Beginning on April 5, 2016, Newman Regional Health in Emporia, KS will no longer be a provider of acute care services in the Health Insurance for the Aged and Disabled Program also known as Medicare. According to a legal notice from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Newman is not in “substantial compliance” with Medicare regulations. It was placed on a 90-day termination track after a violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act was found on Jan. 5
Drug companies in the U.S. distribute intravenous cancer drugs in single vials that contain more medicine than many patients will need. The leftover drug is often thrown away, creating a multi-billion dollar waste. This year alone, a projected $3 billion will be wasted on leftover cancer drugs that are simply being thrown away, a new study by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center concluded.
Presence Health said its operating loss last year soared to $186 million, as the Chicago-based Catholic health system made several adjustments that reduced revenues. One of the largest adjustments had to do with the hospital network's billing and collections. In December, Presence disclosed to bondholders that it would write off $53 million of its accounts receivable for patient bills that went uncollected. CEO Michael Englehart, who started Oct. 1, said in an interview that Presence also recorded other one-time charges in 2015. The health system adopted more conservative accounting policies related to estimating medical malpractice risks, which led to retaining more reserves, and took a charge associated with problems rolling out new software, he said.
Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson is raising concerns about the impact on competition from a possible merger between two large primary care providers in the St. Cloud area. In an interview this week, Swanson said her office has launched an antitrust review of a potential acquisition by CentraCare of St. Cloud Medical Group, and asked the parties to delay any closing. "Our review to date has identified concerns about the adverse impact of the acquisition on competition in the primary care market in central Minnesota," Swanson said.
Boston Children’s Hospital may be busier, but it isn’t making more money. Despite higher volume, the city’s largest pediatric hospital reported a 71 percent decrease in operating income in the first quarter of fiscal 2016, from $23.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2015, to $6.9 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2016, which ended Dec. 31. Higher volume did mean an uptick in revenue, according to financial documents released last week. But the hospital also spent more on staffing to care for those patients.
With Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the state's hospitals locked in battle over taxes and mergers, new numbers are expected to add fuel to the debate. Financial data from 25 of the state's nonprofit hospitals show that the state's smallest hospitals are losing money, whether they are part of a larger system or not. However, some larger hospitals lost money in fiscal year 2015, too, such as St. Vincent's, in Bridgeport, and the Hospital of Central Connecticut, which is part of Hartford HealthCare's system. St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, the third-largest hospital in the state, barely broke even on operations, and because of losses from some complicated financial instruments it owns, it lost $17.5 million.