Rodney Hicks, who holds a doctorate in his field and taught under an endowed professorship, had earned high reviews as both a nurse and an academic. Months earlier, the Texas Tech University Health Science Center's School of Nursing had named him "Outstanding Teacher of the Year." In more than 30 years of nursing practice he'd never had a patient complaint filed against him, court records say. Colleagues praised his high ethical standards. But when the single college student who saw the mistakenly posted graphic discussion reported it, none of that mattered. Hicks said he left his university job under pressure in 2011.
The government has seized tax refunds and unemployment checks, claimed judgments against them in federal court, banned them from billing Medicare and Medicaid, even posted their names on a public shaming list. Yet 930 medical professionals nationwide remain in default, owing the government more than $116 million for loans many stopped repaying more than 18 years ago.
Some of the nation's most prominent Republican governors have moved to embrace a key feature of President Obama's healthcare law, providing a significant boost to the administration and highlighting a fissure inside the GOP on an emerging campaign issue. At stake is the goal of expanding health insurance under the Medicaid program, one of two main ways the law is to provide coverage to those who lack it.
The previous owner of University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center has agreed to pay the federal government $4.9 million for overbilling the Medicaid and Medicare system by keeping patients in the hospital longer than needed. Catholic Health Initiatives, which recently sold the hospital to University of Maryland Medical System, did not admit to wrongdoing under the settlement announced Thursday. The medical company said in a statement that it wanted to avoid lengthy and costly court proceedings.
President Obama on Thursday renominated Marilyn Tavenner to one of the top healthcare posts in the administration. It's the second time Obama has nominated Tavenner to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the agency that oversees Medicare, Medicaid and most of the implementation of President Obama's signature healthcare law.
Proposals for a so-called "sick tax" on hospitals used to be a non-starter in Utah. But the idea gained favor in 2010 as a means to help the recession-starved state cover the costs of treating the poor. Now hospitals, once opposed to the bed tax, are pushing a bill to reauthorize it for another three years. Money generated by the tax is used to backfill state funding cuts to the low-income Medicaid—money needed to draw down federal funding.