Insecurity about falling insurance payments and the impact of impending health-care changes are driving droves of cardiologists—among the highest-paid doctors—to leave private practice and become hospital employees. The doctors are seeking to protect their income and get relief from the hassles of managing a business. Hospitals, meanwhile, want closer relationships with doctors as changes loom that will reward efficiency and care coordination both in and out of the hospital.
A Rhode Island state representative wants it to be OK for a doctor or other health care provider to say "sorry" without the threat of legal repercussions hanging over their heads. "Saying 'I'm sorry' is most often a way to express compassion or sympathy to another individual," said Rep. Joseph M. McNamara, D-Warwick.
While training on that halfpipe slope, Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke suffered a torn vertebral artery in her neck that caused bleeding in her brain, an injury that she would die from. The irony is that had the accident occurred in Canada, her family would not have had to come up with more than half a million dollars to pay for her care.
President Obama's nominee to run the nation's Medicare and Medicaid agency can count on receiving more than $160,000 a year in retirement pay for the rest of her life from the country's largest private hospital chain, records show. Marilyn Tavenner, a former executive at Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), was nominated in November to be administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency at the heart of Mr. Obama's health care initiative. She disclosed the arrangement with her old employer in a newly filed government ethics form.
Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy was sentenced Wednesday to 70 months in prison, which shaved a year off his previous sentence of almost seven years. His lawyer, Art Leach, said the lighter sentence could mean that Scrushy will be eligible to be transferred within one of two months from the federal prison in Beaumont, Texas to a halfway house.
Health Affairs is out with a four-year look back at Massachusetts health reform. It has some good news (coverage has gone up!) and not-so-good news (health care isn't getting any cheaper). With the Massachusetts reforms serving as the model for the federal law, it's worth taking a look at what has and hasn't worked in the Bay State reforms.