A former executive at a Santa Fe, N.M., hospital has been accused of bilking the care center out of more than $3 million by funneling the money through corporations that he owned in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas that were controlled by a woman with whom he had a personal relationship, according to a recently filed lawsuit. The Albuquerque Journal reports Great American Insurance Co. filed the lawsuit Friday against Richard Crabtree. It accuses him and other defendants of engaging in a "pervasive scheme" to misappropriate money from Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.
Geisinger Health System in central Pennsylvania announced this week that it will test all new job applicants for nicotine use beginning in February, and those who test positive will not be hired. Then, beginning in 2013, the Geisinger's health insurance arm will charge a higher premium for current employees who acknowledge that they smoke or chew tobacco.
It seems scary to think that a medical provider might still be foggy with sleep while he's caring for patients. But it could be argued that such mid-shift catnaps may actually be protective. Napping may be the answer to certain hospital safety problems that have vexed patient-safety experts and sleep scientists for years: the medical errors caused by overtired doctors and nurses on long shifts.
Revisit the in-depth stories featured on the cover of award-winning HealthLeaders magazine this year. We covered healthcare reform, accountable care organizations, mergers and acquisitions, and health information technology, among other issues.
January: Healthcare Reform Spawns Daunting Regulations By Cheryl Clark The volume of new regulations required by healthcare reform legislation is daunting, but what has healthcare leaders especially concerned are the particulars, which are still under development. February: Does E-Health Stand a Remote Chance? By Gienna Shaw As technology advances and costs fall, the use of telemedicine expands, but obstacles to achieving e-health success remain.
March: Reform Sharpens Focus on Quality Outcomes By Joe Cantlupe Hospital leaders who are achieving quality outcomes are doing so by forming leadership teams to evaluate initiatives on a daily basis, improving data collection methods, and eliminating medical errors.
April: In an ACO, Who's Accountable? By Philip Betbeze Under the current payment system, hospitals are the hub of the healthcare experience. But other organizations, most commonly health plans, large multispecialty physician practices, and medical service organizations can also serve as the "accountable" party in an accountable care organization.
May: The New ED: Keep Patients Out (but Happy) By Cheryl Clark The emergency department is being asked to pave a path that may lead out of the hospital as much as it leads patients inside. It is becoming a U-turn lane of sorts for patients who can be, more effectively and less expensively, cared for at home or in another setting.
June: Nonprofit Hospitals: Will Margin Change Mean Mission Change? By Philip Betbeze
Health reform legislation will greatly reduce the number of uninsured. Though it’s difficult to predict how that might affect nonprofits’ bottom lines, with states and the feds hungry for revenue, nonprofits’ tax exemptions will certainly face future scrutiny.
July: The Hospital of the Future By Gienna Shaw Reform-era strategy requires leaders to find balance among their unique market position, culture, and core competencies. Hospitals are finding the best solutions to provider collaboration by structuring leadership.
August: Nurse Education Key to Scope-of-Care Debate By Cheryl Clark The nursing profession is in an upheaval. Nurses want more opportunities to learn alongside doctors. But there is tension between nursing leadership and some physician groups over the scope of what advanced practice nurses, including nurse practitioners, should be allowed to do.
September: Group Practice Innovators: Investing in Success By Karen Minich-Pourshadi Group practice innovators have been creating their own approaches to treat high-risk and chronic-care patients. The efforts of two group practices offer insights on achieving sustainable results that can benefit not just individual practices, but also hospitals, health systems, and payers.
October: Patient Engagement Takes Physician Leadership By Joe Cantlupe As providers become increasingly accountable for healthcare outcomes, patient engagement grows in significance. Individuals should take responsibility for their health, but what role do the providers play in turning consumers of care into partners in care?
November: M&A Finding the Right Match By Margaret Dick Tocknell The merger and acquisition process can be risky and frustrating. Healthcare leaders must appreciate what makes a hospital or health system an attractive M&A participant, when to make a deal, and what makes a deal go bad.
December: 20 People Who Make Healthcare Better—2011 By HealthLeaders Media Staff In our annual HealthLeaders 20, we profile individuals who are changing healthcare for the better. Some are longtime industry fixtures; others would clearly be considered outsiders. These are their stories.
Updated December 30, 2011. Contributors: Cheryl Clark, Karen Minich-Pourshadi, and Rebecca Hendren.
1.Top 12 Healthcare Buzzwords for 2012 Our third annual list of healthcare buzzwords and catchphrases includes a handful of terms that are really oxymorons. And if you think about it, that's the very theme of health reform today.
2.Top 10 Healthcare Quality Issues for 2011 These are the top quality challenges healthcare providers faced this year. Many, such as imaging exposure effects, central line infections, and medical data breaches dominated headlines in 2010.
3.Eleven Hot Healthcare Buzzwords for 2011 With rapid changes to the healthcare industry come terms and phrases every provider should know. We've rounded up 11 of the most-overheard buzzwords related to health information technology, healthcare marketing, and health system administration.
4.Five Reasons Nurses Want to Leave Your Hospital Are your nurses engaged, committed employees? Or are they biding their time until they can go somewhere better? Onerous overtime policies are just one issue that has nurses eyeing the exits.
5.Twelve Ways to Reduce Hospital Readmissions With hospital readmission rates as high one in five nationwide, we asked experts for tips on getting the numbers down. Some strategies aren't yet proven, but many providers are experimenting with anything that sounds plausible.
6.Top 12 Uncertainties Hovering Over Healthcare If ever there was a year in which "anything could happen" in healthcare, 2012 just might be it. Numerous major decisions, regulations, and policy rollouts loom, including how severely physicians' pay will be cut and whether the Affordable Care Act itself is a constitutional document. We look at a dozen potential game changers.
7.Readmission Rates Revealed for 292 Worst Hospitals A mention next to the word "worse" in one of the latest Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' HospitalCompare data files is the kind of achievement no hospital aspires to. The list highlights some 292 hospitals whose 30-day readmission rates are the highest in the nation in at least one of three disease categories.
8.Fifteen HCAHPS Buzzwords Every Provider Should Know The value-based purchasing sweepstakes race is on. It's a national contest to see which acute care teams can score highest in patient experience metrics as evaluated by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey. Knowing the lingo is essential.
9.Four Unpleasant Predictions for 2012 HealthLeaders Media research sheds light on how financial leaders are responding to this year’s challenges, and what problems are looming next.
10.CMS Releases Value-Based Purchasing Incentive Plan The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued a long-awaited proposal on so-called value-based purchasing incentives, which will begin rewarding hospitals for meeting standards of quality care in fiscal year 2013.
11.Thirteen Hot ACO Buzzwords All Providers Should Know Just in time to accompany the proposed accountable care organization guidelines from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, comes a handy glossary of federal healthcare policy lingo.
12. $3 Million Prize Offered to Solve Hospital Admissions Puzzle The head of an accountable care organization-like physician network is offering a hefty prize for the design of a predictive model that can be used to prevent unnecessary hospitalizations and readmissions—and potentially realize savings of up to $30 billion nationwide.
Opposition to the administration's overhaul of health care has almost become an article of faith with every Republican running for president. "It is wrong for healthcare. It's wrong for the American people. It's unconstitutional. And I'm absolutely adamantly opposed to ObamaCare," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said at a debate in Des Moines, Iowa, earlier this month. "I am for the repeal of Obamacare," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich echoes in a video on his website. By now, it's pretty common knowledge that both candidates once supported the so-called individual mandate that's at the heart of the federal health law.