A host of critics are demanding that nonprofit hospitals in Ohio like the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals do more to detail their acts toward public good, such as amounts of charity care. The IRS is also targeting the facilities for more information and reporting.
Cleveland-based MetroHealth Medical Center said earlier this year that it lost $8.9 million during the first nine months of 2007 in part because of uncompensated care it provided to a rising number of nonpaying patients showing up at the emergency room. Now community activists that are fearful the hospital is bearing too great a burden are planning to talk about solutions.
Minnesota House Republicans want to loosen regulations limiting the kind of insurance consumers can buy, opening up the state's nonprofit HMO market to more competition. Proponents of the plan say it will drive down prices.
The health industry is creating the medFICO score to judge patient's ability to pay their hospital bill. The medFICO score could debut as early as this summer in some hospitals. It is already being questioned by consumer advocacy groups that fear it will be checked before patients are treated.
Phillipsburg, NJ-based Warren Hospital has agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle Medicare fraud claims. Federal prosecutors claimed the hospital was overbilling the government for the treatment of patients whose needs did not meet typical Medicare parameters.
A plan among Wake County, NC hospitals to join a statewide treatment effort has sparked a turf war in Johnston County, where the project is seen as a way for large hospitals to siphon away lucrative heart patients.