Doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers from around the nation—107 in all—were charged Wednesday in what federal officials in Washington called a "nationwide takedown" against medical professionals they said fraudulently billed Medicare out of nearly half a billion dollars in bogus claims. The sweep of arrests in seven major cities, where some $455 million was allegedly fraudulently billed, marked the highest amount of false claims in a single raid in the history of the federal strike force. The strike force was convened to combat rising fraud in the medical industry; the Obama administration said the scope of the investigation means that it is continuing to get tough on those preying on the Medicare assistance system during the recession.
Eminent domain, the principle that allows government to force a landowner to sell, is usually thought of as serving public purposes. But in the last two years Dallas County's public hospital district has been adventuring in a new version—eminent domain for profit. Acting on a 2008 consultant's proposal, Parkland Memorial Hospital has been acquiring far more land than it requires for its new $1.3 billion hospital building and campus, some of it as far as half a mile from the construction site. The hospital's leaders hope their own new campus and a nearby DART station will drive up the value of some of the land they have acquired, including land taken by eminent domain, creating an opportunity for the hospital to get some needed income—the basic idea behind the 2008 consultant's recommendation.
When a team of moving men showed up in the surgery suite of MedWest-Harris two years ago and rolled a specialized spinal surgery table out the door, news that Harris' equipment was being raided by its sister hospital on the other side of the mountain spread like wildfire through the halls of doctors' offices in Jackson County. The hospitals in Haywood and Jackson were a mere three months in to a joint venture at the time. The premise: working together the two hospitals would be stronger than going it alone. But, stripping the spine table from Harris' operating room quickly became a large-than-life symbol of the struggle for Jackson County doctors to hang on to their autonomy under the new MedWest banner.
Whether nurses should be allowed to administer anesthesia without doctor supervision has been playing out here and around the country in recent months. In Colorado the issue has prompted a legal battle. Since Colorado’s rural hospitals were exempted from the supervision regulation in 2010, some medical facilities that may not have employed anesthesiologists have been able to attract specialists because there is no longer a concern about who would administer anesthesia or supervise, said Scott K. Shaffer, president of the nurse anesthetists association in Colorado. In 2010, anesthesiologist and medical societies filed a lawsuit in state court asserting that allowing nurse anesthetists to deliver anesthesia without supervision was not consistent with state law, a requirement for opting out of the federal rule.
The Colorado Springs City Council gave Memorial Health System's board an ultimatum Tuesday: resign or be fired. After meeting in executive session for 1 ½ hours, the council voted 7-0 to ask the city-owned hospital's Board of Trustees to resign voluntarily by 5 p.m. Wednesday or be removed from office. Council members Bernie Herpin and Brandy Williams were absent. The council's request comes after the board voted to give outgoing Memorial CEO Dr. Larry McEvoy a $1.15 million separation agreement that includes $1 million in severance pay, a 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid and $20,000 to help find a new job.
More than 1.6 million Ohioans could find different companies managing their Medicaid benefits next year. Determined to shave costs, Gov. John Kasich and his top healthcare advisers are streamlining the system to five statewide health plans and three regions starting in January 2013, instead of 38 health plans in 10 regions currently. Changes to the managed care plans, a contrast with traditional medical care where doctors are paid for specific procedures or visits, will save $144 million during the next two years, the state's top health care officials say. Ohio's Medicaid costs of about $4.8 billion this year are nearly one-fifth of the state budget and growing.