The New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners and Senate President Richard J. Codey are working to extricate the state's outpatient surgical centers from a difficult legal position. A judge ruled last year that doctors who owned a center in North Jersey were violating a heretofore unenforced state law prohibiting self-referral. The board, which regulates the centers, is now proposing an emergency amendment to its regulations that would sidestep the issue of self-referral by broadening the definition of a doctor's medical office.
A growing number of people across Middle Tennessee are seeking care at retail clinics that promise shorter waits and lower fees for treating common illnesses. The fast growth of the concept is drawing concern from doctors about issues such as safety of patients at the clinics staffed mostly by nurse practitioners. The Tennessee Medical Association had planned to propose new rules to the state's Board of Medical Examiners that would have required that a supervising doctor be within 30 miles of a clinic and spend more time there.
Brockton (MA) Hospital's Signature Healthcare program has created a community-based network of doctors on the South Shore of Massachusetts who share patient medical records and databases. The goal of the network is to keep local more patients who might otherwise go to Boston for care, particularly from specialists.
Health plans are drawing scrutiny for offering financial incentives to entice doctors to prescribe cheaper generic medicines. Health plans say the goal is to save patients, employers and insurers money, and many doctors argue that it's only right to reimburse them for spending time evaluating whether a cheaper generic alternative is better or just as good. But Medical societies are concerned that such rewards may put doctors in the ethically questionable position of taking a payment that is unknown to patients.
Democratic voters are far more dissatisfied with the U.S. healthcare system than their Republican counterparts and are more likely to support a increase in government spending to expand health coverage, according to a report from health and political analysts.
Officials of Carlinville (IL) Area Hospital are hoping to begin construction of a new, $27 million facility to replace the existing facility. Hospital CEO Ken Reid said electrical, plumbing, heating, cooling and ventilation systems at the old hospital needed to be updated if it was to remain open. The hospital was built in 1952. Hospital officials determined that extensive renovation and a needed expansion would be only slightly less expensive than building a new hospital.