When it comes to healthcare, Congressional attempts to reduce the federal budget deficit pose a greater risk to U.S. states' finances than an expansion of the insurance program for the poor known as Medicaid, Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday. In June, the Supreme Court struck down part of the 2009 healthcare reform law compelling states to cover more people with Medicaid, and many conservative governors embraced the decision as a way to opt out of the expansion. Ultimately, a state's decision to opt in or out of the expansion will likely not affect its ratings, Moody's said.
Texas' top insurance regulator has rescinded new rules designed to help consumers avoid a common pitfall when they seek medical treatment—big bills for out-of-network care—a move that angers consumer advocates and doctors groups. The rules were meant to give more than 4 million Texans covered by preferred provider organization health plans, or PPOs, more information about whether they'd pay the higher out-of-network costs if they were hospitalized and seen by a specialist. But state Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman suspended most new protections against "balance billing" in December, six months before they were to take effect.
The Jackson Health System announced Monday it's seeking proposals to outsource physician services in all its emergency rooms as well as looking for a company to handle its billing and collections. "We have not made the decision to outsource either of these service lines," said Chief Executive Carlos Migoya in an email to county political leaders. "We are simply taking the common sense step of exploring and understanding all the available options in two important areas." Migoya noted that outsourcing physician services is common at many hospitals, including Jackson North as well as the Broward public hospitals in both the north and south districts.
Healthcare providers are being pushed to deliver more cost effective medical care and to improve the health of not just individual patients but large populations. One key to carrying out both mandates is finding more clinically effective treatment options. Enter comparative effectiveness research. CER compares two or more accepted treatments to determine which are most effective. Medical informatics comes into the picture because it's now possible to get these projects off the ground by analyzing huge patient databases. And much of that patient data can now be gleaned from electronic health record systems.
A U.S. health panel may soon make HIV testing as standard a practice as checking cholesterol levels, a move that would fundamentally change how the virus is detected and treated. The U.S. Preventive Services Task force, a government-backed group of clinicians and scientists, is expected to make a new recommendation on HIV screening available for public comment before the end of the year. Health officials close to the panel, speaking on condition of anonymity, see it making a positive recommendation for routine screening, updating their current position, issued in 2005, which leaves the decision up to doctors.
A cardiologist who studies the safety of heart devices said surgeons should stop using a component sold by St. Jude Medical until more is known about the long-term safety of the device. The cardiologist, Dr. Robert G. Hauser of Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, made his comments as a study he conducted was published online. His research suggests that a proprietary material used by St. Jude to coat wires that connect an implanted defibrillator to a patient’s heart is breaking down prematurely and, in some cases, leading to failure of the device. The study was published by EP Europace, a British cardiology journal.