A credit analyst for not-for-profit healthcare providers is cautioning that the new state health insurance exchanges may introduce more short-term risk than benefit.
Moody's Investors Service said in a report Friday that while the exchanges may lead to a bump in the number of insured patients, the larger unknowns will be what happens with insurance contract terms; the potential migration of patients who currently have private insurance to exchange plans; and bad debt for patients.
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The Chicago-based health information technology business accelerator, Healthbox, is seeking applicants for its second group of local companies looking for mentoring, funding, and, most importantly, some help getting their feet in the door with healthcare providers and payers.
The application process is open through Sept. 29.
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Hospital leaders have warned state elected officials that failure to expand their Medicaid programs under the federal healthcare reform law will imperil the finances of many hospitals serving lower-income communities. They say they need the expansion to continue serving uninsured and underinsured people who have no way to pay for care.
Now a not-for-profit hospital system in North Carolina says it's closing one of its facilities because that state decided not to expand Medicaid to adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Vidant Health, with nine hospitals, says it will close Vidant Pungo Hospital, a 25-bed facility in the coastal town of Belhaven, within six months, costing about 100 employees their jobs.
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It's Christmas in July for Medicare-participating physicians—though the gift is far from being delivered. On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously passed bipartisan legislation to repeal Medicare's sustainable growth-rate formula and replace it with a stable system of payments to the nation's physicians.
For years, Congress has waited until the end of the calendar year to stave off a steep Medicare payment cut to physicians with a temporary fix.
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Highmark's turn to try to stanch losses at Pittsburgh's West Penn Allegheny Health System has begun.
Roughly 260 workers at the health system were laid off today and another 200 vacant jobs were eliminated. The four-hospital system, the hub of Highmark's new eight-hospital Allegheny Health Network, has hemorrhaged cash and lost patients in recent years. Now the system must shrink accordingly, said Dan Laurent, an Allegheny Health Network spokesman.
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Eye-care firms continue to be a hot target this year as pharmaceutical and medical-device firms see a growing market for ophthalmology procedures.
Abbott Laboratories, the Illinois-based medical-device giant, is shelling out $250 million for OptiMedica Corp., which makes technology for laser-assisted cataract surgery.
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Not one to sit quietly for long, Glenview Capital Management, the hedge fund trying to force a change of control at Health Management Associates, nominated a ninth director to serve on the chain's board.
The activist investor has already put up a slate of eight nominees in an effort to unseat HMA's current board of directors, which has had the same chairman since April 1986
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The healthcare spending slump isn't just a U.S. phenomenon.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that healthcare spending increased less than 2% in 2011 among its 32 member nations, with the sharpest slowdowns being felt in those countries hit hardest by the economic crisis. Spending fell in 2010.
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