Boston Children's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have made the top 10 on a new scoreboard for US medical centers with the best patient care – hardly a first for these two world-renowned institutions. The source of this information is unusual, though. The rankings are derived not from official surveys or outcomes but from the sentiment of the masses, based on a real-time watch of what patients and their families are saying about the institutions on Twitter. "It's a rough metric of how happy or mad are you at the hospital," said Jared Hawkins, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's who was among the group that built the rankings.
Medicare Part B premiums will be increasing by as much as half for a large group of beneficiaries in 2016 unless Congress acts before the end of the year -- which is far from certain.
Fainting can be a frightening and dangerous experience, sending as many as four million people to the emergency room each year. Now, with an aging population that is more vulnerable to such episodes, often on a recurrent basis, hospitals are trying to do a better job of identifying the causes of fainting, known in medical terms as syncope, and determining which cases are serious enough to warrant follow-up and hospitalization. Syncope (pronounced sin-kuh-pee) generally involves a short, temporary loss of consciousness followed by a spontaneous recovery. While it can be a harmless response to stress or emotional upset, or caused by interactions among medications, it can also be a sign of serious and even life-threatening health issues.
All else equal, it would be wonderful if hospitals had an incentive to provide high-quality care. It does not seem fair to pay the same amount of money to a hospital that does a great job of caring for its pneumonia patients and one that does a lousy job. For the most part, however, third-party payers like insurance companies and Medicare pay hospitals for the volume of services they provide, or volume of patients they treat, not for the quality of the care they provide. Inattention to quality is coming to an end. Hospitals are increasingly being paid in part for their performance.
An old battle between Georgia's hospitals and a national cancer treatment chain flared up this fall. The dispute is rooted in Georgia's "certificate of need" process. The regulatory system used to approve expansion or new construction of hospitals and other health care facilities can have a broad effect on local economies and patient options. In 2008, lawmakers approved a new category – "destination" hospital – to accommodate Cancer Treatment Centers of America. The chain, headquartered in Florida, operates in four states and is known for its ads describing access to care along with spiritual support and alternative remedies.
Paula Bennett pockets about $3,000 a year from her employer mainly for driving about 80 miles roundtrip for a deal on doses of her Crohn's disease treatment Remicade. The extra income comes through SmartShopper, a program offered by some employers to provide cash to workers who choose quality health care options with lower prices. "I absolutely love the program," said Bennett, 43, a fiscal specialist with New Hampshire's Division for Children, Youth and Families. SmartShopper represents a twist in how corporate America is dealing with rising health care expenses. It's part of a push by employers to heap more responsibility for costs onto the people who are covered by their health care plans.