It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what goes on in an emergency department, intensive care unit or pediatric wing. But what about a hospital's observation services? Few Americans understand them or even know they exist. Which is why -- as health care costs continue to climb by the year -- it might come as a shock that these are the very services that could end up saving hospitals billions each year. Put simply, observation services are designed to determine which patients can be safely discharged from the hospital and which should remain for a longer stay.
Federal health regulators are warning the public that certain cardiac defibrillators recalled by Philips Healthcare may fail to deliver a needed shock in an emergency. Defibrillators are used by emergency responders and others to restore normal heart function in people suffering a heart attack. The FDA says an electrical problem with recalled Philips' HeartStart devices could cause them to fail to deliver a life-saving shock. Philips recalled three models of its HeartStart devices in September 2012 due to an internal electrical malfunction. The recall affects about 700,000 defibrillators sold between 2005 and 2012.
Genetic testing company 23andMe is facing a class action lawsuit alleging that the Silicon Valley startup misled customers with advertising for its personalized DNA test kit. The test is marketed as a tool to help users predict their risk of developing various diseases. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. district court of California last week. It came days after the Food and Drug Administration ordered 23andMe to halt sales of its personalized test, saying the company has failed to show that the technology is supported by science. 23andMe sells its $99 test online. Customers receive a small tube in the mail, which they return to the company with a saliva sample for DNA analysis.
In a medical system notorious for opaque finances and inflated bills, nothing is more convoluted than hospital pricing, economists say. Hospital charges represent about a third of the $2.7 trillion annual United States health care bill, the biggest single segment, according to government statistics, and are the largest driver of medical inflation, a new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association found. A day spent as an inpatient at an American hospital costs on average more than $4,000, five times the charge in many other developed countries, according to the International Federation of Health Plans, a global network of health insurance industries.
The Obama administration's overhauled healthcare website got off to a bumpy relaunch Monday as a rush of consumers caused an uptick in errors and forced the administration to put thousands of shoppers on the HealthCare.gov site on hold. "Demand today has been high," said Julie Bataille, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is operating the troubled portal for the president's healthcare law. "We do know that things are not perfect with the site." Bataille said about 375,000 visitors went to the site before noon, about double the normal traffic for a Monday morning. The volume caused pages to load slowly and the rate of errors to spike.
About 100,000 people signed up for health insurance through the online federal exchange last month, a roughly four-fold increase from October even as a team of U.S. government and contractor programmers was fixing the troubled Affordable Care Act website, said a person familiar with program's progress. The preliminary November numbers reflect individuals who successfully selected a plan. The administration expects that most consumers will sign up early next year as the enrollment period nears its March 31 close, said the person who asked for anonymity because the final numbers were still being calculated.