The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 15

2MTHEDES MOINES REGISTER Wednesday, September 19, 1990 Activists tally excess billing of Medicare by Iowa doctors UNI numbers peak, Regents seen favoring 3 tuition boost organization called Medicare Partners. The participants agree to accept Medicare payment, plus deductibles and co-payments, as full payment for patients who meet age and income guidelines. The Citizens Fund report, based on data from the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration, says the average amount Iowa doctors charged over the amount Medicare paid in 1989 was $22.85 per procedure. That added charge was on top of an average co-payment of $17.14.

The consumer groups advocate requiring doctors to accept as full payment the amounts covered by Medicare and by the patients' co-payments, as some states now do. Eldon Huston, the medical society's executive vice president, said the doctors' group opposes forcing physicians to accept Medicare payments. In rural areas especially, he said, Medicare payments do no more than cover a physician's overhead. curity of the nation's elderly residents. 'The trade-off for doctors' wealth should not be to jeopardize seniors' health," he said.

The study said that only 44 percent of Iowa's doctors had agreed not to limit their charges to the amount Medicare would cover. Officials of the Iowa Medical Society said, however, that the percentage represents only those Iowa doctors who are considered "participating" Medicare physicians. Those physicians are ones who agree in annual contracts to accept Medicare's payments, plus the deductibles and co-payments made by the patients, as payment in full for their Medicare patients. Non-participating doctors are free to charge more, or less, than the amount covered by Medicare and the co-payments. More than 75 percent of Iowa's 4,500 doctors belong to a voluntary ates in the state fell 6.8 percent this year and will drop another 9.5 percent next year.

From 1977 to 1990, the number of high school graduates per year has plunged from 49,990 to 36,104, a 28 percent drop. Although enrollment declined by 839 at the of the number of minority students at the Iowa City school increased, putting it on track to meet its goal of raising minority enrollment to 8.5 percent by 1992. The number of minority students rose to 2,093, or 7.5 percent of the student body, this fall. That compares to 1,959, or 6.7 percent, last fall. Most of the of I enrollment decline was due to a smaller entering freshman class.

Freshman enrollment plummeted 725, or 20.6 percent. of I Admissions Director Michael Barron attributed the steep decrease to the shrinking pool of high school graduates in Iowa and Illinois, from which the of I traditionally draws 90 percent of its undergraduates. The university had expected an enrollment drop, but the decline was larger than anticipated. That translates into lower tuition income, necessitating almost $1.8 million in spending cuts. of I President Hunter Rawlings said the enrollment slide has a good side, too.

The university increased the size of its faculty this fall, he said, so the student-teacher ratio improved and more students were able to enroll in the classes they wanted. Administrators at all three schools said the students who enrolled this fall are better prepared By CHARLES BULLARD Rteisttr Staff Wrrttr Enrollment at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University fell this fall, but the University of Northern Iowa bucked the trend and set a new enrollment record. Despite a shrinking pool of Iowa high school graduates, 12,638 students registered at UNI this fall, breaking the Cedar Falls school's enrollment record of 11,837, set in 1989. Enrollment at the of I in Iowa City fell 3 percent this fall, forcing the state's largest university to trim spending by nearly $1.8 million. ISU in Ames recorded an enrollment decline of less than 1 percent.

The official fall enrollment totals for all three schools were released this week. Overall, 66,022 undergraduate, graduate and professional students are attending the three state universities. That total is down slightly from the 1989 fall count of 66,210. The biggest drop was at the of where the student count sagged to 28,045. That compares to 28,884 last fall.

At ISU, the count slipped to 25,339 from last fall's total of 25,489. Officials at ISU and the UofI blamed the drop on the declining number of students graduating from Iowa high schools. "Our enrollment is about what we expected," said Earl Dowling, assistant vice president of enrollment services at ISU. "The decline was predictable and followed the national trend. The pool of traditional college-bound high school students is shrinking and will continue to do so for the next few years." The Iowa Department of Education said the number of high school gradu We are proud to be the largest retailer of one of the highest quality hand-crafted solid wood products in We are a family-owned business providing personalized service to everyone who has a feel for the beauty of rich-grained hardwoods and the beautiful products they make.

We sell exquisite dining room sets, hutches, chairs, bedrooms, roll-top desks, much more at surprisingly low prices. Nebraska Family hopes TV show helps locate estranged brother By GENE RAFFENSPERGER RMlttar Staff Wrttar Five brothers and sisters who were separated and scattered are looking for a sixth family member, a brother who may be living in Iowa. Circumstances beyond their control scattered the six siblings. Five have been found and have held a reunion. The sixth is a brother who would now be 48.

The story will be told on the television program "Unsolved Mysteries," which airs on NBC Sept. 26. "I'm really excited about this. I'm hopeful that the airing of this show will bring out something about our brother Tommy," said Doresa Jones-Dressier, 46, who now lives in Boring, but who lived from infancy through high school graduation at Jamaica in Guthrie County. Jones-Dressier said she has a sister, Sally Bell, 50, of Ruthven.

These two women and their two brothers and a sister want to find Thomas Marshal Heck, the only one of the six Heck children of Council Bluffs who has not been located. He was adopted as a 4-year-old, said Jones-Dressier, so Thomas will have a different last name today. The Heck family lived in Council Bluffs. The parents, Delbert and Maude, divorced and in 1944 the six children ended up in a place in Council Bluffs known as the Christian Childrens' Home. Two of the boys, Delbert and James, were sent to the Iowa Annie Wittenmyer Home in Davenport.

Four others stayed in the Council Bluffs home. Five of the children were adopted by separate families. Jones-Dressier thinks all ended up in Iowa. The sixth, Florence, was claimed by her birth mother, who returned to the Council Bluffs home to get the youngsters about four years after the children first were put there. By then only Florence was still there.

Jones-Dressler's search for her brothers and sisters turned up all but Thomas. Last March five of the six gathered in Arkansas for a reunion. Now the five, Jones-Dressier, of Oregon; Bell, of Ruthven; Florence Taylor, 53, of Siloam Spring, Delbert Heck, 58, of Jay, and James Heck 55, of Gentry, hope they can find brother Tommy. Country Oak A Leaves store right inside the table. '210 Fifth St.

Valley Junction Wert Dei Moines, IA 50265 515255-3330 in IP By GEORGE CLIFFORD HI Mister SM Writer CEDAR FALLS, IA. Two students from Iowa's state universities put a new spin on a seasonal ritual Tuesday. It is September, the season for the Iowa State Board of Regents to consider raising tuition at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. And time for students to sing the blues. At Tuesday's regents meeting on the UNI campus here, the board considered proposals to increase tuition by 3.8 percent for Iowa residents and 4 percent for students from out of state for the 1991-92 academic year.

The increases would range from $72 a year for an undergraduate from Iowa to $614 a year for an out-of-state medical student. But in what may have been a first, the presidents of the of I and ISU student governments may have sold the board on a smaller increase. Students React Predictably, student leaders railed against the proposed increase. Lisa Raine, president of UNI's student government, said any tuition increase was unfair. Raine, from Dubuque, said the increases would be tougher on students than they appeared because of additional fee increases including health services charges expected later this year.

"Obviously, this isn't a tuition increase per se, but it would be an increase in the actual cost of college, or as I see it, a type of hidden tuition increase," Raine said. Mark A. Havlicek of Cedar Rapids and Molly Olinger of Des Moines, the of I and ISU student presidents, cited rising rent and book expenses and asked the board to limit the increases to 3 percent for all students. To the surprise of some, they may have won their case. "I would hope the board would acquiesce to the students' request," Regents President Marvin Pomerantz said.

"I think it would be meaningful to do so and we can afford it." Proposal Gets Backing Pomerantz said he and the two students had discussed their proposal Sunday. Other board members also voiced support for the students' proposal, as long as it would not adversely affect faculty salaries or other conditions at the universities. Regent John Fitzgibbon asked the board's staff to compile information on how the coming academic year's budgets would be affected by lower tuition. The board is to take final action on the matter at its meeting next month. Havlicek and Olinger said they were pleased with Tuesday's results.

For some students, even a small savings in tuition is significant, Havlicek said. "A lot of students barely break even at the end of the year," he said. "I'm like that myself." In other action, the board heard a report from David Holger, who chairs the committee screening applications for the Iowa State University president's job. Holger told the board the committee had 77 applications as of Tuesday morning. The committee will interview candidates in November and December, he said.

adidas BOYS SIZES 12 thru 6 II Assorted Styles Available for Indoor Outdoor 199 Jl By TOM CARNEY Rwlitar Staff Writer Iowa doctors billed Medicare patients $28 million last year in what are called excess charges, according to a study released by two citizens groups. The report was prepared by the Citizens Fund of Washington, D.C., and was distributed by Iowa Citizen Action Network and the Iowa State Council of Senior Citizens. Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, covers only a portion of medical bills, and the program requires participants to pay 20 percent of the amount covered by Medicare. Those fees, called co-payments, totaled $63 million, the study said. But Iowans had to pay 44 percent more in doctors' fees because the physicians charged more than Medicare will cover.

Jack Seeber, the president of the senior citizens' council, said doctors who charge more than the amount Medicare will pay are a serious threat to the financial and health se- Ray planning a conference on health care By TOM CARNEY Rwlittr Staff Writer Former Iowa Gov. Robert Ray, who heads Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa, is trying to organize an Iowa Leadership Conference on Health Care, a state version of the national group he helped lead in the late 1980s. J1 1... woman Sheri Vohs sam me eiiori, Lwl which is only in "ex- Robert ploratory stages," ray is meant to examine problems of the state's healthcare system and offer solutions. "We haven't agreed on exactly what our purpose will be," she said.

However, the group will follow a process similar to that of the national conference, she said. Ray was co-chairman of the National Leadership Commission on Health Care, which met for several years beginning in 1986 to analyze the nation's health-care system, including issues of costs, access and quality, and make proposals to improve it. Among its proposals was the provision of universal access to health care at some basic level, regardless of income; expansion of the insurance system by encouraging all employers to provide it; and exposure of hidden costs of paying for indigent health care, spreading those costs among those who can afford to pay. Vohs said the Iowa group has met only once, on Aug. 31, with about 15 people attending.

It plans to meet again on Sept. 25, and probably will have twice that number of participants. "We hope to have a statement of purpose developed by that meeting," she said. Don Dunn, president of the Iowa Hospital Association, welcomed the effort. "We're fortunate that Bob Ray headed the national leadership group and had a part in examining the health system's strengths and weaknesses," he said.

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ALL NEW UNITS GUARANTEED No Phone Calls, Please. 2E 1 Continued from Page One keep her from drinking at bars, such as Karen's 5 and 10 tavern on Des Moines' east side. "That's why we had ber committed and hoped the judge could order her into long-term treatment," said Wolfe. "But the minute she got out, she headed for the 5 and 10." Rumbaugh's mother said she talked to her on the phone the night she died. As usual, she said, her daughter was at the tavern.

"I could hear her friends in the background telling her that she didn't have to do what her mother told her," Decker said. Rumbaugh's sister recalled some good times. "She would do anything for you. She was a wonderful person," Wolfe said. "She loved her 10-speed bike.

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