Healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente has notified about 49,000 patients of a privacy breach at its Anaheim Medical Center. Kaiser said a computer flash drive was reported missing Sept. 25 inside the hospital's nuclear medicine department. The storage drive included patient names, date of birth, their medical record number and the type and amount of a specific medication. The files didn't contain Social Security numbers or financial information, the company said. "Kaiser Permanente takes the protection of our members' personal and health information seriously, and we apologize for this occurrence," said Kaiser spokeswoman Peggy Hinz.
As key congressional committees consider legislation to repeal Medicare's physician payment formula, a new study shows that the program's beneficiaries have generally good access to doctors. The report, prepared by the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that 96 percent of beneficiaries report having access to a doctor's office or clinic, and about 90 percent of beneficiaries say they can schedule timely appointments for routine and specialty care. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the Foundation.) About 2 percent of beneficiaries report problems finding a new physician, a rate comparable to privately insured adults ages 50 to 64, according to the analysis.
A struggling Long Island hospital devastated by Sandy will file for bankruptcy, according to a state assemblyman who has been briefed by state and hospital officials. Long Beach Medical Center has been closed since last year, leaving hundreds of its employees without jobs when there was no hospital to run. "The reality is, the hospital as it stood will not be the same," said Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg. Weisenberg says the bankruptcy will pave the way for a possible merger with South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside. But what will be left on Long Beach is still uncertain, according to Weisenberg.
David Kwiatkowski's six-month stint at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs medical center was about to end in 2008 when a doctor proposed extending the traveling technician's contract. Don't do it, one nurse warned. "If you keep him, we're going to management, the police, and outside the VA, because you would be putting our licenses in jeopardy," the nurse, Ron Warnick, said amid suspicions that Kwiatkowski was tampering with medications, according to recently released court documents. Kwiatkowski's contract wasn't extended, but he went on to work in nine more hospitals in five states, stealing drugs and infecting patients with hepatitis C through tainted syringes along the way.
Listening to caregivers from other countries, it's easy to feel exasperated about U.S healthcare. American hospitals are filled with good people trying to do good work, but at every turn the system of misplaced incentives gets in the way of good patient care. Indeed, the most pressing problem with American healthcare is that it is too wasteful. Writing in the Harvard Business Review and the Washington Post, two U.S. business professors, Vijay Govindarajan from Dartmouth and Ravi Ramammurti from Northeastern University tell the story of how Indian hospitals deliver better care for much less.
For months, the Obama administration has heralded the low premiums of medical insurance policies on sale in the insurance exchanges created by the new health law. But as consumers dig into the details, they are finding that the deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs are often much higher than what is typical in employer-sponsored health plans. Until now, it was almost impossible for people using the federal health care website to see the deductible amounts, which consumers pay before coverage kicks in. But federal officials finally relented last week and added a "window shopping" feature that displays data on deductibles.