South Carolina's private and university research hospitals are banding together to identify and curb hospital infections. Curbing infections could save the state's hospitals as much as $40 million a year and reduce the length of stay of patients by up to 24,000 days annually, according to the newly formed South Carolina Healthcare Quality Trust. The trust is a partnership of Health Sciences South Carolina, SC Hospital Association, and the Premier healthcare alliance.
Florida's largest Medicaid insurer has announced it will leave the state's controversial Medicaid Reform program because government-set reimbursement rates are too low. WellCare of Florida's 78,000 Medicaid Reform clients will still receive state-paid health services but through another health plan, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration.
The chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board was critically injured when a powerful car bomb exploded outside his West Memphis home as the physician prepared to leave for work, federal and local authorities said. West Memphis Police Chief Bob Paudert said there is no immediate evidence that Trent Pierce had been threatened or took part in controversial medical procedures. Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler, however, said investigators will meet with board members and other staffers to find out if the attack might have been related to his work on the panel.
A convicted rapist fired in August from his job as a Los Angeles County hospital X-ray technologist was rehired by county managers through a contractor a short time later to do the same work at an East Los Angeles health clinic, officials acknowledged. Gariner Beasley, 48, was fired again Tuesday and escorted from the Edward R. Roybal Comprehensive Health Center, said county Supervisor Gloria Molina. County officials struggled to explain how they had rehired a man they fired in August, calling his criminal record incompatible with a job that required he work alone with patients in "very vulnerable and compromised positions."
As President Obama prepares to push for an overhaul of the medical system, providers of U.S.-backed health plans for the elderly are raising prices. Humana Inc., Health Net Inc., and nearly 200 other providers increased 2009 premiums by 13% on average, or more than five times as much as last year, for people who use Medicare Advantage, according to consulting company Avalere Health.
Recent legal settlements with big health insurers may allow some managed-care plan participants to begin recovering some of the money they may have overpaid for using out-of-network doctors and hospitals. So far, insurers UnitedHealth Group Inc., Aetna Inc., and Health Net Inc. have agreed to make millions of dollars in funds available to patients and, in some cases, physicians for possibly having shortchanged them in the past. A number of other legal actions are pending that seek redress for patients and healthcare providers who claim they were underpaid by insurers for out-of-network services.