WakeMed CEO Bill Atkinson finally found his audience Monday at a legislative committee charged with deciding whether the state should own Rex Hospital, WakeMed's cross-town rival. For more than a year, Atkinson has lodged the same litany of complaints against Rex and its owner, UNC Health Care. Atkinson's list of grievances is long: Rex doesn't pick up its fair share of charity care, Rex competes unfairly in Wake County with advantages harnessed through ties to UNC, Rex and UNC stole away a cardiology practice that helped offset losses at WakeMed.
A Florida man and his family have won a $178 million judgment against the HCA-owned Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville, FL, and a doctor accused in the lawsuit of medical negligence in a case involving weight-loss surgery gone awry. A Duval County, FL, jury found Memorial was liable for damages of $168 million. And on Monday, the jury awarded an additional $10 million in punitive damages in the case.
A federal judge on Wednesday will resentence former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out two of his convictions in a government corruption case. A federal jury in 2006 convicted Scrushy and former Gov. Don Siegelman of bribery and honest services fraud. Prosecutors accused Scrushy of buying a seat on a hospital regulatory board by arranging $500,000 in donations to Siegelman's signature political issue, a campaign to establish a state lottery.
With the tardy addition of the Sutter Health breach, the U.S. tally of major healthcare information breaches now includes 385 incidents affecting more than 19 million individuals since September 2009. The Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights recently added the Sutter Health breach, which occurred in October, to its official tally of breaches affecting 500 or more individuals. It adds incidents once it confirms the details.
The top hospital administrators in Western New York took home more than $53 million in compensation during 2010, with four executives earning $1 million-plus paydays. Hospital presidents and chief executives at the region's two largest health systems were among the top earners, with James Kaskie, president and CEO of Kaleida Health, earning $2.36 million; and Joseph McDonald, president and CEO at Catholic Health, earning nearly $1.1 million.
Children's Hospital Boston has agreed to a three-year contract with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts that will not pay Children's any more money this year, offering fresh evidence that the clamor to contain health costs is having an effect. In the second and third years of the pact, the hospital will be reimbursed by Blue Cross Blue Shield at a rate neither party would specify, but both said it was below the current 3 percent rate of medical inflation.