Malpractice findings are increasingly easy to find on websites maintained by medical boards in 19 states, but not in Minnesota, where regulators have resisted efforts to make more information available to people who want to check into the backgrounds of their doctors. The Minnesota Board of Medical Practice also doesn't disclose whether doctors have been disciplined by regulators in other states or lost their privileges to work in hospitals and other facilities for surgical mistakes and other problems—information provided in 13 other states.
Hospitals have always said there's nothing they can do to change how people behave once they leave the hopsital. But starting this October that excuse won't wash any more. As part of the new health care law, hospitals will face hefty fines for allowing too many readmissions. At University of Pennsylvania Hospital, Dr. Shreya Kangovi launched a program that focuses on the five poorest zip codes in Philadelphia—responsible for 85 percent of readmissions in the city.
Unless Congress acts, access to health care for seniors and military families will be placed in jeopardy. On March 1, physicians who treat patients with Medicare and TRICARE (the health care program for service members, retirees and their families) face an across-the-board cut of 27 percent due to a flawed formula created by Congress, writes AMA president Peter W. Carmel, MD.
A House committee in Rhode Island was set Tuesday to review legislation that woud change a law governing the sale and mergers of local hospitals. The bill itself is only a paragraph, but the language could have a massive effect on Rhode Island's hospital system.
In a move that defies conventional wisdom, Hahnemann University Hospital is replacing less expensive workers with people who are paid more. Michael Halter, the hospital's chief executive officer, believes that ultimately the change will earn Hahnemann more money and customers, and create a more loyal staff when the labor market becomes competitive again.
Lawmakers last year called for reducing poor patients' use of emergency rooms to save Medicaid $72 million, but state officials' first try at a three-visit limit on "nonemergency" visits to the ER was criticized by doctors and hospitals and struck down by a judge over procedural flaws. The state now has a new plan with a stricter limit: Medicaid will cover zero ER visits if treatment in an emergency room is "not medically necessary" for a health condition.