The nation's health care tab stood at $2.7 trillion in 2011, the latest year available, said nonpartisan number crunchers with the Department of Health and Human Services. That's 17.9 percent of the economy, which averages out to $8,680 for every man, woman and child, far more than any other economically advanced country spends. Still, it was the third straight year of historically low increases in the United States. The 3.9 percent increase meant that health care costs grew in line with the overall economy in 2011 instead of surging ahead as they normally have during a recovery. A health care bill that grows at about the same rate as the economy is affordable; one that surges ahead is not.
Florida Governor Rick Scott kept up his attacks on Obamacare on Monday even after meeting U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, complaining that federal healthcare reforms could cost Florida $26 billion over the next decade. Scott, a vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare, told reporters following the meeting in Washington that Medicaid program costs, which state officials say could mushroom over the next 10 years, continue to be his major concern.
Pediatricians-in-training are more likely to plan to go into primary care, rather than a specialty field, if they have lots of debt from college and medical school, according to a U.S. study. Researchers publishing in Pediatrics also found that the average pediatric resident doctor's debt increased 34 percent between 2006 and 2010. That suggests financial considerations may keep young doctors out of medical specialties, they said, especially those fields that aren't known for paying well but still require extra training.
Athenahealth Inc., a Watertown company that provides electronic record and billing systems to hospitals and other medical industry clients, said it has agreed to buy Epocrates Inc., which has developed point-of-care medical applications that about 330,000 doctors use as reference tools, in many cases on their iPhones. The companies' boards of directors have agreed to a price of $11.75 per share, in cash, for an aggregate purchase price of about $293 million; the purchase price represents a 22 percent premium over Friday's closing price for Epocrates shares on NASDAQ, Athenahealth said in a press release. The transaction is expected to close early in the second quarter, Athenahealth said.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced the first HIPAA breach settlement involving fewer than 500 patients. The Hospice of North Idaho (HONI) agreed to pay $50,000 after an investigation found the organization had violated the HIPAA security rule. HHS' Office for Civil Rights (OCR) began its investigation after HONI reported an unencrypted laptop containing electronic personal health information on 441 people was stolen in June 2010. During the course of its investigation, OCR found HONI failed to conduct a risk analysis to protect personal health information throughout the organization, according to an HHS statement.
More competition between medical centers that perform liver transplants may mean sicker patients get lower-quality donor organs, according to a U.S. study. When more than one center has patients on the same donor list, the centers have an incentive to get organs for as many of their own patients as possible, wrote researchers, whose report appeared in Liver Transplantation.