Supporters of a $9.4 million outpatient surgery center near Gulf Shores, AL, are seeking a second opportunity to make their case after being rejected by state healthcare regulators in April. The Certificate of Need Review Board will hear from lawyers for a group of Baldwin County doctors and a subsidiary of Pensacola's Sacred Heart Health System. The groups want the panel to reconsider its denial of plans for Pleasure Island Ambulatory Surgery Center. The 7,900-square-foot facility would be built in northern Gulf Shores. Opposing the plans are Infirmary Health System and South Baldwin Regional Medical Center in Foley, AL.
A former healthcare executive was sentenced to five years in prison for helping his Philippines-based company swindle $100 million from the U.S. military health insurance program. Thomas Lutz, 41, took responsibility for the six-year scheme in which Health Visions Corp. bilked $99.9 million from the military's Tricare program through inflated and fraudulent claims. The scheme deprived Tricare, which insures 9.2 million current and retired service members and dependents, of money it could have used to provide care for others, said U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb.
Despite the slow economy and credit crunch pushing many developers to the sidelines, healthcare real-estate investment trusts are expanding their development pipelines. Some of the biggest health-care REITs by stock-market value are expected to build $675.9 million of properties by year's end, up from $236.5 million in 2007, according to stock-research firm Stifel Nicolaus. Aging baby boomers who want cheaper outpatient care are fueling demand for medical-office buildings, said Stifel Nicolaus representatives.
As part of an ongoing restructuring, SSM HealthCare-St. Louis has dismissed 75 members of its management team, including all hospital chief operating officers and vice presidents. After taking over in 2007, Chief Executive Jim Sanger reorganized the hospital system into north and south geographic regions and by areas of patient care. During the reorganization, system leaders realized the hospitals needed more consistent practices to improve patient care and efficiency. SSM hopes eliminating most top management positions at individual hospitals will reduce redundancy and help the transition, and Sanger thinks fewer people making decisions will lead to more consistent decision-making.
An increasing number of hospitals are opening up their own medical spas that offer medical beauty procedures, from Botox and Restylane to laser hair removal. As the number of medical spas have multiplied, so have concerns about the quality of services they offer and the level of medical supervision present. The hospitals see themselves as a natural alternative, and hope people will automatically associate their names with higher-quality medicine.
Richard Scrushy testified for six hours during a deposition and will return for questioning by attorneys who say the former HealthSouth chief executive swindled their clients. In 2005, Scrushy, a co-founder of the physical therapy chain, was found not guilty in Birmingham's federal court of committing fraud at HealthSouth. Five former chief financial officers pleaded guilty to similar charges and fingered their former boss in the $2.7 billion fraud. Scrushy is about one year into an 82-month federal prison term levied after a Montgomery-based federal jury in 2006 found him guilty of bribing former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. A federal judge ordered him brought to Birmingham to answer questions in a civil lawsuit filed by HealthSouth shareholders seeking at least $1 billion.