The much-anticipated strain on the publicly funded healthcare dollar driven by the next generation of seniors didn’t seem so imminent after last week’s annual release of the CMS’ 10-year projections of healthcare spending. But industry executives...
David Nevill has been working in India for only a year and a half, but he has already learned that the subcontinent is a lot like Newton’s law of reciprocal actions. Nevill left HCA’s Wesley Medical Center, Wichita, Kan., in July 2006 to join...
Acting CMS Administrator Kerry Weems told a House committee that for the first time the agency would conduct an analysis of the extra services that Medicare Advantage Plans enrollees actually use rather than just what the participating plans offer.
The much-anticipated strain on the publicly funded healthcare dollar driven by the next generation of seniors didn’t seem so imminent after last week’s annual release of the CMS’ 10-year projections of healthcare spending. But industry executives...
Tax-exempt hospitals and health systems seeking a quick escape from their volatile debt market borrowings are finding it may cost millions to unravel their deals and make an exit.
Members of the National Quality Forum last week began voting on 43 performance measures that if approved would boost by 13% the total number of measures the organization has endorsed. The 365-member organization is voting on whether the measures...
Offering doctors more money and better quality measures are the way to get greater participation in the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, industry representatives believe.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last week in cases that could affect what constitutes ripping off the government under the False Claims Act and to what degree drug companies are vulnerable to liability lawsuits.
Nevada healthcare providers who opposed the sale of Las Vegas-based Sierra Health Services to UnitedHealth Group said they are exploring whether to take legal action to block the acquisition, which was approved conditionally by the Justice...
HCA’s proposal to build a hospital in Spring Hill, Tenn., may be “the most scrutinized” certificate-of-need application in the state’s history, as one of HCA’s lawyers said last week. And even with the Tennessee Health Services and Development...
Despite some recent events that hint at uncertainty—perhaps even bad news—for disease-management programs, industry experts insist the segment is strong and its future is healthy.
Some of the biggest buzz coming out of last week’s annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Conference & Exhibition related to Google’s release of a few specifics about its planned foray into providing personal health...
The Federal Housing Administration’s Section 242 mortgage insurance program turns 40 this year, but unlike the hospitals it helps to replace, the program does not seem to be showing signs of age.
David Nevill has been working in India for only a year and a half, but he has already learned that the subcontinent is a lot like Newton’s law of reciprocal actions. Nevill left HCA’s Wesley Medical Center, Wichita, Kan., in July 2006 to join...
If healthcare information technology is so good, why are the government, health insurers and special-interest groups pushing so hard to mandate that healthcare providers use it? It would seem that if healthcare IT is all it’s cracked up to be, you...
A year ago, on this page, I had the opportunity to discuss what many Americans say is the nation’s most important domestic issue: providing health coverage for what was then 46.6 million uninsured Americans.
Editor’s note: We are marking the observance of National Patient Safety Awareness Week, sponsored by the National Patient Safety Foundation, with this commentary and the From the C-Suite column on p. 26.
Regarding electronic health records, I am interested in what the major health systems, university programs and the like are doing, but as the administrator of a 12-bed hospital in rural Nebraska, the idea of us needing and being able to pay for an...
Making healthcare safer is one area where there is vigorous agreement among all constituents—it is critical to improving the quality of life for patients and should reduce medical costs. The good news is that there are established ways to achieve...
A Chicago Sun-Times reporter tailed the interim chief of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services driving a county-owned Ford Crown Victoria to his Richland, Mich., home for the weekends, a 320-mile roundtrip ride.
