Kaci Hickox, the nurse who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, vowed to fight Maine officials who are seeking a court order to force her to self-quarantine at home. Hickox, who is holed up in a house in the town of Fort Kent, gave the state until Thursday to let her move freely and threatened to take the matter to court herself. But Maine Health Commissioner Mary Mayhew said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon that "when it is made clear by an individual in this risk category that they do not intend to voluntarily stay at home for the remaining 21 days, we will immediate see a court order."
A first-of-its kind health plan that rewards doctors for keeping patients healthy, rather than just doing expensive procedures, lowered health care spending and improved the quality of patient care for the fourth straight year, according to a new study. The analysis by researchers at Harvard Medical School and published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows spending for patients in Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts' Alternative Quality Contract grew 10 percent slower than for patients in traditional plans. The alternative contract pays providers a set budget to take care of patients, rather than paying for every procedure and service -- regardless of outcome.
A flood of patients who have become newly insured under the Affordable Care Act are visiting doctor's offices and hospitals, causing some health workers to worry about how they can provide care to everyone in need. One group, however, isn't lining up for care: People with mental health issues or substance use disorders. Though Obamacare extends coverage to this group – collectively referred to as behavioral health – various loopholes in the health care law at this time have kept people from requesting mental health care. Some states haven't expanded Medicaid, the government health insurance program for poor or disabled Americans, leaving about 5 million in a coverage gap, the majority of whom, experts believe, need mental health care.
Different proposals -- including one for so-called "baseball arbitration" ? aim to address insurance-payment issues that arise when patients are treated at out-of-network hospitals or even by out-of-network doctors at in-network hospitals. "Baseball arbitration," in which hospitals and insurers would submit offers to an arbitrator, has been proposed as one possible solution. For example, if an out-of-network hospital charged a patient $2,000 for a procedure and the patient's insurer offered $1,000, the arbitrator could choose one price over the other. It's one of a variety of ideas that have emerged as legislators have discussed how to address the sticker shock from New Jersey's high out-of-network medical bills.
On New York City's First Avenue, two hospitals sit two blocks apart, but the scenes last week could not have been more different. In front of Bellevue Hospital Center, a dozen news vans clogged the street. Reporters jockeyed for position in front of the main entrance. They were gathered to cover the city's response to the region's first confirmed case of Ebola. Just north of the media spectacle, First Avenue was calm. At NYU Medical Center, it was business as usual -- no crowds of journalists, no Ebola patient. The stark comparison raised uncomfortable questions about disparities in the way FEMA has treated the two hospitals in the wake of Sandy.
What do you do after you've won the gold rush? When you've claimed the richest veins of ore? That's the big question for Epic Systems, the medical software giant that has become Dane County's signature company with 8,000 or so employees at its fairyland campus in Verona. Epic is the big winner in the federally subsidized effort to shift American medical care from paper to electronic records. As part of President Obama's economic stimulus plan, Congress approved a $27 billion incentive program in 2009 that touched off a mad scramble to modernize health systems in the name of improved efficiency and better care.