A Kansas senator has proposed a bill that would allow tax breaks for doctors, nurses and dentists who accept Medicaid patients. The law would be used as an incentive for them to see more Medicaid recipients. Legislators say the move would make up some of the gap between how much the taxpayer-funded program reimburses for healthcare and the actual costs of that care.
State legislators remain hesitant about a potential $475 million construction project that bring a new hospital building to the University of Connecticut's Farmington campus and would be a joint effort with Hartford Hospital to replace the financially troubled John Dempsey Hospital. The project, which has been under consideration by UConn for several years, would involve construction of a state-of-the-art hospital with about 250 beds.
Current and former OSHA officials are complaining that lax oversight was a recurrent feature during the Bush administration, as political appointees ordered the withdrawal of dozens of workplace health regulations, slow-rolled others, and altered the reach of its warnings and rules in response to industry pressure. From 2001 to the end of 2007, OSHA officials issued 86% fewer rules or regulations termed economically significant by the Office of Management and Budget than their counterparts did during a similar period under President Bill Clinton.
Lafayette Home Nursing Company has aquired Northwest Healthcare Alliance, Inc. of Washington, which operates as Assured Home Health and Hospice. The deal, which is expected to close December 31, expands LHC into 17 states.
Emory University stripped Charles B. Nemeroff of his department chairmanship and placed severe restrictions on the psychiatrist's extracurricular activities. Emory's announcement followed an internal investigation into $800,000 in payments made to Nemeroff by the global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline between January 2000 and January 2006. Nemeroff received the payments for more than 250 speeches he made to other medical professionals. He has been a central figure in a federal investigation of whether drug company payments to doctors and academics skew research in favor of certain drugs.
More than 1,000 patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center had their personal information taken by a former employee in the hospital's billing department, according to hospital officials who said prosecutors allege that the man used the identities to steal from insurance companies. The hospital's chief financial officer warned affected patients in a letter sent last week that their information had been found during a search of the former employee's home.