House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday unveiled a fiscal year 2014 budget proposal that would achieve a balanced budget over the next decade by repealing the Affordable Care Act, transitioning Medicare to a premium-support program and turning Medicaid into a block-grant system, USA Today reports (Davis, USA Today, 3/12). Overall, Ryan's 10-year spending blueprint calls for $4.6 trillion in savings, with about $2.7 trillion coming from federal health care programs (Montgomery, Washington Post, 3/12). The plan also would overhaul the tax code to simplify it from seven individual tax brackets to two (USA Today, 3/12).
The ailing West Penn Allegheny Health System can be resuscitated whether or not Highmark Inc. and UPMC sign a long-term contract with each other, the insurer says in new financial projections filed with the state. If the reimbursement contract between the two companies -- which allows Highmark insurance customers to use UPMC health care facilities -- continues "beyond Dec. 31, 2014, WPAHS still captures adequate volume to produce positive results and generate the cash flow necessary to meet its obligations while continuing to invest in capital improvements," the filing says. The recovery will happen at a slower pace, however, because some patient traffic that would be directed toward WPAHS in the event of a Highmark-UPMC split would instead elect to visit UPMC physicians and hospitals.
LOWER MANHATTAN -- New York Downtown Hospital has slashed its entire residency program, leaving more than 70 young doctors scrambling to find new jobs, DNAinfo.com New York has learned. The decision to shutter the doctor training program, which the hospital confirmed officially closes June 30, comes as the financially troubled hospital is about to be taken over by New York-Presbyterian. But while the takeover will rescue the only hospital below 14th Street, several upset Downtown Hospital residents said they feel like they're getting lost in the shuffle, trying to find a placement in a different hospital just months after cutting ties with their union under the mistaken belief that doing so might help them keep their jobs at Downtown Hospital.
(Reuters) - The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday sued to prevent Idaho's largest hospital operator from acquiring the state's largest physician group. The agency and the state's attorney general filed the antitrust complaint under seal in federal district court in Idaho, seeking to block St. Luke's Health System's acquisition of the multi-specialty physician practice group, Saltzer Medical Group. St. Luke's, based in Boise, is the state's largest healthcare provider, with six hospitals and more than 10,000 employees. Saltzer, with 44 physicians, specializes in family practice, internal medicine and pediatrics, according to the FTC. "The combination of St. Luke's and Saltzer would give it the market power to demand higher rates for health care services provided by primary care physicians in Nampa, Idaho and surrounding areas, ultimately leading to higher costs for health care consumers," the FTC said in a statement.
Why, you might ask, would a hoity-toity medical institution like Johns Hopkins be offering up free Web-based consults for people with Parkinson's disease? To prove that it works. Ray Dorsey, director for the Johns Hopkins Movement Disorders Center, is on a mission to convince America that videochats with doctors are as good or better than the traditional office visit. It's a tough sell, since out-of-state doctors are barred from treating patients remotely in most states, and Medicare doesn't pay for telemedicine delivered to a patient's home. "Right now, Medicare pays more when care is provided in a high-cost environment like a hospital," Dorsey says. "We should stop subsidizing high-cost centers of care, and start subsidizing care in low-cost, convenient, patient-centered locations." So Dorsey has been hacking away at those barriers, data bit by data bit
A proposed class-action lawsuit was filed this week against a South Jersey hospital over a rounding system used for payroll that a worker alleges denies proper overtime pay to hourly workers. The lawsuit was filed by Katherine Dohanicz against Underwood-Memorial Hospital and its parent, South Jersey Healthcare, at New Jersey District Court in Camden, N.J.. Dohanicz has worked as a nurse at Underwood-Memorial in Woodbury, Gloucester County, since 1989.