Hospital operator HCA Inc. is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month, and in that time has had a huge impact on the business of healthcare. HCA has been the catalyst behind Nashville's reputation as a "Silicon Valley" of healthcare: As many as 150 companies have been started out of HCA or by alumni of the company, the Nashville Health Care Council estimates. Some analysts also suggest that HCA played an even more important role by taking politics out of the medical equation by unmasking the inefficiencies of some county-owned institutions filled with patronage jobs.
A Malaysia-based hospital operator run by Seattle residents and backed by Seattle-area investors says there's money to be made by treating India's upwardly mobile to American-style healthcare. Columbia Pacific, a Seattle investment firm, said it has raised $135 million to go after the Indian market. Its Asian venture, Columbia Asia, has 13 facilities in Malaysia, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam—and expects to have 39 by the end of the decade. The latest investment brings the total equity raised by Columbia Asia to $325 million.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa has demanded a "full accounting" of how Medicare underestimated the extent of fraud, abuse, and waste in a 2006 audit of the medical equipment industry. Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee overseeing Medicare, said that a new inspector general's report spotlighting flaws in Medicare's audit raises disturbing doubts about the health insurance program's efforts to identify and reduce waste.
Kaiser Permanente is contacting 960 mothers whose babies may have been exposed to a healthcare worker who has an active case of tuberculosis. The worker was assigned to the postpartum unit in the maternity ward of Kaiser's San Francisco Medical Center. Kaiser officials say the infection risk for patients is very low, but testing will be provided along with treatment if necessary. Kaiser also is notifying 115 employees who may have been exposed.
California health officials have asked a federal judge to suspend her order requiring them to restore 10% cuts in Medi-Cal payments to doctors, dentists, and pharmacists, saying the ruling was unclear and legally flawed. Paying full fees to healthcare providers would cost at least $500 million a year and "will only worsen California's already dire financial situation," state lawyers said. They also said it would take at least three weeks to reprogram computers to increase the payments, and allowing the 10% reductions to remain in place for another month or two would not harm Medi-Cal's 6.6 million patients.
Health maintenance organization Health Net has paid $41 million in claims and fines for shortchanging 88,000 customers in New Jersey. State officials say the HMO underpaid claims to reimburse patients for out-of-network healthcare services between 1996 and 2006. Checks, ranging from several thousand dollars to a few dollars, were mailed to current and former customers starting in July.