A California-based hospital company says it will not comply with at least two National Labor Relations Board rulings from the past year after a federal court invalidated three of President Barack Obama's recess appointments to the NLRB last week. Prime Healthcare Services, which owns 21 hospitals in California and three other states, told Reuters on Wednesday that it had informed one of its employee unions that it would not follow an NLRB ruling mandating the collection of union dues even after a collective bargaining agreement has expired, or a ruling compelling employers to provide unions with certain materials during internal investigations.
The Mayo Clinic is asking the state to inject half a billion dollars into the Rochester area to ensure that the city's development keeps pace with the medical institution's ambitious growth plans. Mayo executives and Gov. Mark Dayton said Wednesday that the money would act as a catalyst for perhaps $2 billion in private investment, on top of $3.5 billion Mayo has already pledged to upgrade its own facilities in the coming years.
Recent comments made by members of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) make clear the organization doubts hospitals' ability to submit accurate and complete data through electronic health records (EHRs). CHIME members' comments were made in response to a Jan. 3 Request for Information (RFI) issued by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The state Senate's insurance committee wasted little time Thursday in approving a bill to block expansion of Medicaid to poor adults in North Carolina and to require the state to hand over all aspects of its new health insurance exchange to the federal government. Senate Bill No. 4, also known as the No N.C. Exchange/No Medicaid Expansion law, is a response to the Affordable Care Act, which requires states to establish an online marketplace, known as an exchange, for consumers in need of low-cost insurance. The act also allows but cannot require states to expand Medicaid to cover certain categories of low-income adults now excluded from the federal health insurance program.
Colorado is preparing to expand health assistance for low-income adults, and Democratic lawmakers indicated Thursday that they're not going to entertain GOP attempts to put curbs on that expansion. The Senate Education Committee rejected a GOP proposal to make K-12 education a higher priority than looming Medicaid expansion. The 5-4 party-line vote was the first indication that state lawmakers are going along with Gov. John Hickenlooper's decision to expand Medicaid as part of the federal health care law.
Minnesota's latest annual report on adverse medical events shows that after nine years of owning up to mistakes, hospitals and surgery centers are still making the same rare but severe errors in patient care. Hospitals can require doctors to pause and double-check their procedures—and yet 53 times last year they performed the wrong surgeries on Minnesota patients or cut into the wrong body parts.