Six more people have filed suit against Hartford, CT-based St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center alleging abuse by George Reardon, MD, who worked at the hospital for 30 years and is believed to have sexually abused as many as 500 children. The complaint alleges that the hospital was negligent in failing to stop Reardon or supervise him adequately. It also accuses the hospital of systematically covering up Reardon's sexual misconduct and following a policy of discouraging the spread of information about sexual misconduct involving doctors and minors, the Hartford Courant reports.
Minnesota House and Senate conferees reached agreement on a bill that would preserve the state's core health and human services programs while cutting $114 million in the current budget cycle and another $155 million in 2012-13. The measure faces a veto threat from Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has opposed several provisions. Chief among Pawlenty's objections has been a provision that would move about 37,000 poor, sick Minnesotans from the state's scaled-back General Assistance Medical Care program into an expanded state-federal Medicaid program.
Walgreen Co. said it won't sell an over-the-counter genetic test to consumers until the company that makes the test works out any regulatory issues with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA said it had contacted Pathway Genomics about plans to sell a test designed to predict a person's risk for developing diseases or how they might respond to certain drugs. The company announced plans this week to sell its Insight Saliva Collection Kit through 6,000 Walgreens stores, the Wall Street Journal reports.
With the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, you can expect states to begin experimenting more aggressively with ACOs in their Medicaid programs, says Sg2 Vice President Bob Woodson. You can also expect that more large community hospital systems, academic medical centers and large physician groups will begin discussions with each other and with commercial payers about a variety of risk-sharing models, including ACOs, he says.
Efforts to block a key provision of the new healthcare overhaul law are underway in 33 states, as a growing roster of mostly Republican officials have mounted legal and legislative challenges to an eventual requirement that virtually all Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty tax. On May 14, seven more states will formally join a lawsuit originally filed by Florida and 12 other states in late March. The suit contends that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to mandate an individual's participation in an insurance plan, and that it has infringed on states' rights by requiring them to extend coverage to more low-income residents without fully funding the additional cost.
Mary Kay Henry, the new president of the Service Employees International Union, plans to keep recruiting healthcare workers to the union and expects the healthcare overhaul bill will help SEIU do just that. "I think we'll see more workers wanting to join a union so they can have a say" in how their employers implement provisions of the healthcare bill, Henry said in an interview with Washington Wire, a blog published online by the Wall Street Journal. Henry, who headed SEIU's healthcare division, said the legislation makes SEIU more important to workers, who will need the union's help in sorting through complicated changes.