Auditor Mike Foley was first with his state budget Web site in December 2007, showing how the state spends money, including the state and university employees with the top salaries. (Go to www.auditors.state.ne.us and click on “APA Reports Issued” at left on home page).

By the way, in 2007 two of the three top paid state employees were fired: football coach Bill Callahan, $1.57 million, and athletic director Steve Pederson, $475,715.

A year later state Treasurer Shane Osborn offered a Web site listing major state contracts and spending of over $500,000 (www.nebraskaspending.com).

Now state Sen. Tom White of Omaha says the Legislature should create its own complete Web site.  It would include the budget (what the Legislature says agencies can spend), the expenditures and public information about the tax credits and refunds going to companies, he said during a public hearing on the bill (LB16).

The two other Web sites do not include the tax credit information.

But government should provide easy access to this information, said White, aware that the business lobby would oppose the idea of providing easier access to information on business tax credits.

State government spends money two ways, he said.  “We spend through appropriations, and we spend through tax breaks.”

All the information is already available to citizens; this would make finding it less expensive and more democratic, he told the committee. The goal is make it easy for any citizen with access to a computer to track how state government spends its money.

The Web site, White said, would promote transparency and integrity in government.

Fulton continues work on markup of lab services

Lincoln Sen. Tony Fulton worked two years to get some sort of accord between dermatologists and pathologists on marking up the cost of laboratory tests.

This year, Fulton said, a compromise has been struck on the problem of artificially inflating the cost of health care with markups.

In 2007, a bill that would have required labs to charge patients and insurers directly to avoid markups by doctors, particularly dermatologists, was held in committee so doctors could resolve the dispute on their own.

It didn’t happen, and last year Fulton introduced a bill prohibiting marking up tests, such as biopsies or pap smears, unless the doctor directly supervised or performed the service. That bill made it to the full Legislature, but after Fulton and Sen. Joel Johnson of Kearney, a retired surgeon, publicly scolded the doctors for being unprofessional, Fulton pulled his bill, hoping again that negotiations would continue.

This year’s bill, which reflects a compromise reached over the interim, would make lab service markups an act of unprofessional conduct. Doctors must disclose in any billing the name and address of the physician or lab performing the service and the actual amount to be paid for the test or biopsy to that service provider.

The bill was advanced to the full Legislature and is in line for debate.

The Nebraska Medical Association has prepared a draft of a letter to its members, if the bill passes, that will help educate doctors about the issue.

The letter points out that marking up lab tests by another physician or lab for a commission or profit is unethical according to the American Medical Association. It also says a doctor who chooses a lab solely because it provides low-cost services, so that the doctor can make a profit, is not in the best interests of patients.

Doctors can add a handling charge for the test, provided it is billed separately using the proper billing code.   

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com. Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.