, obesity and arthritis are conditions that could be treated with simple changes in patients’ behavior.

She cites four of the most common health risk behaviors that cause chronic disease are lack of exercise or physical activity, poor nutrition, smoking and drinking too much alcohol.

Her suggestion to doctors: “Rather than handing them a list of prescription medications, give your patients a weekly nutrition and exercise journal.”

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

Grumpy Editor edges out Associated Press by 19 days in reporting an increase in cable and Internet charges to Cox Communications customers with the Feb. 1 posting on the fee battle between Cox and Las Vegas’ CBS-TV outlet KLAS…On top of a crime:  The Feb. 19 issue of a newspaper (largest daily in its state) reports a description of three men in connection with a bank robbery --- on Dec. 8.  Story includes what the bad guys were wearing (such as “a black hoodie and a white bandana mask”), like they might be in the same attire more than 10 weeks later…It’s layoffs for some Yahoo employees as it focuses its resources on four key verticals: news, sports, finance and lifestyle…What are consumers doing with the money saved on lower-price gas these days? One survey finds while many people say they put the extra cash toward savings, credit card data reveal the money is being spent at restaurants…Wine Market Council research finds millennials drank 42 percent of wine consumed in the U.S. last year, more than any other generation at an average of two cases per person…Bloomberg reports dozens of members of Congress plan to ask the Obama administration to review the planned acquisition of the Chicago Stock Exchange by a Chinese firm, to assess whether it poses a national security risk or a risk to the companies traded on the exchange…In Japan, as Shinzo Abe’s government seeks to silence criticism, Hiroko Kuniya, a leading TV anchor known for her tough questioning style, will be replaced in April after 23 years hosting a social affairs show on public broadcaster NHK...Hillary Clinton, in  a CBS interview Thursday says she doesn't believe she has ever told a lie and vowed to do her best to be honest going forward...Think of how many times South Carolina was mentioned on television in the past two weeks.

 

Paying monthly cable bill for this?

CNBC yesterday (Sunday) listed paid programming all day through 7 p.m. Eastern.