The Department of Justice is suing the hospice company founded by Florida's Senate president, accusing it of submitting tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent Medicare claims for more than a decade, including while Don Gaetz was vice chairman of the board. Vitas Hospice and Vitas Healthcare submitted claims for emergency services for patients that weren't needed, weren't provided, or were provided to patients who weren't eligible under Medicare requirements, according to the DOJ. The companies set goals for the number of crisis-care days to be billed and pressured their employees to submit more claims so it would get more revenue, the lawsuit said.
As state governments get ready for the Affordable Care Act coverage expansion, some are taking a close look at their networks of health care professionals to make sure they will be able to meet increased demands as more people gain health insurance. California is one of 15 states expected to consider legislation this year that would give advanced practice nurses more independence and authority. Tina Clark is a nurse practitioner at Glide Health Services, a clinic in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, a low-income section of the city. Glide is run by nurses with advanced training. A physician visits the clinic 12 hours a week, to sign forms and consult on difficult cases.
Seven senior IT executives who participated in a focus group conducted by analyst group HIMSS Analytics cited data security concerns -- especially those related to the growing use of personal mobile devices -- as among their top challenges. Other pressing issues included the growth in data storage needs and health information exchange. Although the focus group was small, what the participants said reflected the IT infrastructure priorities of the industry, as represented in a recent survey by the Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS), according to a report on the focus group.
Eligibility for Kentucky's Medicaid program is to be expanded starting in 2014. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear made the announcement Thursday during a news conference in Frankfort. On his official Twitter account, @GovSteveBeshear, Beshear said the move will provide health care coverage for more than 300,000 Kentuckians who are uninsured. Beshear has weighed the Medicaid expansion since the passage of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Under the act, Medicaid eligibility is supposed to be expanded to individuals who are at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Currently, there is no federal requirement that states provide coverage to individuals unless they have dependent children or are pregnant.
Hospital representatives flooded the halls of the General Assembly this week to lobby for more funding and against a proposal that would allow same-day surgery centers to sidestep the state's certification process. Members of the N.C. Hospital Association told lawmakers they have been hit hard by federal and state cutbacks and that losing surgery patients to stand-alone centers could cost them as much as $400 million a year."We are struggling; that's the main message I want legislators to hear," said Tim Rice, chief executive officer of Greensboro-based Cone Health, a member of the N.C. Hospital Association delegation that met with Senate Leader Phil Berger, House Speaker Thom Tillis and other legislators.
Your doctor may not be the biggest fan of the coming electronic health care wave, but marrying mobile technologies with medical know-how has the potential to save lives, dramatically improve patient care, and slash significant costs, even in the poorest urban communities in the world, a new study finds. Researchers at the New Cities Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Paris that seeks to tackle the most intractable issues facing the world's fastest-growing cities, joined by a small team of health-care workers from Rio de Janeiro, recently concluded an 18-month trial in one of the poorest parts of the city, the favela of Santa Marta, a community of 8,000.