An executive at Steward Health Care System told presidents of Steward's hospitals Monday that the Boston-based chain "unilaterally withdrew" from talks to acquire Mercy Health System in Maine after concluding Mercy had misrepresented its finances. The account given in a confidential memo from Steward director of media relations Chris Murphy, obtained by the Globe, differed from a statement Steward and Mercy released jointly late Friday afternoon saying the letter of intent to merge had been terminated because the parties "were unable to come to a definitive agreement" during negotiations.
Top officials in Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration used personal email accounts to craft a media strategy for imposing hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid cuts—a method of communication that can make it more difficult to track under public records laws despite Jindal's pledge to bring more transparency to state government. Emails reviewed by The Associated Press reveal that non-state government email addresses were used dozens of times by state officials to communicate last summer about a public relations offensive for making $523 million in health care cuts.
The American Red Cross is one of the nation's most venerable and largest charitable organizations, founded in 1881, with revenues of $3.5 billion in 2010. That year, Red Cross CEO Gail J. McGovern took home total compensation of $1.04 million. Two executives at Lancaster General Health—CEO and President Tom Beeman and Executive Vice President Jan Bergen—got more. By nonprofit healthcare standards, top LGH officials were paid in line with industry norms. Those norms, say a growing legion of critics, are scandalous.
A year after a young amputee left the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania with transplanted hands and forearms, the lead surgeon calls her progress "nothing less than spectacular." Yet Penn has no waiting list for hand transplants. The distinguished medical center is part of an ironic trend: Availability of the complex reconstructive surgery has been growing faster than demand for it.
A distinguished vascular specialist in his 80s performs surgery, then goes on vacation, forgetting he has patients in the hospital; one subsequently dies because no doctor was overseeing his care. An internist who suffered a stroke gets lost going from one exam room to another in his own office. A beloved general surgeon with Alzheimer's disease continues to assist in operations because hospital officials don't have the heart to tell him to retire. These real-life examples, provided by an expert who evaluates impaired physicians, exemplify an emotionally charged issue that is attracting the attention of patient safety experts and hospital administrators: how to ensure that older doctors are competent to treat patients.
For more than a year, politicians have been fighting over whether to raise taxes on high-income people. They rarely mention that affluent Americans will soon be hit with new taxes adopted as part of the 2010 health care law. The new levies, which take effect in January, include an increase in the payroll tax on wages and a tax on investment income, including interest, dividends and capital gains. The Obama administration proposed rules to enforce both last week. Affluent people are much more likely than low-income people to have health insurance, and now they will, in effect, help pay for coverage for many lower-income families. Among the most affluent fifth of households, those affected will see tax increases averaging $6,000 next year, economists estimate.