A Minnesota magazine's popular Top Doctors issue has hit the newsstands.For 17 years, the magazine has had a virtual monopoly on rating doctors in Minnesota, and the issue is a top seller every year, despite some skepticism about the survey's methodology.
Some severely injured patients with few options for treatment in America are searching the Internet for experimental treatments--and often land on websites promoting stem cell treatments in China. Western doctors warn that patients are serving as guinea pigs in a country that isn't doing the rigorous lab and human tests that are needed to prove a treatment is safe and effective.
A California appeals court has vacated its decision that had allowed policyholders the right to sue as a class over canceled health coverage and granted Blue Shield of California a rehearing on the hotly contested issue. The ruling called into question the practice of waiting until individual policyholders incurred medical expenses before scrutinizing their applications for misstatements--and then canceling for alleged omissions and errors.
In 2006, Medicare and its beneficiaries spent $1.24 billion on diabetes-related supplies, costs that the government hopes to rein in. Beginning this summer with 10 of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, Medicare will launch a system that involves paying a select group of suppliers a flat fee for each item. Suppliers will bid on Medicare's business, and the system will eventually be rolled out nationwide.
Four years after the state passed two groundbreaking laws designed to shed light on hospital safety and performance, the Illinois Hospital Report Card has not been published. Nor has the Illinois Consumer Guide to Health Care, a separate study of medical care at hospitals and surgery centers. A third project focused on serious medical errors was set to start on the first day of 2008 but is nowhere near ready to launch.
In the summer of 2006, Jack O. Bovender Jr. was at the helm when HCA Inc. said it would go private in one of the largest buyouts in history. A former hospital administrator who rose through HCA's ranks, Bovender is upbeat about both the deal and the company's future. In this interview with the Wall Street Journal, he discusses HCA's future and the challenges facing the healthcare industry.