After more than a year of negotiations, the University of Kansas Hospital, University of Kansas Medical Center and Kansas University Physicians Inc. have reached a new affliliation agreement. The five-year deal was approved by the KU Hospital Authority Board, and calls for the hospital to increase its support for the medical center and the physicians group from about $31 million during the current fiscal year to more than $46 million next year.
Approximately 4 million nonelderly Floridians--about a quarter of the state's under-65 population--are expected to spend more than 10 percent of their income on healthcare in 2008, according to a report released from Families USA.
A Brentwood, TN-based operator of dialysis centers announced it has acquired a California company and its joint venture interest in 35 dialysis programs nationwide. The acquisition of Innovative Dialysis Systems Inc. of Long Beach is the largest by Ambulatory Services of America Inc.
Tufts Health Plan has donated $500,000 to Massachusetts Health Quality Partners, a nonprofit attempting to create new ways to measure physicians' performance. The gift is intended to accelerate the partnership's work and establish Tufts as a force for improving healthcare quality, the insurer said.
Under a new agreement, New Jersey will offer low-cost health coverage for the children of families who lack insurance but who earn too much for government help. The agreement between the state and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey would make health insurance accessible for up to 60,000 children, Senator Joseph F. Vitale.
Acknowledging that too many people simply cannot obtain health insurance on their own, the insurance industry is proposing a series of steps the companies say would let more individuals obtain coverage. The proposals would make it harder for insurers to cancel policies or deny coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.