A proposal by the Maryland Hospital Association circulated to policymakers in recent weeks details a plan to shift costs to private payers by raising the rates they pay hospitals by 7 percent over three years while giving sharp discounts to the Medicare program for seniors and the Medicaid program for the poor. Once phased in, the plan would raise charges for commercial insurers and their customers by about $350 million a year and increase their price for a typical hospital admission by $900—in addition to underlying healthcare inflation.
Two doctors who once worked at a Pompano Beach pain clinic are among 11 people facing charges in connection with a three-year pill mill investigation headed by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Dr. Mark Cukierman, 56, was charged with racketeering and delivery of a controlled substance, among other charges. Dr. Michael Fronstin, 75, was arrested on charges of illegally prescribing a controlled substance by a practitioner and delivery of a controlled substance, according to a DEA spokesperson. The two are among seven doctors, three clinic owners and one of their relatives charged with racketeering and other criminal violations in South Florida. They all at one point or another worked at Pompano Beach Medical, formerly known as Pain Management Inc., said DEA spokeswoman Mia Ro.
When Bill Buck accidentally cut off the tip of his finger at his Duarte cabinet workshop two years ago, he headed to Huntington Memorial Hospital's emergency room. He assumed his insurance company would sort out the $12,630 bill from the plastic surgeon, Jeannette Martello. But Martello wasn't satisfied with the $3,500 insurance reimbursement, so she returned the check and filed a lawsuit against Buck, his wife and his business for the full amount. Martello's use of aggressive tactics prompted an unprecedented court case by state health officials and a judge's order for Martello to cease the practices. The state's lawsuit against Martello, however, is the first of its kind, according to Marta Green, California Department of Managed Health Care spokeswoman.
Medical informatics involves everything from developing ways to improve medication safety and electronic patient records to "Medical Moneyball," the analysis of patients' medical and genetic data by clinicians and researchers to search for patterns and create computer models to help make treatments more effective. Dr. Jonathan Bickel, Boston Children's Hospital's director of clinical research informatics, is Children's "Medical Moneyball" research chief. Like statistics geek Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill in the film "Moneyball"), Bickel is the analytics apostle who acts as the liaison between doctors and researchers and a team of eight software engineers. Bickel's work is helping researchers analyze patient data for nuggets of information to create what are called predictive models to better deliver healthcare.
Hartford HealthCare and Backus Healthcare System have agreed to affiliate, it was announced Friday, growing the size of the Hartford health system and expanding health offerings in eastern Connecticut. The agreement, which is subject to approval by state and federal regulators, outlines how the affiliation would work as Backus becomes a part of Hartford HealthCare. The approval-seeking process is expected to take several months. It calls for the creation of an eastern health region for Hartford HealthCare—which would include New London and Windham counties—with the Backus Health System as the region's central care center.
The state Senate's top Democrat, Darrell Steinberg, is making a last-minute push for a bill that would allow some injured people to seek recovery for medical bills that are larger than what their doctors and hospitals actually collected. The goal, Steinberg says, is to generate more money for Medi-Cal, the state's version of Medicaid. Indeed, state and federal laws have made it difficult for Medi-Cal to recover much of what it spends on medical care even when the victims win judgments against the people who injured them. But Steinberg wants to solve that problem the wrong way.