In a $20 million lawsuit, Aetna Insurance claims the Santa Clara County Bay Area Surgical Management is making millions of dollars and enriching doctors by sidestepping state laws meant to protect patients and control costs. The suit says Bay Area Surgical Management has recruited dozens of local doctors to invest in its outpatient facilities and then to refer patients to those facilities, which charge exorbitant prices for medical procedures. The management firm denies the allegations. Aetna's suit reflects the growing discomfort among some local doctors with the network of surgery centers.
What's the overall importance of Tower 5 to health care in the Ohio Valley? Violi: I think Tower 5 ... exemplifies what healthcare should be in the Ohio Valley. ... Tower 5 is actually just the beginning, it's not the end. It is my hope and the hope of others that when we're done, the rest of the hospital will look very much like Tower 5, it will have the same look and feel to it, it will have that same high-tech equipment, the vast majority of the rooms will be private. ... If you've been to Tower 5, you've been into the ICU, you've been to the emergency room, looked at the equipment and looked at the way things are set up there, that's the future.
A 21-year-old Chicago man who began college at age 9 and medical school three years later is about to become the youngest student ever awarded an M.D. by the University of Chicago. Sho Yano, who was reading at age 2, writing at 3 and composing music at 5, will graduate this week from the Pritzker School of Medicine, where he also received a Ph.D. in molecular genetics and cell biology. The school made some accommodations because of Yano's age. Unlike most students, who begin their Ph.D. training after their second year of medical school, Yano began his after his first year. That way, he was about 18 when he began his second year of studies toward his M.D.
Health systems in eastern Wisconsin are taking the first steps toward revamping the way they are paid, laying the groundwork for head-to-head competition on price and quality as well as sweeping changes in the health insurance market. Aurora Health Care is promising employers guaranteed savings if they offer a health plan that requires employees and their families to use only Aurora hospitals, doctors and other services. Froedtert Health, Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare and Columbia St. Mary's Health System are part of a partnership with other health systems in eastern and north-central Wisconsin and northern Illinois that plan to do the same.
The growing scarcity of sterile, injectable drugs is one of the biggest issues confronting hospitals across the country, and will be a key issue at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago this weekend. Health officials blame the shortages on industry consolidation that has left only a handful of generic manufacturers of these drugs, even as the number of drugs going off-patent is growing. Some drugmakers have been plagued by manufacturing problems that have shut down multiple plants or production lines, while others have stopped producing a treatment when profit margins erode too far.
Twenty-four hours after lambasting the proposal in often heated terms, the board of the Jackson Health System on Thursday unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding to forge a new relationship with the University of Miami. The vote suspended —at least temporarily—the bitterest battle in the 60-year history of two of South Florida’s largest and oldest institutions. Despite the vote to accept the deal, board member Joe Arriola, a former UM trustee, said "the business model [with UM] does not work" and insisted Jackson must find a way to break its ties to UM in the next few years.