The Department of Health and Human Services issues proposed regulations on physician incentive payments by hospitals

Hospitals tempted to operate their own physician incentive plans are reminded that, under OBRA 1986, they are precluded from paying physician incentives of any kind to reduce or limit Medicare or Medicaid covered services. In light of the proposed regulations and the guidance of the preamble, hospitals should review their incentive plans to determine whether physicians providing direct patient care are receiving prohibited payments. Further, supervising physicians who are receiving incentives for certain hospital departments may not influence direct care over patients served by those departments, even through other physicians. Some risk may also exist if incentives are based on a formula that considers patients of the supervising physician's medical group. Finally, it may be useful to develop a utilization and quality of care review program specifically designed to assure that patient undertreatment does not occur as a result of any supervising physician incentive program.     

Special report on reimbursement. HCFA enacts new enforcement remedies covering nursing facilities

While the regulations are revolutionary in their use of "substantial compliance," the interpretation and application of HCFA's new remedial scheme are still uncertain, as states are given broad discretion in defining important terms and in applying and interpreting the criteria to select remedies. Further complicating the issue is the fact that some states, including California, intend to seek waivers from HCFA to substitute their own state enforcement systems for most, if not all, of the new federal system. Based upon these uncertainties, the enforcement of nursing facility standards will likely be in a state of flux for some time to come.     

From underworld to underground

In the West economically motivated crime is usually perceived as a matter for the police while the performance of the economy is a matter for the political authorities. This paper argues that the growth and evolution of the modern underground economy has made such a distinction obsolete. Not only have the frontiers between the legitimate and the criminal sectors of the economy blurred, but the distinction between the explicitly criminal and the merely informal aspects of the modern underground economy has become largely meaningless. Given the tremendous growth of underground activity, this means that the issue must now be addressed not just on the enterprise level, as a police matter, but on the level of the economy as a whole, by economic policy makers. This in fact is something that many developing countries long ago realized. The paper therefore asks whether developing countries have been any more successful in using monetary, fiscal and balance of payments policy to mitigate the adverse social and economic impact of widespread underground economic activity than have Western countries who have relied mainly on the sanction of criminal law. It concludes that both approaches are deficient in so far as they neglect the degree to which modern underground activity can no longer be seen as a manifestation of deviant economic behavior so much as a virtual economic insurgency against the status quo distribution of income and wealth and the codes of economic behavior which accompany it. However dramatic are the financial manifestations of the spread of enterprise crime, ultimately the challenge it poses must be addressed as the political and ideological level.     

The epidemiology of aging: a further stage in the demographic transition

"Social and economic indicators depict Mexico as a country of intermediate development. It is also in intermediate stages of demographic and epidemiologic transitions. When these traits are translated into socio-demographic perspectives, all projections indicate that for the next fifty years we can expect: (i) percentage decreases in child and teen-age populations, (ii) large percentage and absolute increases in adult population, and (iii) important increases in the elderly population.... Among elders death due to infectious diseases is less common than within other sectors of [the] population. Mortality associated with chronic ailments has increased, with recent and remarkable changes during the last twenty years. This transformation is not evenly distributed. It is more accelerated in developed and urban areas as contrasted with the rural and less developed." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

From the ranch of the Tia Juana to Tijuana: a brief history of development and population on the northern border of Mexico

"Tijuana has been the most extraordinary example of the modern demographic history of the [Mexican] northern border. This article is an essay on the economic, social, and demographic development of this important urban center during this century. Its purpose is two fold. On the one hand, to understand Tijuana's general population change in light of a unique socioeconomic development in the country, which has been characterized by a close dependence on the United States as well as by the creation of several federal programs aimed [at integrating] the natural economies. On the other hand, to introduce the discussion of the Mexico-United States border region to the non-specialist in this field." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

Tort reform proposals: a toolbox for change

Tort reform is controversial because of the need to balance cost considerations with the legitimate needs of plaintiffs who have suffered malpractice injury. In addition, proponents and opponents of the different proposals often formulate their positions based largely on anecdotal evidence and concerns of special interest groups rather than careful studies. As a result, it may be some time before malpractice reform is addressed comprehensively at the federal level, leaving the states to their own reform devices.