San Francisco's St. Mary's Medical Center celebrated the construction kickoff of a $22.75 million cancer center that will allow patients to undergo radiation and chemotherapy in one location. The 14,200-square-foot center will occupy the ground floor of a St. Mary's facility. It is expected that the new equipment will treat approximately 400 chemotherapy and 200 radiation patients annually. The center also will add 17 employees.
The University of Miami medical school has become one of the first in the country to offer an online, searchable database revealing its doctors' relationships with outside businesses. The UM website is searchable by name of faculty member or by name of company. It will be updated at least annually and now includes data for fiscal 2009. It lists doctors' relationship with outside companies—but not the dollar amounts of the deals, which will start to be added later this year.
The head of Quincy (MA) Medical Center is stepping down while the board of the struggling hospital looks for a new leader with the expertise needed to navigate the changing healthcare system, the board's chairwoman said. Gary Gibbons, MD, who has served as president and chief executive since 2005, will resume his practice in vascular surgery and wound care at the hospital. Grace Murphy-McAuliffe, chairwoman of the board of trustees, told the Boston Globe the transition is part of a plan the hospital embarked on at the beginning of the year. It's the hospital's response to financial pressures from what it calls inadequate reimbursement rates from government health plans, and to the prospect of changes in how hospitals are paid.
To officials at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, NY, replacing an overcrowded parking lot with a five-story parking garage would end the daily hassle of fighting for a space, benefiting staff members and visitors alike. City officials decided to use $19.8 million in federal stimulus money to pay for the garage's construction. But a doctors union is arguing that the project should not qualify for stimulus money because it claims the project would eliminate 20 parking attendant jobs, the New York Times reports.
Left stranded by Congress taking a two-week holiday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for the second time this month has told contractors to delay reimbursements to physicians and other healthcare providers for 10 business days to temporarily avoid the 21.2% Medicare pay cuts that go into effect on April 1.
"CMS believes Congress is working to avert the negative update that will take effect April 1. Consequently, CMS has instructed its contractors to hold claims containing services paid under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Update (including anesthesia services) for the first 10 business days of April," CMS said in a media release. "This hold will only affect claims with dates of service April 1, 2010, and forward. In addition, the hold should have minimum impact on provider cash flow because, under the current law, clean electronic claims are not paid any sooner than 14 calendar days (29 for paper claims) after the date of receipt. "
On March 2, the Temporary Extension Act of 2010 extended the deadline to the 2010 MPFS through March 31.
Earlier this month, the Senate voted to delay the physician pay cut until Oct. 1. But the House did not take up the action, and as a result, the April 1 deadline stands. Some congressional officials have said it is likely that Congress may decide on the bill retroactively. The House doesn't vote again on legislation until April 13, according to the House calendar.
AMA President J. James Rohack, MD, said last week, "It is unconscionable for elected officials to play politics with seniors and military families who rely on them to preserve their ability to see the physician of their choice."
"Members of Congress eager to spend a two-week holiday with their families have left America's military families and seniors to fend for themselves through their inaction on a known threat to the Medicare and TRICARE programs," Rohack stated.
The physician pay cut issue has been dependent continually on congressional action, much to the consternation of physicians. On Dec. 19, Congress voted to delay the scheduled payment cut until March 1. Both houses then extended it a month.
Specifically, the Medicare payments were scheduled to be cut across the board in accordance with the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula.
The proposed delay ostensibly is to give Congress time to adjust the SGR formula. SGR links Part B Medicare reimbursement to the gross domestic product. The formula has led to proposed large cuts annually, which physicians have successfully worked to delay.
In a new study, Psychster tested examples of seven types of ads on both Facebook and Allrecipes.com, the popular recipe and cooking site. The ad formats included banner ads, newsletters, branded profiles with a reciprocal logo, branded profiles without reciprocal logo, "give widgets," "get widgets" and sponsored content and were shown to 478 Allrecipes users and 681 Facebook users. The study found that while sponsored content ads were the most engaging, branded corporate social media profiles increased intent to purchase.