Someone who stands up to Partners HealthCare rather than kneels before it? That's unusual in Boston. But Superior Court Judge Janet L. Sanders so far has refused to let the powerful network of Harvard-affiliated hospitals and doctors push her around. Sanders is reviewing what was supposed to be a routine settlement of an antitrust case. But at a recent hearing, she postponed any further action until Nov. 10. Saying she needs more time to weigh the consequences, she expressed serious concerns about the impact of the settlement on the state's overall health care system and the ultimate cost to consumers.
Almost 40 years after lifting the ban on advertising for health care services, American consumers have learned one thing: It's still doubtful that move helped their health care and especially the cost of it. Prior to the 1970s, the code of ethics established by the American Medical Association prohibited advertising for health care services, labeling the practice as "derogatory to the dignity of the profession." Beginning in 1975, this rule, as well as other practice restrictions formulated by the AMA, was attacked by the Federal Trade Commission on the grounds such constraints were comparable to monopoly and against public interest.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital — under fire for releasing a Liberian man who later turned out to have the Ebola virus — has lagged behind its peers on emergency room care and lost some federal funds the past three years because it had high discharge rates of patients who later had to return for treatment. The hospital scored significantly worse than the state and national averages in five of six emergency care indicators, with emergency room wait times twice as long as the averages, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The hospital also was the most penalized in Dallas under a three-year program designed to reduce the number of patients readmitted for care, according to the data.
A high-ranking National Institutes of Health (NIH) official said Thursday that it was inexcusable for medical officials to have ignored the travel history of a man who has since been diagnosed with the deadly Ebola virus. Dallas resident Thomas Eric Duncan, who is the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., was reportedly sent home from his first visit to the hospital without being properly diagnosed, despite telling medical personnel he had traveled from Liberia to the U.S. last month. Doctors initially prescribed Duncan antibiotics intended to address other types of health issues according to reports, although his symptoms were later properly identified.
Two days after a man in Texas was diagnosed with Ebola, a Missouri doctor Thursday morning showed up at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport dressed in protective gear to protest what he called mismanagement of the crisis by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Gil Mobley checked in and cleared airport security wearing a mask, goggles, gloves, boots and a hooded white jumpsuit emblazoned on the back with the words, "CDC is lying!" "If they're not lying, they are grossly incompetent," said Mobley, a microbiologist and emergency trauma physician from Springfield, Mo.
Medicare is fining a record number of hospitals – 2,610 – for having too many patients return within a month for additional treatments, federal records released Wednesday show. Even though the nation's readmission rate is dropping, Medicare's average fines will be higher, with 39 hospitals receiving the largest penalty allowed, including the nation's oldest hospital, Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. The federal government's penalties, which begin their third year this month, are intended to jolt hospitals to pay attention to what happens to their patients after they leave.