United Healthcare is making inroads in Pennsylvania. United executives believe the pitched Highmark-UPMC battle the past year had created a lot of uncertainty. Many employers took a wait-and-see attitude, holding off any major decisions about changing carriers.
Hospital costs are soaring across the Washington area as the cost of buying the newest technologies jumps and more uninsured patients take their toll. Four hospitals in Northern Virginia charged patients an average of 11 percent more for three dozen services between 2008 and 2010, according to The Washington Examiner's review of the most recent data from Virginia Health Information, a nonpartisan nonprofit that studies health care.
Florida Hospital will set in motion its first attempt at work-force housing in July, when construction starts on a 230-unit apartment complex between Interstate 4 and the giant hospital system's main campus on North Orange Avenue in Orlando. Hospital employees will be given priority, but they will not get discounts and will pay market-rate rents. Florida Hospital hopes to use the project as an employee-recruiting tool.
Accretive Health Inc. is in little danger of losing any more of its customers and is considering doing away with its hospital debt-collection services, the company's chief executive said Wednesday. Accretive Health Inc. is in little danger of losing any more of its customers and is considering doing away with its hospital debt-collection services, the company's chief executive said Wednesday. The practice has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks after Minnesota's Attorney General released a blistering report, accusing the company of unsavory tactics that may have violated debt-collection laws.
Several doctors who once worked at the weight loss surgery centers affiliated with the 1-800-GET THIN campaign have filed a lawsuit against the owners of the clinics, alleging that these doctors’ identities were stolen as part of an extensive false medical-billing scheme. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accuses the brothers who own the surgery centers – Michael and Julian Omidi, their attorneys and several other defendants – of stealing the identities of four Los Angeles County doctors who worked for them.
As the U.S. Senate Finance Committee launched an investigation Tuesday into makers of narcotic painkillers and groups that champion them. Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the finance panel chairman, and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sent letters to The American Pain Foundation, three pharmaceutical companies, and five groups that support pain patients, physicians or research. The Federation of State Medical Boards, the trade group for agencies that license doctors, also received a letter, as did The Joint Commission.