Doctors in training have traditionally been insulated from information about the cost of the tests and treatments they order for patients. During four years of medical school, students learn to order tests and treatments based on their knowledge of diseases and of scientific evidence. Until recently, most schools included little information on financial factors, like how the insurance system works and how treatment costs affect patients' behavior. As a result, most physicians enter practice with little sense of how to make the most cost-effective choices for patients, or how their own decisions affect medical bills, writes Susie Okie in this article published by the New York Times.
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil investigation into possible anticompetitive behavior by Massachusetts-based Partners HealthCare System Inc. In a letter sent to Partners and the state's three largest health insurers on April 19, investigators from the Justice Department’s antitrust division demanded documents relating to Partners' "contracting and other practices in healthcare markets in Eastern Massachusetts." The letter said the probe sought to determine whether the practices violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, which bars companies from using their market power to limit trade or artificially raise prices. The parties were told to respond by May 19, the Boston Globe reports.
TriStar Health System has started to broadcast about how long patients would have to wait to see a medical provider at one of its nine emergency rooms in the Nashville region. TriStar launched a campaign to post real-time emergency room wait times using billboards, the Internet, text messaging, and iPhones. HCA-owned TriStar has nine hospitals in its Nashville region—Southern Hills, Summit, Centennial, Skyline, Stonecrest, Hendersonville, Horizon, Ashland City and Greenview in Bowling Green, KY. Each hospital has an electronic billboard with its wait time and a slogan, "Fast ER."
New York State awarded a $9.4 million grant to a hospital to run an urgent care center that would treat the minor emergencies of some patients displaced by the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan. The two-year grant, announced by Gov. David A. Paterson, would help Lenox Hill Hospital set up a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week center on the site of St. Vincent's until a long-term site is found. St. Vincent's, which has been phasing out operations, announced on Monday that it would finally close its emergency room at 8 a.m. on April 30.
As San Jose, CA, confronts a fiscal crisis forcing massive service cuts such as closure of popular community centers, the City Council moved toward allowing medical marijuana collectives as a potential new source of revenue. The council called for an ordinance to be brought back in June that would allow a limited number of medical marijuana collectives and impose additional taxes on them to help support city services.
Some House Democrats wavering over whether to back a healthcare overhaul questioned whether it would effectively curb the country's health costs, the Wall Street Journal reports. The issue is one of several that have been raised by Democrats over the bill: Conservative Democrats have raised questions over the bill's language on abortion and tax increases, while liberals are unhappy with its failure to include a government plan that would compete with private insurers, the Journal reports.
The White House said reconciliation, the leading tactic to win passage of the healthcare bill, was nothing extraordinary, while Republicans accuse the Democratic majority of trying to ram through legislation using a parliamentary trick that Republicans say was never designed for such a big bill, the Wall Street Journal reports. Reconciliation allows the Senate to pass a bill with a simple majority, without needing 60 votes to override a filibuster. In a speech on Wednesday, President Obama is expected to call on Congress to pass the sweeping Democratic health bill using reconciliation.
Few topics in the healthcare debate are more controversial than the so-called individual mandate, which would fine citizens without insurance and is at the heart of the now-stalled healthcare bills in Congress, the Los Angeles Times reports. Here, the Times provides two competing views on the topic from top health economists Linda Blumberg of the Urban Institute and Glen Whitman from CalState Northridge.
The board at PSS World Medical, Inc. has promoted Gary A. Corless, currently the company's executive vice president/COO, to president/CEO, effective immediately. Corless succeeds David A. Smith, who has terminated his employment by mutual agreement. Corless has also been appointed a director on the company's board and a member of the executive committee. In addition, Delores P. Kesler, a director since 1993, has been appointed chairman of the board of directors.
Jennifer Stout, healthcare market manager for BetterBricks, the commercial building initiative of the nonprofit Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, discusses how to help hospitals save not only energy, but also money.