The Massachusetts Association of Health Plans proposed a wide-ranging set of recommendations intended to help control rising premiums and provide consumers with more information about why rates go up. The package includes ideas that seem intended to place the blame for rising healthcare costs on doctors and hospitals.
Atlanta-based Grady Health System's national accreditation at risk after a five-day Joint Commission inspection identified "numerous requirements for improvement." Hospital officials gave no details about the kinds of shortcomings found by The Joint Commission inspectors.
Community Health Systems Inc. said it has sold Barberton Citizens Hospital in Barberton, OH, to its joint venture partner Buyer Summa Health System. Buyer Summa Health System previously owned a 3.25 percent stake in the 311-bed acute care hospital.
Boston Medical Center sent a letter recently to 2,600 patients that wrongly implied they could get care at BMC only if they signed up for the hospital's insurance plan, called HealthNet. The content of the letter and the direct approach to patients enrolled with other insurers violated HealthNet's state contract, and the state will penalize the insurer by reducing the number of patients it covers.
The Miami-Dade County Commission is to start negotiating with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, which may be willing to offer lower premiums or better coverage to residents than they have previously sold in exchange for the county's seal of approval.
Citing the health benefits of doing so, virtually all Nashville-area hospitals plan to ban smoking outdoors on their property in 2008. Hundreds of hospitals nationwide have enacted total smoking bans, starting with the Mayo Clinic in 2002.