Be Sure to Take the Health Tech Survey! 

Inform our efforts by answering a handful of questions related to some of your favorite acronyms like EHR, HIE, and RPM. Your willingness to share info related to your patient care benefits the OOA immensely.

Worth noting, the survey will also help gauge our response to proposed legislation that requires e-prescribing for all Schedule II drugs except in certain emergency situations. Sponsors of the bill say the legislation, HB 193, is meant to address the ongoing concerns of the state’s opioid crisis by reducing situations where individuals try to obtain Schedule II drugs from pharmacies with stolen or fraudulent prescriptions. Your input is critical, even if you wouldn’t be impacted by this legislation. 

Please take 90 seconds and complete the survey!

State Reaches Vaccination Milestone…

More than one-third of the Ohio population has started the vaccination process. As of this afternoon that number is 3,985,578, or 34.10%. Completed vaccinations are at 21.04%.

Vaccination in Ohio is now open to anyone 16 and older. On Monday Gov. Mike DeWine said the state is developing plans to vaccine high school students 16 and older and will work to make the Pfizer vaccine — the only one approved for 16- and 17-year-olds — available to them. The timeline is to have eligible high school students vaccinated before the end of the school year. Vaccination for adults is voluntary; for minors, parental consent would be required.

Starting next week, vaccine providers will be allowed to hold “closed pod” clinics with groups such as churches, businesses and unions. Clinics have begun at colleges around the state.

In another effort to increase vaccinations, the state has adjusted the vaccination allocations from where demand has lessened and shift them to mass vaccination sites or more highly-populated areas, while also allocating vaccines to the mobile clinics.

…But Virus Cases Still Rise

This week is the second week where the cases over two weeks per 100,000 people have gone up by more than 10. Two weeks ago, Ohio’s cases per 100,000 people were 146.9. Yesterday, case per 100,000 people was at 183.7.

“We are moving in the wrong direction from our statewide goal of 50 cases per 100,000 people,” said Gov. Mike DeWine at his briefing this week. “We are not seeing the runaway case growth we saw during the fall yet, so we can still turn this around if more people continue to get vaccinated and we continue to mask and social distance.”

The increases in case rates are reflected in this week’s Ohio Public Health Advisory System map. New health data shows case increases in 53 counties over the past week.

Level changes include:

• Franklin County moved to the watch list following sustained increases in cases and in COVID-related health care use including emergency department and outpatient visits and hospitalizations for COVID.
• Putnam County moved from orange to red.
• Carroll, Mercer, and Morgan counties moved from yellow to orange.
• Brown and Noble counties dropped from orange to yellow.

According to Bruce Vanderhoff, MD, chief medical officer at the Ohio Department of Health, Ohio and the nation are enduring another wave of COVID-19 due to variants of the original virus that are more contagious and more deadly. Variant counts in Ohio jumped from 92 on March 12 to 797 this week, a doubling time of about every 9-10 days.

Earlier in the week DeWine and ODH Director Stephanie McCloud announced the consolidation of current health orders and issued a simplified health order. They said the replacement order underscores the most important aspects of infection prevention like masking, social distancing, and limiting large gatherings. That order was amended this morning to provide clarity regarding religious exemptions, spacing in restaurants and K-12 facial coverings.

COVID Test Kits Available

The OOA is partnering with ActionPPE.org on a COVID test group buy at below market prices. These FDA-approved tests can be done in a physician office in 10 minutes and for as little as $15.55.

Reserve your COVID test kits today as stock will be allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis. This one-time group purchase of 100k American-made COVID Antigen Test Kits are for medical professionals only.

Reserve yours today at https://actionppe.org/ohiodo. Remember to use the OOA discount code: OHIODO-SAVE5

Medicaid Names New Managed Care Plans, Chooses OhioRISE Vendor

Six managed care plans have been chosen to implement the Department of Medicaid’s new planned system of care starting in 2022. The major managed care contracts – usually the state’s largest contracts – cover health care for most of the more than 3 million Ohioans in the Medicaid program.

Those six plans, in order of their scores in the procurement process, are:

• UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Ohio
• Humana Health Plan of Ohio
• Molina Healthcare of Ohio
• AmeriHealth Caritas Ohio
• Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield
• CareSource Ohio

A seventh, Buckeye Community Health Plan, is subject to additional consideration by the department due to litigation between the state and Buckeye, along with its parent company, Centene. Buckeye was neither awarded nor denied an award, ODM said.

Aetna Better Health of Ohio will run the new OhioRISE plan, part of the new system of managed care.

The OhioRISE plan provides intensive services for multi-system youth, those with complex needs served by a variety of state agencies. It builds on efforts in the last state budget to provide funding that will prevent parents from having to relinquish custody in order to receive care.

Resilience through Integrated Systems and Excellence (OhioRISE) features new, intensive, community-based services that will serve youth in their homes and communities, rather than in congregate settings that can be far away from a child’s home and support system.

It’s Almost Here!

The Ohio Osteopathic Symposium is in two weeks! Have you registered yet?

Register at www.OhioDO.org/cme for the April 23-25 virtual event to earn 21.5 hours of AOA Category 1-A credit, learn the latest in the art and science of patient care, and enjoy the camaraderie of your fellow DOs.

The program features Keynote Speaker Joseph M. Gastaldo, MD, an expert in COVID-19; the installation of Henry L. Wehrum, DO, as OOA president; the JO Watson, DO, Memorial Lecture from Anthony G. Chila, DO; and a panel discussion on palliative care and value of the osteopathic touch.

Join Us for a Virtual Wine Tasting

(the wine’s not virtual)

Make plans to join the Ohio Osteopathic Foundation Virtual Wine Tasting, May 13 at 7 pm. Tickets cost $100 and proceeds benefit the osteopathic family through various OOF projects.

You’ll choose three wines—which will be shipped directly to you from Debonne Vineyards, the largest estate winery in Ohio. Then log on to Zoom May 13 to learn about your selections from Debonne’s expert staff and have an enjoyable evening with your osteopathic family.

Registration and details are here.