January 05, 2009 The Ensign Group, a Mission Viejo, Calif.-based long-term-care provider, said it has acquired Southland Healthcare Center, a 150-bed skilled-nursing facility in Lufkin, Texas, from an outside operator who purchased the facility in November 2006 . Financial terms of the deal—effective Jan. 1—were not disclosed. The facility’s name has changed to Southland Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center. ... FULL STORY
December 31, 2008 Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have named Douglas Elmendorf, a former Clinton administration economist, to head the Congressional Budget Office. ... FULL STORY
December 31, 2008 Just a week after Emory University took action against one of its prominent psychiatric researchers, Massachusetts General Hospital and its parent, Partners HealthCare System, in Boston are putting some distance between themselves and Joseph Biederman, chief of the clinical and research program in pediatric psychopharmacology and the adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder program at Massachusetts General and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. ... FULL STORY
December 31, 2008 A longtime critic of Tenet Healthcare Corp. is dissolving his whistle-blowing group, the Tenet Shareholder Committee, but not without taking one last shot at the large hospital operator. ... FULL STORY
December 31, 2008 Moog, an Aurora, N.Y.-based manufacturer of precision control systems, has acquired Aitecs Medical UAB, a Vilnius, Lithuania-based manufacturer of infusion-therapy pump syringes for $21 million cash, according to a news release. ... FULL STORY
December 31, 2008 Amerigroup Corp., Virginia Beach, Va., said it terminated its deal to acquire certain assets of the University Health Plan, a New Jersey Medicaid subsidiary of Centene Corp., St. Louis. ... FULL STORY
December 30, 2008 Most hospitals responding to a survey in Tennessee have reduced their workforces, and many are even cutting services in response to a recession that appears to be hitting healthcare providers harder than past downturns. ... FULL STORY
December 30, 2008 American adults say they are worried sick about the economic downturn. Literally. According to a new survey by the AARP, one in five adults said that they suffer from health problems because of financial worries, and 22% said that they have delayed seeing a doctor because of cost concerns. ... FULL STORY
December 30, 2008 President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system told a town hall meeting in Dublin, Ind., that the task is not impossible if all sides work together. ... FULL STORY
December 29, 2008 The CMS said it has revoked billing privileges for more than 1,100 medical equipment suppliers in Southern California and South Florida, and has suspended payments to a number of home-health agencies in the Miami-Dade, Fla., area. ... FULL STORY
December 29, 2008 Hospitals in Alabama are struggling to make ends meet as they see a decline in admissions amid the current financial turmoil and pending cuts to Medicaid reimbursements, according to a survey by the Alabama Hospital Association. ... FULL STORY
December 29, 2008 Healthcare-products distributor Owens & Minor, Richmond, Va., has signed an agreement to sell portions of its direct-to-consumer diabetes-supply business to Liberty Healthcare Group, Bala Cynwyd, Pa., a contract medical-management company, for $63 million cash, according to a news release. ... FULL STORY
December 24, 2008 Healthcare information technology executives are making the first moves to ready their hospitals for the proposed upgrades to Accredited Standards Committee X12 Version 5010 data-exchange standards and the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, or ICD-10, code sets, according to a recent survey by the College of Health Information Management Executives. ... FULL STORY
December 24, 2008 The New York State Health Department launched a new Web-based quality tool to help patients gauge care at hospitals across the state as it attempts to increase the amount of preventive care residents receive. ... FULL STORY
December 24, 2008 Forsyth Medical Center, Winston-Salem, N.C., said it received a conditional certificate-of-need approval to build a $96 million, 50-bed hospital in Clemmons, N.C. The 842-bed medical center, which is part of not-for-profit Novant Health, also in Winston-Salem, said the new hospital will include four operating rooms, a 12-bed emergency department and a range of imaging services. ... FULL STORY
December 24, 2008 Two physician groups separately have settled charges that they violated federal antitrust law by engaging in price-fixing conspiracies to extract higher payments from certain health insurers, the Federal Trade Commission announced. ... FULL STORY
December 24, 2008 The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality awarded $12.8 million in research grants to 19 quality, efficiency and safety projects. ... FULL STORY
December 23, 2008 A California court is ordering the state to implement a 2002 law requiring Medicaid to extend coverage to HIV-positive residents. ... FULL STORY
December 23, 2008 After an investigation of alleged conflicts of interest, Emory University announced that former department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences chairman, Charles Nemeroff, will not be reinstated from the leadership post that he held for 17 years and stepped down from on Oct. 3. The Atlanta-based school also said it will not apply for any National Institutes of Health grants or contract requests on which Nemeroff’s name is listed for the next two years. ... FULL STORY
