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National News
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Privacy  or Piracy
Signalman Approve National Agreement
Senate Drug Plan
HIPAA
Retirement earnings bill

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We want privacy, but the UPRR is in for piracy.

The form below is  the form managers bring to employees who are injured on the job. In the guise of a HIPAA release, managers are misleading injured employees to sign this release. It is nothing more than the Carrier's attempt to have the employee release all of his personal medical information to the claims agent and who knows who else.

Please inform everyone about this treacherous act and not to sign this form. If a manager forces or infers discipline if not signed, IMMEDIATELY CALL YOUR UNION REPRESENTATIVE.

MOUNT PROSPECT, IL–September 16, 2003 — Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen’s International President W. Dan Pickett announced today that the union’s rank-and-file members have ratified the tentative national agreement. After an almost four-year battle with the National Carriers’ Conference
Committee (NCCC), the tentatively approved national agreement, which was unanimously endorsed by the union’s Negotiating Committee and subsequently approved by a majority of the union’s General Chairmen earlier this year, was ratified by a majority of the voting BRS members.

The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS) represents over 5500 members affected by this agreement. The NCCC represents our nation’s major railroads, including: Alton and Southern; Belt Railway of Chicago; Bessemer & Lake Erie; Burlington Northern Santa Fe; Consolidated Rail Shared Assets (Conrail); CSX Transportation, Inc.; Elgin, Joliet & Eastern; Kansas City Southern; Northeast
Illinois Regional Commuter Rail Corp. (Metra); Peoria & Pekin Union Terminal; Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis; and Union Pacific.

International President Pickett expects to sign the agreement this week. "We are pleased that our members approved the labor agreement. Although we are saddled with health and welfare contributions, the contract provides wage increases, benefit improvements, and is void of any work-rule changes," stated Pickett. "The BRS Negotiating Committee and I feel strongly that the required skill-level and
duties of signalmen must be acknowledged and our members compensated accordingly to achieve ratification on future agreements."

The contract provides retroactive general wage increases back to October of 2001. The agreement is in effect until January 2005, although its benefits remain in effect beyond its expiration until it is changed. Among other things, it establishes the following:

• Immediate increase in the base hourly-rate to $20.58
• Base hourly-rate of $21.25 after last wage increase is applied in July of next year
• Employee health and welfare cost sharing contributions capped at no more than $100                       per month
• Wage increases totaling 14.5% over the term of the agreement
• Improved health and welfare benefits
• Improved life insurance benefits

• $ 0.27 per hour COLA roll-in, October 1, 2001
• 2.5% June 30, 2002
• 3.5% July 1, 2002
• 3.0 % July 1, 2003
• 3.25% July 1, 2004

• $33.39 per month July 1, 2001
• $81.18 per month July 1, 2002
• $79.74 per month July 1, 2003
• $100.00 per month July 1, 2004 (cost sharing is capped at $100 per month)

Congress is on a fast track to pass a sham Medicare prescription drug plan by July 4. While doing nothing to control runaway drug costs, the scheme provides inadequate and unreliable coverage, according to the Alliance for Retired Americans. In fact, according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of similar plans, the proposal could prompt employers to drop coverage for 3 million retirees who use it to fill in gaps in Medicare.

Scheduled for a June 12 vote by the Senate Finance Committee and co-authored by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the measure is a “quick fix and a bad bill for personal political gain at the expense of American’s seniors,” says Alliance for Retired Americans President George Kourpias.

Under the Senate drug plan, seniors in both traditional and managed-care Medicare would pay a monthly $35 drug premium, meet a $275 annual deductible and get help with 50 percent of their out-of-pocket drug costs up to $3,450. But after that point, even while they continued paying monthly premiums, seniors would have no drug benefit until they spent $5,300 annually on drugs, after which they’d pay 10 percent of prescription costs. The coverage gap between $3,450 and $5,300 would create “a tremendous amount of anxiety” among Medicare recipients, according to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

Under the proposal, 15 percent of Medicare recipients now in private managed-care plans and the majority of consumers in traditional fee-for-service Medicare programs would pay toward drug coverage. Those with traditional Medicare coverage would be required to purchase policies covering only prescription drugs and sold by private insurance companies. “All the data and empirical evidence indicate that current proposals to offer prescription drug coverage to people only through private health plans or stand-alone drug policies would cost the Medicare program significantly more money, shift more costs and provide less reliable coverage to people with Medicare,” says Medicare Rights Center President Robert Hayes.

A private-sector solution already has proven unreliable for Medicare recipients: After Medicare managed-care plans became available in 1997, these private plans have dropped more than 2 million enrollees—while those who remain in the plans are paying more for fewer services.

The plan discriminates against retirees with employer-provided drug coverage because the portions of their drug costs paid for by that coverage would not count toward meeting the various spending levels. With this trick definition of out-of-pocket costs, many seniors who now have employer-provided drug coverage would never reach $3,450. That would leave their former employers on the hook, prompting them to drop that coverage for as many as 3 million retirees, according to CBO estimates.

“This proposal will not provide seniors with the predictable and affordable drug coverage they need and deserve. And it discriminates against good union and employer retiree plans,” says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “Congress must provide enough funding to treat retirees equitably and to fill the gap in coverage.”

    Patient privacy provisions that take effect today are putting health care providers on guard when it comes to talking about their patients and giving patients more say over the release of their own health information.
    Violators of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) - the most complex federal medical regulations since Medicare - could face severe fines and even jail time.
    Terri Fisher is a registered nurse who works primarily with cardiology and pulmonary patients for Christus Schumpert Health System in Shreveport, LA.  She sees the regulations as a good move.
    "Patients want that control," she said. "I'm not in the least bit concerned because it's always been our policy.  We've always had some sort of system to protect their privacy, and we always know who their primary contact person is."
    As Fisher tended to patient Thomas Aught of Natchitoches on Friday morning, he said he appreciates the effort to protect patient privacy, although he was never worried about that anyway.
    "I have no hidden secrets," he said.  "But I do think they are concerned about the patients and that's good.  I felt that way before I came here."
    The regulations take the form of multiple - page privacy statements already being handed out by many medical providers for their patients to read and sign.  The sweeping regulations were seven years in the making.
    The patient privacy provisions will be followed by datacoding changes in the fall and security guidelines two years from now.
    "They took a horribly complex industry and tried to set out a comprehensive set of rules, so you're going to miss things," said Jeff Short, an Indianapolis attorney who has tried to become a walking encyclopedia on HIPAA for the good of his medical clients
    At Christus Schumpert, training started earlier this year for more than 2000 employees and volunteers.
"We're training everyone who might see or hear anything to do with patient information," said Inez Kernick, regulatory compliance co-ordinator.
    "This will have a major impact on us because we cannot be at all casual in talking about patients.  That can be frustrating.  There are opportunities to do good by releasing information in certain cases and we won't be able to do that."
      The hospital could not seek community help for an indigent child brought in from another country for medical care, for example, unless the child's family signs all the proper forms - and the family may not even speak English.
    "Some nurses are nervous because they have to protect themselves.  In cases of violations, there can be fines and they can be dramatic - as high as $10,000 - and there could be jail time.  They will be extra cautious," Kernick said.
    HIPAA started in the 1990s as a congressional idea to standardize electronic billing and claims in the diverse health-care industry, in the name of speed and cost savings estimated at $30 billion over 10 years.  Congress sees HIPAA's standardized billing codes playing an industry unifying role not unlike the common gauge rail line in the 1800s.
    But HIPAA since has taken on added girth, mostly in the form of patient privacy provisions drawn up by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after Congress failed to take action on such a political hot potato.
    "Congress couldn't come to a decision on privacy regulations, and it fell to HHS to do it," said HHS spokesman Bill Pierce.
    HIPAA gives any patient the right to withhold all information about themselves when hospitalized, so even family members may not be told their room number.  Patients get the right to see their medical files at any time, insert information in the files or read a log detailing who has seen any information in the files.
    The LSU Health Services Center in Shreveport is relying primarily on computer based training to educate it's staff of some 6,500 workers, students and volunteers - everyone from gardeners to chancellors.
    "They don't have any reason to be afraid.  We're going to heighten their awareness," said privacy officer Debbie Miller.  "This puts patients more in control over their personal information and as a patient I would appreciate that. This law is not as scary to me as some others out there."
    Medical providers and payers must audit themselves to make sure their patient protections meet HIPAA mandates, which "are very, very specific and exact," said David J. Boswell, director for Indiana's St. Vincent Hospital system.
    All of St. Vincent's 5,000 employees and volunteers must take a 20 minute, computerized HIPAA training course.  For his part, Boswell doesn't think HIPAA will noticeably heighten patient privacy at most hospitals.  At St. Vincent, he said "it's a significant sin around here to breach patient confidentiality."
    The coming of HIPAA, he thinks means patient privacy will become more formal and "policed."  "If they breach HIPAA rules, hospitals and doctors' practices may be "left very bare," because most insurance liability policies won't cover such infractions," said Dorothy Berry, Vice President of clinical risk management for GE's commercial insurance division in Overland Park, Ks.
    HHS spokesman Pierce is more reassuring to providers and businesses, saying federal watchdogs aren't straining at the leash to crack down on well meaning HIPAA violators.
    Government enforcement will be prompted by complaints and focus on "people intentionally violating the privacy rule," Pierce said.  "We never said we are going to be coming out there and looking for violators."
    Enforcement will be up to the HHS's Office of Civil Rights, which this year is increasing from 30 to 40 the number of staffers who will enforce HIPAA nationally.
    Short and other HIPAA experts see the regulations as a maze of trip wires that could get hospitals or doctors in trouble.
    Hospital officials, for instance, could run afoul of HIPAA by using the common phrase "treated and released" to refer to patients who are no longer in their care, or by affirming a patients death to the news media when the body is off hospital property, Short said.
    Pierce downplays such concerns saying providers have leeway to make common sense decisions on releasing basic patient information as long as the patient has agreed to it.
    "Some folks are making this a lot more complicated than it is or has to be." he said.  Costlier by far and technically more complex are HIPAA's rules for standardizing claims processing and billing.
    Everyone who does electronic medical billing, from solo practitioners to giant insurers, must use the same codes as of Oct. 16, the extended deadline that almost all affected companies and providers opted for.
    The last part of HIPAA, its security rules, were recently released and will take effect in 2005.  Whether the health industry will be ready when the deadlines come, is a good question.  Health care consultant, Phoenix Health Systems of Montgomery Village, Md., reported that industry surveys show "readiness for HIPAA compliance remains a serious concern."
    Only 30 percent of payers and data clearinghouses who responded to a national survey this winter reported they will be ready for today's April privacy deadline, while just 37 percent said they will be set to try out the new standardized codes on their systems by the testing deadline of this spring.

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Retirement earnings bill becomes law

Last week, President Bush signed the Railroad Retirement Disability Earnings Act (H.R. 5483), which the U.S. House passed Sept. 28 and Senate passed Dec. 9.

Introduced in the House in May 2006 by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), the legislation raises retired railroad workers’ monthly earning limit from $400 — as established more than a decade ago under the Railroad Retirement Act — to $700 and creates an indexing formula to automatically increase the earning limit based on inflation. The changes are retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007.