Maryland's expansion of its Medicaid program is one of several measures enacted in the past eight months that state officials say will eventually take more than 100,000 residents off the uninsured rolls. The patchwork of healthcare measures not only brings more children and families into Medicaid, but also will help small businesses provide employees with coverage and seniors to buy prescription drugs. Other bills aim to regulate pharmacy benefit managers in an effort to lower drug costs. With little federal action to establish universal healthcare, states such as Maryland have taken the lead in efforts to expand coverage in recent years.
Video from a surveillance camera at a Brooklyn, NY, hospital shows a woman dying on the floor of a psychiatric emergency room while being ignored by other patients and hospital staff. The video was released by lawyers suing Kings County Hospital alleging neglect and abuse of mental health patients. The video shows the 49-year-old woman keeling over and falling out of her chair and lying facedown on the floor, then thrashing before going still. About an hour passed before someone tried to help.
Baptist Health System has sold its 35% stake in Birmingham, AL-based Trinity Medical Center. Franklin, TN-based Community Health Systems now owns 100% of the 560-bed hospital. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
A new Medicare program intended to stop fraud and lower equipment prices is scheduled to launch in 10 areas nationwide on July 1. The federal program is designed so that only 325 suppliers throughout the nation will be allowed to provide 10 key pieces of durable medical equipment to Medicare recipients.
Providence Health & Services has agreed to buy Tarzana (CA) Regional Medical Center from Tenet Healthcare Corp. for an undisclosed price. In 2004, Tenet disclosed that it intended to sell the medical center, but the chain had difficulty getting the real estate investment trust that owns the Tarzana building and campus to agree on the terms of a sale. Some doctors and medical staff have complained that Tenet failed to invest adequately in the hospital as it tried to sell the facility.
Harry Kovar, chief executive officer of WellNet Healthcare Inc., is worried about the proposed merger between Pennsylvania health insurers Highmark Inc. and Independence Blue Cross. Kovar says he thinks the proposed merger, which would create Pennsylvania's largest health insurer, might well have the ability to push pharmacy-benefits management businesses like his right to the sidelines. Kovar will testify on the merger during the Pennsylvania Insurance Department's public hearings, and he will urge the department to forbid the companies from "bundling," even if it does allow the merger.