Advanced care for heart attack and other cardiac patients will continue to be offered in Waterbury, CT, the state's top hospital regulator has ruled. The Heart Center of Greater Waterbury has been threatened with closure since July, when its temporary state permit to operate expred. During its three-year trial period, the center had fallen short of performing the number of open heart surgeries required by the state to earn permanent approval. During a four-hour hearing in Hartford, patients, doctors, hospital administrators, and local officials pleaded for a six-month extension, arguing that patients would die if they had to travel from Waterbury to New Haven or Bridgeport for heart procedures.
Whistle-blowers helped authorities recover at least $9.3 billion from healthcare providers accused of defrauding states and the federal government, according to an analysis of Justice Department records. The Justice Department ramped up efforts in the 1990s to combat healthcare fraud by using private citizens with inside knowledge of wrongdoing, and they now initiate more than 90% of the department's lawsuits focusing on healthcare fraud.
Michael Young starts his job as head of Atlanta-based Grady Memorial Hospital on Sept. 2. Billed as talented, aggressive leader with a reputation for turning around troubled hospitals, Young is the latest in a string of CEOs at Grady, most of whom have quickly come and gone and left the hospital with little changed. But he comes to Grady having turned around a smaller hospital in western New York that had similar problems to those at Grady.
Nashville-area employers negotiating benefits with health insurers for 2009 are seeing medical costs in their health plans rise 8% to 12%, local insurance brokers said. With companies facing challenges from a U.S. economic downturn, they're under more pressure to rein in expenses, prompting some companies to pass on more of the costs to their employees, change the mix of insurance offerings, or give employees incentives to live healthier lifestyles.
Some Iowa businesses are moving away from healthcare plans that offer high deductibles in exchange for low costs, according to an annual report on employer benefits. The shift from consumer-driven health plans comes as Iowa employees and employers take an 8.8% bump this year in health insurance costs, according to a report from David P. Lind & Associates, an employee benefits consultant. Employees also face higher deductibles and out-of-pocket costs, the study showed.
Novant Health officials will host a community forum to present their plans for a 47-bed acute care hospital in Holly Springs, NC. Local residents will have an opportunity to ask questions about the proposed $110 million project. Mark Billings, president of Novant's Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, and other officials from the hospital chain will be at the forum. Novant's bid to build a Holly Springs hospital has run into competition from Wake County's two largest hospitals, WakeMed and Rex Healthcare. Both have announced separate expansion plans for elsewhere in the county.