Vince Galloro, Rebecca Vesely and Jessica Zigmond August 03, 2009 Perhaps the day has come that critics of executive compensation have been waiting for. ... FULL STORY
Joe Carlson August 03, 2009 Scrutiny from regulators, the public and hospital employees battered by the recession is slowing the rise in executive salaries at hospitals and health systems in 2009 and perhaps beyond. ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 Federal prosecutors in Florida say an ultrasound technician for Jackson Health System in Miami was channeling patient information to a man who in turn sold it to a lawyer on the hunt for potential clients. The employee, Rebecca Garcia, pleaded guilty July 24 to a charge of wrongful disclosure of... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 The CMS reversed course on its plans to lower payments for acute-care hospitals, giving them instead a 2.1% increase in their reimbursement rates rather than a 1.9% reduction for fiscal 2010, according to a news release. The CMS delayed a proposed plan to reduce reimbursement because of so-called... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 Medicare will pay nursing homes $360 million less, or 1.1%, in fiscal 2010 because of a recalibration of its case-mix indexes, the CMS announced. According to a news release, case mixes adopted in fiscal 2006 for medically complex patients caused significant and unexpected increases in Medicare... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 An association representing hospice providers said it was pleased that the CMS will phase in the elimination of the so-called budget-neutrality adjustment factor for hospice reimbursement over seven years, which was included in the agency’s proposed rule on July 30. The calculation is used to... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 Cardiac-device maker Thoratec Corp., Pleasanton, Calif., decided not to pursue its planned $282 million acquisition of Framington, Mass.-based HeartWare International. The announcement came a day after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it was seeking a federal district court injunction to stop... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 Meridian Health, Neptune, N.J., said it reached a definitive agreement to acquire Bayshore Community Health Services, Holmdel, N.J. In May, three-hospital Meridian signed a definitive merger agreement with Southern Ocean County Health System, which owns 176-bed Southern Ocean County Hospital in... ... FULL STORY
Vince Galloro, Rebecca Vesely and Jessica Zigmond August 03, 2009 Perhaps the day has come that critics of executive compensation have been waiting for. ... FULL STORY
Joe Carlson August 03, 2009 If an executive is clearing half a million dollars in take-home pay, experts say it’s worth asking these days whether he or she needs an extra allowance to make a car payment. ... FULL STORY
Jennifer Lubell August 03, 2009 As Congress looks toward September to achieve a final vote on healthcare reform after months of tumultuous debate, providers will be holding their breath to see what outcome the legislation will ultimately have on reimbursement and insurance coverage. ... FULL STORY
Shawn Rhea August 03, 2009 Lawmakers and several healthcare experts last week questioned why the American Medical Association and the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education have resisted further restricting industry sponsorship of continuing medical education. ... FULL STORY
Jessica Zigmond August 03, 2009 As a federal advisory panel last week recommended that pregnant women and healthcare workers be among the first to receive a vaccine against the H1N1 virus, experts said both providers and patients need to do a better job of taking precautions against it. ... FULL STORY
Vince Galloro August 03, 2009 The five investor-owned hospital chains that reported or previewed second-quarter earnings last week exceeded what were fairly optimistic expectations. The question is whether the quarter will turn out to be a high watermark for hospital operators. ... FULL STORY
Rebecca Vesely August 03, 2009 Major health insurers are seeing a rise in the number of people selecting COBRA coverage, an indication that federal efforts to boost the use of COBRA is working. But the increased use is not coming with a decline in medical costs for those members, as hoped, according to second-quarter earnings... ... FULL STORY
Joe Carlson and Rebecca Vesely August 03, 2009 Two CEOs of not-for-profit healthcare providers have joined the boards of for-profit companies that likely pay six-figure total compensation, and observers say the appointments could raise questions about conflicts of interest. ... FULL STORY
Gregg Blesch August 03, 2009 Carilion Clinic’s plan to reinvent itself as a fully integrated physician-led system has brought rapid expansion of its services and ranks of employed physicians through acquisitions. Now the feds want some of them cut loose. ... FULL STORY
Gregg Blesch August 03, 2009 Moving an Aug. 1 deadline, the Federal Trade Commission will wait until Nov. 1 to enforce a provision of the so-called “red flags” rule requiring physicians and hospitals to adopt written plans for tracking and responding to indicators of identity theft in their billing operations. ... FULL STORY
Gregg Blesch August 03, 2009 Tulare (Calif.) Regional Medical Center agreed to pay the U.S. $2.4 million to settle a whistle-blower lawsuit brought by a former chief financial officer targeting arrangements the public hospital established with physicians under a former CEO who wishes the hospital had fought back. ... FULL STORY
Joe Carlson August 03, 2009 Martin Memorial Medical Center officials may have won jurors’ approval of the decision to repatriate an illegal-immigrant patient, but even the personal injury lawyer who sued the South Florida medical center acknowledged the unfortunate situation such hospitals are in. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian August 03, 2009 Four years ago, St. Joseph's Hospital opened the doors to its new facility built with a focus on patient-safety principles, with much fanfare from proponents who said that the hospital represented the future of hospital design. Today, however, if the CMS reporting results are any indication, the... ... FULL STORY
Melanie Evans August 03, 2009 An Arizona health system has joined roughly two dozen major U.S. employers, including giants AstraZeneca, Dow Chemical Co. and Sun Microsystems to break into reinsuring employee benefits through a wholly owned insurance subsidiary. Phoenix-based Banner Health in June became one of the first... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 In an exclusive interview, Modern Healthcare reporter Joe Carlson talks with Larry Reissman, a principal with Boston-based human resources firm Buck Consultants. Reissman discusses issues such as transparency in executive compensation decisionmaking. Read the... ... FULL STORY
Joe Carlson August 03, 2009 Scrutiny from regulators, the public and hospital employees battered by the recession is slowing the rise in executive salaries at hospitals and health systems in 2009 and perhaps beyond. ... FULL STORY
Grace-Marie Turner August 03, 2009 The health reform proposals being considered in Congress this summer are bad medicine not only for patients but also for providers. ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) is right on (“Tweaks, not overhaul,” July 27, p. 24). No healthcare plan, no matter whose logo is on it, will be effective without a significant plan to reduce defensive medicine costs. There are a number of solutions: health courts, binding arbitration... ... FULL STORY
Brian Connolly August 03, 2009 Nowhere have the effects of record unemployment, corporate downsizing and other cutbacks been felt more than in Michigan, home of the Big Three automakers. Healthcare providers here face unprecedented challenges, including staggering increases in uncompensated and charity care coupled with... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 Boston Medical Center President and CEO Elaine Ullian, 61, will retire when her current contract expires in January 2010, according to a news release. Ullian has led the hospital since 1996 when it was created through the merger of Boston City Hospital and Boston University Medical Center... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 Duncan James was named executive vice president of Reston, Va.-based healthcare information technology provider QuadraMed, with the expectation that he will take over as CEO in early August, the company announced. James, a McKesson Corp. executive for the past nine years, would succeed... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 Donna Sollenberger was named CEO and executive vice president of the University of Texas Medical Branch Health System at Galveston, as the system works to rebuild capacity one year after it was hit by Hurricane Ike. Sollenberger, 60, currently serves as executive vice president at the... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 Maryjane Wurth, COO of the Healthcare Association of New York State, will take over as president of the Illinois Hospital Association in October, the Naperville-based organization announced. Wurth, 53, will replace Kenneth Robbins, 66, who announced earlier this year he would retire... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology is one of those places where employees within the organization refer to it by a name other than what the rest of the world calls it. ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 “We know drama” is the tagline for cable television's TNT, which produces “HawthoRNe,” a new program starring Jada Pinkett Smith. That may be true, but there are some who think TNT doesn't know nursing—and has a thing about doctors, too. ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 We all might think twice about choosing that slice of pizza at the hospital cafeteria if the calorie count were staring us right in the face. ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 Healthcare will be well-represented when President Barack Obama honors his first round of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Alongside such high-profile honorees as Stephen Hawking, Billie Jean King, Sidney Poitier and Desmond Tutu, are two physicians, a philanthropist and a politician who... ... FULL STORY
August 03, 2009 “The biggest thing that worries me at the national level, is that the debate has been about payment reform. We have to figure out how to change care so we can afford it.”—Kirk Dufty, a Vermont physician, in USA Today. ... FULL STORY
