Melanie Evans July 06, 2009 In Jackson, Miss., a standoff over Medicaid pitted the state’s governor against its attorney general, while the state’s two legislative chambers dueled over hospital taxes to help finance the safety net insurance. As a June 30 deadline neared without a deal, the state alerted hospitals... ... FULL STORY
David May July 06, 2009 Another Fourth of July holiday has come and gone. Old Glory flying proudly. Dazzling fireworks. Refrains of Mr. Sousa. Americana was on parade, a natural time to remember our history and take stock of all that's right in this country. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian July 06, 2009 The doctor makes a movement and the knife slices fluidly through the muscle, parting the tissue as easily and cleanly as scissors cut silk. The movements go on like this, and the surgical tool is wielded confidently, efficiently, never shaking or deterring from the path it is supposed to take as... ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 Hospital outpatient departments will see a 1.9% increase in their Medicare payments under a proposed CMS rule that will set payment rates for outpatient services and ambulatory surgical centers in 2010. The agency estimates that more than 4,000 hospitals and other facilities will get paid a total... ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 Wellmont Health System, Kingsport, Tenn., said it restated its financial results for the years ended June 30, 2006, and June 30, 2007, after completing a financial review that the system announced in December 2008. The review uncovered accounting errors—for example, in the reconciliation of... ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is aiming to complete its health reform bill by mid-July and then combine its efforts with the Senate Finance Committee, said Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.). Dodd, who has been chairing the panel in the absence of Sen. Edward Kennedy... ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 Physicians would receive a 21.5% cut to their Medicare payments starting Jan. 1, 2010, under a proposed rule issued by the CMS. But in a major step to revise the way it pays physicians, the agency is also proposing to remove physician-administered drugs from the formula used to calculate... ... FULL STORY
Melanie Evans July 06, 2009 In Jackson, Miss., a standoff over Medicaid pitted the state’s governor against its attorney general, while the state’s two legislative chambers dueled over hospital taxes to help finance the safety net insurance. As a June 30 deadline neared without a deal, the state alerted hospitals... ... FULL STORY
Jennifer Lubell July 06, 2009 While cheered by last week’s news that three despised Medicaid regulations would not go into effect, hospitals remain concerned about other rulemaking that could potentially threaten their payments under the public program. ... FULL STORY
Shawn Rhea July 06, 2009 Two sweeping advisory committee reports providing guidance for creating a national comparative-effectiveness research program set an ambitious agenda and could mark the turning point for the delivery of patient care in the U.S., said healthcare industry experts familiar with the reports. ... FULL STORY
Joe Carlson July 06, 2009 The new commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service says not-for-profit hospitals are likely to experience even more scrutiny on their policies and actions in corporate governance in the near future. ... FULL STORY
Joe Carlson July 06, 2009 As all leadership changes give organizations the chance to take a hard look at their operations, Sister Mary Jean Ryan said she hopes her transition out of day-to-day operations at SSM Health Care, St. Louis, will give the 15-hospital system the chance to further improve quality before healthcare... ... FULL STORY
Rebecca Vesely July 06, 2009 Payers and purchasers of healthcare added new twists to the debate over how to reform healthcare, as insurers tried to make the case that they are better at fighting fraud and waste than the government, and a surprising voice added to the call for mandated employer coverage. ... FULL STORY
Joseph Conn July 06, 2009 Providers are being asked to do too much too soon to qualify for billions of dollars in federal health information technology payments, according to many industry groups offering public comment on the government work group’s draft of recommendations for defining what is “meaningful... ... FULL STORY
Gregg Blesch July 06, 2009 The courts delivered new setbacks to companies that mine prescribing data and sell information about the habits of individual physicians as a marketing tool for pharmaceutical companies, a practice banned by laws passed in three Northeast states. But the industry will continue to make its case that... ... FULL STORY
Joe Carlson July 06, 2009 Legal observers across the country are carefully following a civil trial in Florida in which a not-for-profit hospital stands accused of “dumping” an illegal immigrant in his home country rather than providing for his long-term rehabilitative care in the U.S. ... FULL STORY
Gregg Blesch July 06, 2009 The American Health Lawyers Association held its annual meeting in Washington, the city where much of its rule book could be rewritten if the president and Congress overhaul the way healthcare is paid for and delivered. ... FULL STORY
Shawn Rhea July 06, 2009 A voluntary initiative by Rhode Island’s hospitals to prevent wrong-site and wrong-patient surgeries is partly the result of a state health department reprimand that one of the area’s largest hospitals received last October for a wrong-site knee surgery, healthcare officials... ... FULL STORY
Vince Galloro July 06, 2009 Even before Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. became shorthand for Wall Street disaster, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. was concerned about hospital pension funds. The independent, federally chartered guarantor of defined-benefit pension plans saw two challenges with the hospital industry after... ... FULL STORY
Vince Galloro July 06, 2009 For the most part, for-profit hospital companies are not in the defined-benefit pension plan game.According to a March 2008 study of hospital pension plans by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., just 46, or 5.7%, of 802 defined-benefit pension plans are run by for-profit sponsors. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian July 06, 2009 The doctor makes a movement and the knife slices fluidly through the muscle, parting the tissue as easily and cleanly as scissors cut silk. The movements go on like this, and the surgical tool is wielded confidently, efficiently, never shaking or deterring from the path it is supposed to take as... ... FULL STORY
David May July 06, 2009 Another Fourth of July holiday has come and gone. Old Glory flying proudly. Dazzling fireworks. Refrains of Mr. Sousa. Americana was on parade, a natural time to remember our history and take stock of all that's right in this country. ... FULL STORY
Jaime Pla Cortes July 06, 2009 My cousin Lydia is a 48-year-old woman from Puerto Rico and a U.S. citizen. Her 15-year-old son Juan Jose has muscular dystrophy, which has weakened his muscles to the point where he is unable to walk. ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 You are absolutely correct that a competing public plan would be horrendous public policy for Americans (“Public enemy No. 1,” June 29, p. 16). Even if some level playing-field “safeguards” were to be incorporated initially, it is inevitable that politicians in Washington... ... FULL STORY
Ernie Vesta July 06, 2009 Many Americans believe that medicine is fraught with escalating costs, a variety of quality issues, roadblocks to access, disruptions in coverage and undesired patient outcomes. ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 A list of states that have the most health information exchanges, based on participants from eHealth Initiative's fifth annual survey of HIEs. Source: eHealth Initiative. Published July 6, 2009. ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the Senate's confirmation of Howard Koh, 57, as HHS' assistant secretary for health. Koh, an associate dean for public health practice and director of the division of public health practice at the Harvard School of Public Health, will oversee... ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 Linda Hunt, president of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, was promoted to the role of service area president for Catholic Healthcare West Arizona, effective immediately. Hunt, 60, was recently named one of Modern Healthcare's Top 25 Women in Healthcare. … Judith... ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 Siemens Healthcare U.S. appointed Michael Reitermann, 46, CEO, effective July 1. He will lead marketing, sales and service activities in the U.S. division’s medical imaging, therapy and healthcare information technology businesses, according to a news release. Reitermann, who will be... ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 It's well-documented that contact with warm and fuzzy creatures can be beneficial to some nursing home residents and pediatric patients. But, animals can be unpredictable and sometimes there can be problems. The solution? Falling in the healthcare space that exists between robotic surgery and pet... ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 Medical-device maker Medtronic may be high-tech when it comes to the various implants it manufactures, but the company recently took a decidedly low-tech approach to handling a bit of landscaping around its 50-acre Fountaingrove research and development campus in Santa Rosa, Calif. ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 When Michael Jackson went into cardiac arrest, rescuers took him to a place known for bringing the dead back to life. A world-renowned surgeon at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles has pioneered a way to revive people that most doctors would have long written off, including a... ... FULL STORY
July 06, 2009 “Americans need real healthcare reform, not just insurance reform, and nobody should mistake the two. If we only get reform that requires insurance companies to provide coverage to everyone who applies, charge everyone the same premiums, and end their predatory practices, that would be... ... FULL STORY
