Public hospitals have pinned their hopes on the federal courts to fend off the CMS’ latest effort to short-circuit mechanisms states use to steer extra Medicaid dollars toward their safety net providers.
When William Ferniany took over as head of the hospital and clinics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center 18 months ago, he executed a classic turnaround formula: Cut costs, increase revenue and improve quality.
Cabrini Medical Center, New York, was unable to make payroll last week and was expected to begin shutting its doors, according to an official at the New York State Health Department. “They have had trouble making payroll, and we did advise them...
In convicting five former executives of National Century Financial Enterprises last week, a federal jury in Columbus, Ohio, also in some ways validated accounts receivable purchasing—a last-resort financing tool for the most fiscally challenged...
Public hospitals have pinned their hopes on the federal courts to fend off the CMS’ latest effort to short-circuit mechanisms states use to steer extra Medicaid dollars toward their safety net providers.
Though the American Hospital Association added its weight to a lawsuit filed against HHS last week, the organization continues to wield legal action sparingly compared with a more litigious stance with Washington in decades past.
Hospitals’ rare and long-fought legal victory over the CMS last week put the government in the unusual position of reaching into its pockets to pay hospitals millions of dollars in settlement money.
Federal lawmakers last week steeled themselves for a nasty fight over Medicare and Medicaid reform on Capitol Hill, with a key Senate Republican lashing out against a legislative maneuver that would make it easier for Democrats to pass a bill, but...
The nursing-care industry became the latest group to oppose President Bush’s proposed budget when the segment’s lobbying arm last week released analysis showing the plan would incur sharp Medicare cuts to the nation’s nursing homes.
The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association’s voluntary hospital quality and transparency program, Blue Distinction, which expanded last week, doesn’t include some top-performing hospitals.
Specialty physicians stand to lose financially under draft language that attempts to boost payments for primary-care doctors, and is up for final approval by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission next month.
Labor’s evolving strategy for picking up new members sparked a public battle between two major healthcare unions in Ohio last week that indefinitely put off an election at nine Catholic hospitals.
Rhode Island hospitals are battling state regulators over how they calculate uncompensated care, but a more pressing question in New Jersey surrounds a proposed charity-care funding formula.
A recent complicated hospital ownership deal involving the splitting of a long-term lease between a management company and a syndicate-partnership of 80 physician investors may be a sign of more to come. The business model could gain traction as a...
Most people by now are familiar with some of the problems plaguing No Child Left Behind, the 2002 landmark education law that ties federal public school funding to student test scores. Schools have been known to “teach to the test”—offering a...
When William Ferniany took over as head of the hospital and clinics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center 18 months ago, he executed a classic turnaround formula: Cut costs, increase revenue and improve quality.
Notes on the news: Andy Warhol famously remarked that in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. If he were alive today, he could amend that to say that everyone will serve on a corporate board.
A century ago, Henry Ford revolutionized the business landscape with a simple philosophy: “Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.”
There are some false assumptions being promulgated in your cover story on moderating health cost increases (“Slow: Budget danger ahead,” March 3, p. 6). Increases of nearly 7% per year in health costs for the next 10 years are unlikely to be...
Small rural hospitals are no less committed to providing high-quality care and making continuous strides toward improvement than their urban brethren. Unfortunately, Medicare’s rules for its national quality reporting program are skewed toward...
Less federal money and more-frequent visits from federal inspectors—that’s what ambulatory surgery centers have to look forward to if President Bush’s fiscal 2009 budget proposal becomes reality.
As the trial of five former colleagues wound down last week in a federal courtroom in Columbus, Ohio, Lance Poulsen, the founder, former president, chairman and chief executive officer of National Century Financial Enterprises, was impatiently...
