HealthMarkets, Inc., the health insurance company that writes policies for the self-insured, individuals and small businesses, has named Tim Roach chief marketing officer. Additionally, Lucinda Lewis has been hired as senior vice president and chief actuary. HealthMarkets does business through its subsidiaries, The MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company, Mid-West National Life Insurance Company of Tennessee and The Chesapeake Life Insurance Company.
WellCare Health Plans, Inc., has hired Rex M. Adams as COO. In this newly created position, Adams will report directly to the president and CEO and have responsibility for the company's operations, including claims payment, customer service and information systems. Before joining WellCare, Adams served as the president and COO of AT&T East, a division of AT&T Inc.
George Hamilton has been promoted to chief administrative officer at Aurora Sinai Medical Center, located in downtown Milwaukee. Hamilton has been at Aurora Sinai since 2000, and most recently served as vice president of operations, and as vice president of academic affairs at Aurora Health Care.
Congressional Democrats have scrapped plans for another vote on expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program, after concluding that President Bush would not sign their legislation and that they could not override his likely veto. Bush vetoed two earlier versions of the legislation, which he denounced as a dangerous step toward "government-run healthcare for every American." The fight over CHIP prefigures a larger legislative debate over the future of healthcare and the role of government in providing it.
A University of Chicago Medical Center strategy to steer poor and uninsured patients with less serious injuries to other facilities to focus on treating the most challenging cases is attracting growing criticism. In the last three years, the medical center has expanded an effort to educate the uninsured on how to get proper medical care without showing up in its expensive ER. But despite its successes, the initiative has prompted questions from a wide array of skeptics.
Young surgeons at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have regularly worked more hours than allowed by national safety limits, according to an oversight organization and hospital officials. The group that oversees training of new doctors cited Beth Israel Deaconess for hours violations in a letter in January. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education said that the hospital would jeopardize its accreditation as a surgery training program if it does not correct the problems by September 9, when council staff plan to review the hospital again.