A small clause in most company health plans allows them the right to recoup the medical expenses it paid for someone's treatment if the person also collects damages in an injury suit.
CFOs and the finance organizations they head are under intense pressure from the capital markets and activist investors to keep pace with a rapidly changing global market--to go beyond merely crunching numbers and create value on their own.
When doctors at Vanderbilt University Medical Center rushed to operate on a baby born last week with a life-threatening heart condition, they faced one giant hurdle: the child's parents. They refused to consent to the surgery, saying it would involve the use of blood products--a violation of their religious beliefs as Jehovah's Witnesses.
Nationwide, more than 1,300 hospitals offer palliative care, including 50 percent of facilities with more than 75 beds, according to an analysis by the American Hospital Association. That's double the number of programs in 2000. Today, nearly 30 hospitals in Tennessee provide palliative care, including Vanderbilt, Saint Thomas Hospital, Baptist Hospital and the Department of Veterans Affairs system.
Steve Dawson, MD, and his team are creating a dummy that will die if you don't treat it right. Intended for training combat medics, the smart mannequin being built from scratch in his Massachusetts General Hospital lab mimics war wounds with horrifying realism, right down to blood spurting from torn arteries, sucking chest wounds, and appalling shrieks of agony.
Caritas Carney Hospital in Dorchester, MA, has hired a consulting team to analyze the institution's business and devise ways for it to improve its financial performance. In recent years, Carney Hospital has struggled financially, in part because so many of its patients rely on Medicare and Medicaid for their insurance. Those government programs typically pay less for hospital services than private insurance plans.