With zeal, excitement and a meticulous attention to detail, the administration of Gov. Mark Dayton is trying to expand health insurance coverage and remake Minnesota's insurance market along the lines envisioned by President Obama. But one notable group has been missing from the process: Republicans, who control both houses of the State Legislature. Mr. Dayton, a Democrat, and the Republicans find themselves in an icy standoff. The situation is a case study of the politics found in state capitols around the country as officials grapple with a crucial element of the new federal healthcare law.
The official opening Tuesday of Johns Hopkins Hospital's two 12-story towers will mark the final step in the largest hospital project in Maryland history. The facility, in the works since the 1990s, will change the way Hopkins practices medicine. Construction of the 1.6 million-square-foot facility with 560 private rooms was a five-year undertaking. The move of nearly 350 patients, which will be completed Monday, required similar precision in planning and execution. Over two years, staff took training courses and participated in several mock runs, with volunteers playing patients, to prepare for the real event.
The frequent prescription of narcotics in emergency departments for dental pain has been quantified for the first time by research financed by the National Institutes of Health. From 1997 to 2007, painkillers were prescribed in three of four visits to the emergency department for dental complaints; roughly half of visits resulted in a prescription for antibiotics, according to a new analysis of the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey by Dr. Christopher Okunseri, a practicing dentist and an associate professor of public health at the Marquette University School of Dentistry in Milwaukee.
The U.S. hospital industry's largest trade association said the Obama administration's $14.6 billion program to encourage doctors to adopt electronic medical records is too ambitious and goals may not be met. More than 80 percent of hospitals have yet to achieve the requirements of the program's first stage, Rick Pollack, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association, said today in a 68-page letter to the Health and Human Services Department. He cited "the high bar set and market factors, such as accelerating costs and limited vendor capacity." Meeting goals for the program is also being complicated by a widening "digital divide" between large urban hospitals and small rural ones, according to Pollack.
When hospitals send bill collectors to patient bedsides, file suits against the sick, all while erecting sparkling new buildings as they raise prices for their care, observers wonder whether the money is coming before the mission. In Illinois, an apparent lack of charity care by nonprofit hospitals has resulted in some big-name medical centers losing their tax-exemptions, leading state lawmakers in the next month to come up with a definition of charity care to justify tax exemptions before even more nonprofit hospitals lose their tax exemptions and are forced to pay taxes. Some see it as just the beginning of legislation to spread nationwide.
Indiana's hospital boards and trial lawyers are closely monitoring a lawsuit that accuses the state's largest hospital group of charging uninsured patients more for treatment than insured patients. The case, set for May 10 arguments before the Indiana Supreme Court, involves a 2010 lawsuit by two uninsured patients who accuse IU Health of overbilling them. Although their breach-of-contract claims in the case amount to just a few thousand dollars, the legal stakes are high. Indianapolis trial lawyer Scott Weathers said a favorable ruling for his two clients could allow patients to sue over billings as far back as 10 years.