Health Beat: Children’s Health Fund: More than 20 million children lack access to healthcare

Editor’s note: Each Wednesday, Talk Business & Politics provides “Health Beat,” a round-up health-related topics.
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CHILDREN’S HEALTH FUND: MORE THAN 20 MILLION CHILDREN LACK ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE

A new report by the Children’s Health Fund shows that 20.3 million U.S. children — 28% of the pediatric population under the age of 18 — are without adequate health care. The new report, titled “Unfinished Business: More Than 20 Million Children in the U.S. Still Lack Sufficient Access to Essential Health Care,” is based on children who are uninsured; those who are insured, but do not receive regular primary care; and children who are publicly insured, connected to primary care, but do not receive essential and timely specialty care. CHF’s conclusions were derived from research into national health data sets as well as its own clinical experiences and programmatic data.

HEALTHCARE ROBOT DEPLOYMENT TO GROW FROM 3,400 TO 10,000 OVER NEXT FIVE YEARS

As the world’s population ages, and with an increasing shortage of physicians and other healthcare professionals, robots will be a growing presence in the healthcare system. At the same time, healthcare providers are attracted to robots due to their ability to reduce the cost of care, offload menial tasks from human personnel, improve the accuracy of repetitive tasks, and enable enhanced forms of therapy and rehabilitation, among other types of use cases.

According to a new report from Tractica, healthcare robots deployed in the years ahead will include those used in surgical areas, hospital logistics, disinfectant and nursing. Exoskeleton robots will also be used for rehabilitation, robotic prosthetic limbs, and other areas of the healthcare field. Tractica forecasts that healthcare robot shipments will increase from approximately 3,400 units annually in 2016 to more than 10,500 units per year by 2021. During that period, the market intelligence firm anticipates that revenue for healthcare robots will grow from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $2.8 billion.

NATIONAL ACCOUNTANTS’ GROUP URGES CHANGES TO EMPLOYEE BENEFIT REPORTING PROPOSAL

The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) is urging four federal agencies to reconsider some of the changes they jointly proposed to Form 5500, which employers use to satisfy employee benefit plan reporting requirements under the IRS code and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The proposed changes are part of a federal effort to improve employers’ reporting about employee benefit plans, modernize the financial information that is filed about the plans, harmonize annual reporting requirements with the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) reporting requirements, enhance the ability to mine data filed on annual returns and reports, and improve compliance under the Internal Revenue Code and ERISA. To learn more, click here.