Tenet Healthcare Corp. has signed a multiple-year agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, but two of Tenet's hospitals in the St. Louis area are still struggling to renew their contracts with WellPoint health plans in Missouri. Under a new contract, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois members will have access beginning March 1 to health services at St. Louis University Hospital and Des Peres Hospital, which are both owned by Dallas-based Tenet.
Kaiser Permanente, one of the country's largest healthcare providers, plans to announce Thursday that it is converting its intravenous equipment to more eco-friendly alternatives free of two chemicals that have been shown to harm humans and the environment, officials said. Kaiser will buy IV solution bags that are 100 percent free of PVC and DEHP and intravenous tubing that is free of DEHP. The two chemicals are widely used in medical products. DEHP, or di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, used to make plastic bags and tubing more pliable, has been linked to reproductive problems and other health effects. When PVC plastic is manufactured or incinerated, it creates dioxin pollution, a known carcinogen.
Personal health data on thousands of Minnesota patients was shared with a debt collection company that shouldn't have access to such information, Attorney General Lori Swanson said Thursday. Swanson filed a lawsuit against the company, Chicago-based Accretive Health, alleging that it failed to protect patient healthcare records and failed to disclose to patients how their records are used. The lawsuit stems from the theft last year in Minneapolis of a laptop belonging to an Accretive Health employee. The laptop contained unencrypted health data of about 23,500 Fairview Health Services and North Memorial Health Care patients.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the House of Representatives vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. If you don't see many cakes or balloons, that probably has a lot to do with the fact that the vote didn't change much. The health reform law still stands. Repealing the Job Killing Health Care Law Act, or HR 2, was dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But that doesn't mean the health reform law has survived the past two years completely intact. Both Congress and the administration have repealed, stalled or backed off on a handful of health provisions, including one major new insurance program.
UnitedHealth Group Inc.'s fourth-quarter profit rose 21%, helped by growing health-insurance membership, signs of light health-care usage in some areas and fast-rising sales in the company's Optum health-services unit. The Minneapolis-based company, the largest managed-care concern by revenue, capped a strong year helped by a continued trend of muted patient traffic in hospitals and doctors' offices. Still, UnitedHealth held its 2012 guidance in check while maintaining a guarded outlook for the new year. The company anticipates patients will ramp up medical-system use, and it is making big investments related to the U.S. health-care overhaul law and changes in its pharmacy-benefits business, among other pressure points.
Healthcare insurance coverage for Eastman Kodak employees and retirees has not been affected by the company's bankruptcy filing—but MVP Health Care, which provides that coverage, has nonetheless been bombarded with phone calls today. Consequently, the company has scheduled a series of information meetings in the first week of February to allay concerns and explain options for the future. Many inquiries have been from retirees who are concerned about the possibility that coverage could change or disappear as Kodak moves through bankruptcy court, said MVP spokesman Gary Hughes.