Edward Marshall, 67, who lives in London, became the first of nearly 400 people to sue the London hospital and 11 cardiologists, including Patil, claiming they conspired to perform unnecessary, risky and often painful heart procedures to unjustly enrich themselves. The suits, which also name the hospital's parent company, Catholic Health Initiatives, allege that two patients died and that the others will be required to take dangerous blood-thinning medications for life and are at risk of other potentially fatal complications. The hospital and other physicians named as defendants deny the allegations.
Health insurers are facing new rules and restrictions on how they set prices as part of the Affordable Care Act's aim to expand coverage to millions of Americans. No longer can insurers deny coverage because of a preexisting condition or place lifetime limits on medical care. While a person's age will remain a factor in setting rates, older customers cannot be charged more than three times what younger customers pay. California also has rejected an option under the federal law that allows health insurance companies to charge smokers up to 50 percent more for their premiums. All this leaves geography as one of the few ways insurers can adjust premiums. The premiums will not be set for most consumers under the law until summer, although estimates are available at the website of California's health benefits exchange.
Dr. Ben Carson says he didn't anticipate the reaction to what he considered his common-sense remarks as keynote speaker this month at the National Prayer Breakfast. But after video went viral of the trailblazing black neurosurgeon taking jabs at Barack Obama's health care overhaul a few feet from the president himself, some want the famed doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to parlay the attention into a new career: politics.
Mail-order and online druggist Express Scripts said on Monday its earnings jumped almost 74 percent as more people used generic drugs and it continued to absorb Medco Health Solutions. Express Scripts Holding Co. acquired Medco last April, making it the largest pharmacy benefits manager by far. It now manages more than a billion prescriptions every year.
When a patient was moved from the intensive care unit to a regular hospital bed, it used to be routine for Dr. Anthony Granato to order 24 hours of heart monitoring, just in case. A few years ago, his thinking changed: If the patient was in good enough condition to be out of the ICU, he would not need the extra monitoring at a cost of more than $1,000 per day. The main reason for the shift for Granato, a pulmonary critical care doctor, is a program introduced in a dozen New Jersey hospitals in 2009, including Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch and CentraState medical Center in Freehold Township. It pays doctors when they save money for the hospitals as they treat patients covered by Medicare.
Dr. Love, a surgeon, is best known as the author of the top-selling "Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book" (Da Capo Press, 2010) now in its fifth edition. She is also president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, which focuses on breast cancer prevention and research into eradicating the disease. But after decades of tireless advocacy on behalf of women with breast cancer, Dr. Love found herself in an unfamiliar role with an unfamiliar disease.