Massachusetts officials gave final approval to regulations banning pharmaceutical and medical device companies from providing gifts to physicians, limiting when companies can pay for doctors' meals, and requiring companies to publicly disclose payments to doctors over $50 for certain types of consulting and speaking engagements. Health officials said the rules are the most comprehensive in the nation; Massachusetts is now the only state to require disclosure by device makers, as well as drug companies, and just one of two states to make disclosures public, officials said.
Responding to warnings of a looming doctor shortage, existing medical schools are increasing enrollment, and new ones are opening or under development across the county. Medical school expansion plans are rushing ahead despite the severe economic downturn, even in the battered home of the nation's struggling auto industry.
A report from the Business Roundtable, which represents CEOs of major companies, says America's healthcare system has become a liability in a global economy. The Business Roundtable report says Americans in 2006 spent $1,928 per capita on healthcare, at least two-and-a-half times more per person than any other advanced country.
Sutter Health will return management of Marin General Hospital, Marin County, CA's largest hospital, to the district board one minute before midnight on June 29, 2010. The transfer is part of a 2006 court-approved agreement that resolves a feud between Sutter Health and publicly elected board members of the Marin Healthcare District. The district is resuming control of the hospital, which has been leased to Sutter since 1996.
Tenet Healthcare Corp. has agreed to pay $85 million to settle claims that nurses and other staff in California were denied extra overtime pay for working 12-hour shifts. Tenet will pay about 23,000 current and former hospital employees under the settlement.
Dozens of doctors from Contra Costa County, CA's public hospital rallied in Martinez to protest a cost-cutting plan that would slash medical services for 5,500 undocumented immigrants. Under the plan, adult patients seeking medical help under the county's low-income Basic Health Care Program would have to provide proof of legal immigration status. County health officials believe their proposal, could save the county's overtaxed medical system $6 million a year.