Leesburg Regional Medical Center and The Villages Regional Hospital have announced they will now operate under one name, Central Florida Health Alliance. The new name reflects the regional scope of the facilities, which together provide more than 500 beds and 30 healthcare specialties, said hospital officials.
Community Hospital in New Port Richey, FL, may decide to leave something behind when it leaves its current campus for a new one in Trinity: An emergency room. With the statewide moratorium on freestanding emergency rooms having ended, Community Hospital is trying to decide whether keeping an ER in the city would make financial sense.
A California appeals court has vacated its decision that had allowed policyholders the right to sue as a class over canceled health coverage and granted Blue Shield of California a rehearing on the hotly contested issue. The ruling called into question the practice of waiting until individual policyholders incurred medical expenses before scrutinizing their applications for misstatements--and then canceling for alleged omissions and errors.
In 2006, Medicare and its beneficiaries spent $1.24 billion on diabetes-related supplies, costs that the government hopes to rein in. Beginning this summer with 10 of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, Medicare will launch a system that involves paying a select group of suppliers a flat fee for each item. Suppliers will bid on Medicare's business, and the system will eventually be rolled out nationwide.
In the summer of 2006, Jack O. Bovender Jr. was at the helm when HCA Inc. said it would go private in one of the largest buyouts in history. A former hospital administrator who rose through HCA's ranks, Bovender is upbeat about both the deal and the company's future. In this interview with the Wall Street Journal, he discusses HCA's future and the challenges facing the healthcare industry.
The parent company of the Any, Any, Any insurance plan for Medicare beneficiaries received an official nod of approval Florida regulators. St. Petersburg-based Universal Health Care Insurance Co. has raised the required funds and met other basic requirements under a settlement with the state, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation said in a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.