Health care companies shed 6,000 positions in December, the first down month since July 2003, according to the government's monthly jobs report. This comes after a yearlong slowdown in hiring. The hardest hit areas were nursing homes, which jettisoned 3,900 jobs, and home health care, which lost 3,700 positions. Hospitals got rid of 2,400 jobs, while physicians' offices reduced staff by 1,200. For the year, health care added only 207,600 jobs, down from 320,600 a year earlier. It was the slowest year of growth since 1999.
The so-called "Cadillac tax" will be one of the last major pieces of the Affordable Care Act to alter the U.S. health-care system, and the state of Ohio, city of Columbus and Columbus City Schools are among the public employers more likely to feel its impact. The excise tax does not take effect until 2018, but it is already on the minds of government officials. For example, the tax is expected to cost New York City $22 million in 2018 — and potentially $549 million by 2022, The New York Times reported. The tax applies to what the government considers "high-cost" employer health benefits — more than $10,200 annually for individual plans and $27,500 for family plans.
Officials at a south Georgia hospital say they've fired two employees after a computer with sensitive patient information went missing. Officials at Phoebe Putney Hospital notified thousands of patients that their personal information may have been compromised. They say a password protected, unencrypted desktop computer containing information of more than 6,700 patients disappeared in November. Hospital officials say an investigation found that the computer contained names, addresses, and possibly medical diagnosis information of nearly 6,800 people. They say the Social Security numbers of more than a dozen people were recorded on its hard drive.
The Utah Department of Workforce Services has employees manually processing applications for about 24,000 Utahns seeking health care benefits. Utahns who accessed the federal health insurance marketplace at healthcare.gov between its launch on Oct. 1 and the end of December have been "stuck in limbo for a while" awaiting a decision on their Medicaid eligibility, said Nic Dunn, Utah Department of Workforce Services spokesman. It is estimated that 24,000 people went to the website, filled out an application and were told they were potentially eligible for Medicaid benefits.
This month marked the launch of the major provisions of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Change is coming across the country in the way health insurance is offered, along with new coverage for the previously uninsured. What will it mean for the Richmond region? Richmond's Future has been investigating that question for more than a year to recommend steps that the region should be taking now in order to participate successfully in these health care changes. Richmond's Future is a think tank led by Eugene Trani, president emeritus of VCU. Trani asked a task force of 16 representatives from the major health systems, venture capital and law firms, and state government to research how health care can be a driver of growth in the Richmond region.
After six months of profits or small losses and after paying off most of its bills, you could say the Fulton County Hospital has been on a roll. But the Dec. 23 meeting of the hospital's Board of Governors may have left some members feeling that they just can't win. The latest cost report shows the hospital owes Medicare $353,000, partly because it has recently done so well financially. Bill Couch, the Medicare expert for Hughes, Welch and Milligan CPAs, presented the latest cost reports, showing whether the hospital was owed money from Medicare and Medicaid, or whether it owed them after months of submitting bills and receiving reimbursements.