(Press-News.org)
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) officially recognized that medical care can be delivered on the street, making it possible for providers like USC’s Street Medicine team to be reimbursed for services provided to people who are currently unhoused.
The decision, which was announced on June 28, 2023, was the result of a multi-year effort on the part of leaders of USC Street Medicine and the Street Medicine Institute to have CMS create a place of service (POS) code for the street. As a result of this designation, street medicine providers nationwide will be able to be reimbursed for their services effective October 1, 2023.
“This is an important decision for the street medicine providers, but also for our patients,” said Brett Feldman, director and co-founder of USC Street Medicine and an assistant professor of family medicine at Keck School of Medicine of USC. “Our patients rely on street medicine to survive and so by recognizing the street as a legitimate place to deliver health care, it recognizes their right to life.”
Code removes roadblock to services
The lack of a POS code has caused numerous obstacles for the medical professionals who deliver care to patients outside of the walls of a typical health care facility. According to Feldman, who led an effort in 2018 to survey street medicine providers across the country, more than 70% of the nation’s street medicine teams do not attempt to be reimbursed for services due to the lack of this code.
In addition, patients have often been unable to get additional services because insurers could not process their claims without a POS code. Because their claims went unprocessed, Feldman noted that patients were frequently denied the opportunity to see specialists, had difficulty obtaining medications and couldn’t get access to devices like walkers or wheelchairs.
Prior to this decision, the only insurers that reimbursed care given by street medicine providers were the state Medicaid programs in California and Hawaii. This decision helped to streamline the process of submitting claims and allowed providers to order additional services for their patients in those states.
The new code will also make it possible for researchers to identify street medicine visits and patients, allowing them to collect data to gain a better understanding of the needs of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. This type of research could lead to the creation of a more equitable care model.
Potential turning point for street medicine
Feldman first began researching this issue in 2015 when he was leading a street medicine team in Pennsylvania. When he joined the board of the Street Medicine Institute in 2017, he conducted additional research, including surveying members about billing practices.
Feldman’s research ultimately led the USC Street Medicine team, the Street Medicine Institute and other partners to submit a formal proposal to CMS to have the street designated as a legitimate place to deliver health care services.
Street medicine, he noted, is still a relatively young field of medicine, which may help explain why CMS had not designated a POS code for the street. Street medicine is growing, however and there are now street medicine teams active in more than 100 cities in the U.S.
This change could represent a major turning point for the delivery of street medicine across the country. Feldman said that while some street medicine teams get grants or philanthropic support to provide care, many are small and unfunded.
“Most street medicine programs fight to exist and survive right now,” said Feldman. “This recognition by CMS helps makes street medicine sustainable and scalable and could really help these programs to grow and thrive.”
About Keck School of Medicine of USC
Founded in 1885, the Keck School of Medicine of USC is one of the nation’s leading medical institutions, known for innovative patient care, scientific discovery, education and community service. Medical and graduate students work closely with world-renowned faculty and receive hands-on training in one of the nation’s most diverse communities. They participate in cutting-edge research as they develop into tomorrow’s health leaders. The Keck School faculty are key participants in training of 1200 resident physicians across 70 specialty and subspecialty programs, thus playing a major role in the education of physicians practicing in Southern California.
END
A University of Arizona Cancer Center researcher was awarded a $1.3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions in American Indian patients with obesity-related solid tumor cancers who are preparing for surgery.
According to principal investigator Jennifer Erdrich, MD, MPH, there are 13 cancer subtypes linked to obesity that account for 40% of all cancers diagnosed annually in the United States.
American Indian and Alaska Native populations are more than 1.5 times more likely to be obese than the general population and have some of the lowest cancer survival rates in the nation. Many factors ...
Key takeaways
A UCLA-led study has shown that hardship experienced by mothers during their own childhood or during pregnancy is reflected in the composition of their 2-year-old children’s gut microbiome.
It was previously understood that in rodents, prenatal stress affects microbiomes into adulthood, but how long after birth the effects lasted in humans was unknown.
The changes to this community of microorganisms are likely among the ways that hardship affects a child’s socioemotional development.
Hardship experienced by mothers during their own childhood or during pregnancy is reflected ...
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the release of a Draft Request for Proposals (RFP) for the selection of a management and operating (M&O) contractor for the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL).
DOE is soliciting public feedback on the draft RFP. Interested parties are encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity to provide comments regarding the draft contract performance requirements. The draft RFP will be open for public comment until August ...
“It’s a great privilege to host the World Conference of Science Journalists 2025,” says Mandi Smallhorne, president of SASJA. “As it is the first time the conference has ever been held on African soil, this is truly a historic event, we’re delighted to be the pioneers! We look forward to welcoming the science journalists of the world to our home; we are sure it will be an eye-opening and rewarding experience. Our beautiful country has a lot to share, and that includes some fascinating scientific experiences, from the Square Kilometre Array, to cutting edge genomic sequencing, to the Cradle of Humankind. We are brewing ...
Pulsed laser scanning lidar is a core technology for autonomous driving and robotic mobility. Herein, a directional light pulse is backscattered by a reflective object and the elapsed time between emission and detection of the pulse is used to calculate depth. These direct time-of-flight (d-ToF) measurements of returning light pulses enable the three-dimensional imaging of complex scenes.
At present, lidar technology requires numerous developments, including enhancement of the observation field of view (FoV) with high angular resolution, improvement of the imaging frame rate, extension of the ambiguity range by reducing the signal-to-noise ...
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have identified a process by which enzymes can help prevent heart damage in chemotherapy patients.
The enzymes are normally found in a cell’s mitochondria, the powerhouse that produces energy. But when heart cells are put under stress from certain types of chemotherapy drugs, the enzymes move into the cell’s nucleus, where they are able to keep the cells alive. The paper is published in Nature Communications.
“As chemotherapy has become more and more effective, we have more and more cancer survivors. But the tragic ...
How useful a memory is for future situations determines where it resides in the brain, according to a new theory proposed by researchers at HHMI"s Janelia Research Campus and collaborators at UCL.
The theory offers a new way of understanding systems consolidation, a process that transfers certain memories from the hippocampus – where they are initially stored – to the neocortex -- where they reside long term.
Under the classical view of systems consolidation, all memories move from the hippocampus to the neocortex over time. But this view doesn’t always hold up; research shows some memories permanently reside ...
Key Takeaways:
At job separation, 41.4% of employees cash out 401(k) savings, most draining their entire accounts.
Cashing out increases with the proportion of the 401(k) balance contributed by employers. The “account composition effect” is most likely driven by behavioral rather than economic explanations.
The cash-out option was presented to terminating employees in a salient way, unintentionally nudging them to withdraw their 401(k) savings.
BALTIMORE, MD, July 17, 2023 – When researchers set out to study 401(k) retirement savings ...
The popular 1954 rock song "Shake, Rattle and Roll," could be the theme music for the Hubble Space Telescope's latest discovery about what is happening to the asteroid Dimorphos in the aftermath of NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) experiment. DART intentionally impacted Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, slightly changing the trajectory of its orbit around the larger asteroid Didymos.
Astronomers using Hubble's extraordinary sensitivity have discovered a swarm of boulders that were possibly shaken off the asteroid when NASA deliberately slammed the half-ton DART impactor spacecraft into Dimorphos ...
Rockville, MD (July 20, 2023) Xingen Lei, PhD, professor of molecular nutrition and associate dean of research and innovation at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has been named the next editor-in-chief of The Journal of Nutrition, effective January 1, 2024. Established in 1928, The Journal of Nutrition is the oldest journal devoted to publishing influential original research, reviews, and perspectives of molecular, cellular, animal, human, and population nutrition and mechanisms.
Dr. Lei has published extensively in The Journal of Nutrition ...
