Thousands of medical providers who care for low-income Californians are scrambling to find funds after lawmakers failed to pass a budget, forcing the state to halt payments to them. State officials put the healthcare facilities on notice that payments from the Medi-Cal insurance program for the poor will be frozen until a budget is approved. Although most of the facilities have no immediate plans to turn away patients, the providers warn that a budget stalemate will affect care. In the meantime, they are turning to banks, foundations, and their own reserves for emergency cash to pay the bills.
Some of the largest health insurers in Massachusetts say they will cover visits to the retail health clinics expected to open in CVS and Walgreens drugstores later this year. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan have signed contracts with CVS Caremark, which operates more than 6,000 pharmacies nationwide. The chain plans to open as many as 28 MinuteClinics in its Massachusetts stores this year and 100 statewide within five years. CVS also is negotiating coverage for clinic services with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Together, the insurers have nearly 5 million members.
A struggling economy and impatient private investment firms could be slowing the push into retail medicine, according to Merchant Medicine, a Minneapolis-based research and consulting firm that advises providers and employers on how to work within the retail clinic industry. The number of retail clinics fell by 12 last month, to 969 from 981, according to Merchant Medicine. A year ago, they were opening at a rate of about one a day, figures show.
Representatives of HCA Inc. and a partnership of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Maury Regional Hospital squared off before a Tennessee agency over rival proposals to offer cancer therapy in Spring Hill. The Vanderbilt proposal, which calls for a $7.4 million facility, was approved by a 10-0 vote. The healthcare review panel rejected the HCA's rival project by a 6-4 vote.
Springfield, MO-based system CoxHealth has agreed to pay $60 million to resolve allegations of Medicare fraud and other irregularities. The U.S. attorney's office in Kansas City said that CoxHealth would pay $35 million immediately, followed by five yearly payments of $5 million each. In a separate agreement with the Office of Inspector General of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Cox signed a "corporate integrity agreement" to ensure its compliance with Medicare and other federal requirements.
A new Pacific Northwest medical school has celebrated its opening. The College of Osteopathic Medicine plans to send primary care doctors to serve in rural and low-income areas in a five-state region. Seventy percent of the students are from the Pacific Northwest. The college already has agreements with hospitals, clinics and doctors in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana to provide clinical training to students in their third and fourth years.