For about 90 minutes Wednesday afternoon, it appeared that the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance had made a crucial decision in the ongoing contract dispute between Highmark and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. On its website, on a page dedicated to answering frequently asked questions about the dispute, the site stated: "Once the contract expires, UPMC providers will be considered out-of-network." After queries from the Post-Gazette, though, the department quickly changed the wording to say UPMC providers "may be considered out-of-network." Insurance department spokeswoman Melissa Fox said it is still awaiting information from the two parties that will clarify whether UPMC physicians will be in-network for Highmark members during a one-year run-out period to June 30, 2013.The issue has been a major point of contention between health system UPMC and insurer Highmark since negotiations to renew their 10-year contract broke down earlier this year.
Several dozen doctors, nurses, employees and community supporters gathered at Knapp Medical Center this week to rally against embattled CEO James Summersett. "CEO's got to go," the crowd chanted, waving signs that read "Summersett we regret" and bearing red shirts proclaiming "Save Our Hospital." The 226-bed nonprofit hospital at 1401 E. Eighth St. opened in Weslaco in 1962 and employs about 1,000 people. Summersett took leadership of it in 2005, rubbing some the wrong way since then. "The final straw was the emergency room doctors had their contracts terminated," said Dr. Sandra Esquivel, a surgeon at Knapp. "It matters who our emergency room doctors are." Esquivel said a communication problem between the hospital and the group contracted to provide emergency services to the hospital had caused the contract to not be renewed.
HealthSouth Corp. CEO Jay Grinney said an Obama administration plan to target rehabilitation hospitals may force him to close facilities and would cost $26 million if it were in place now. The Birmingham, Alabama-based in-patient rehabilitation company fell $1.48, or 9%, to $15.02 at 4:03 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the lowest since Oct. 30, 2009. It's the third straight decline after the administration recommended to Congress $7 billion in cuts to the industry. HealthSouth has about $2 billion in annual revenue. Adoption of the proposal may force the company to shut a "limited number" of its 94 hospitals, 38 of which would comply with the plan, Grinney said. He called investors' reaction "just irrational fear," after Obama proposed Sept. 19 reviving a rule that hospitals show at least 75% of patients meet criteria for rehabilitation. The threshold is now 60%.
Nearly 1 million more young adults have obtained health insurance since the 2010 healthcare law began requiring insurers to let adult children stay on their parents' plans until age 26, according to government data released Wednesday. The jump in enrollment caused the share of young adults who are uninsured to drop from 34% at the start of 2010 to 30% — or 9.1 million people — by March of this year, according to a national interview survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A Gallup poll also unveiled Wednesday pointed to an almost identical pattern. Young adults remain more likely to go without health insurance than any other age group. Still, after the recent stream of dismal poverty and unemployment statistics, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius welcomed Wednesday's findings as "a really great achievement."
Hannah Otepka remembers when people in a rural village in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, would line up outside the mobile health clinic. It was 2006, and Otepka, a third-year medical student at Creighton University, and her colleagues did the only thing they could — they handed four ibuprofen pills to each patient and sent them on their way. "I knew we'd relieve their pain for the day but that was it," Otepka said. "There was no work-up or treatment to fix what was really happening. I remember thinking we weren't really making a huge impact on healthcare, that there had to be a better way." Fast-forward five years to a recent afternoon. Otepka, now a resident in internal medicine at Washington University, stands beside an ambulance outside a warehouse in Fenton. One day soon, maybe in December, she says, she or other members of the university's Global Health Scholars in Internal Medicine will head to Guatemala — with the ambulance — to treat patients.
Hannah Otepka remembers when people in a rural village in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, would line up outside the mobile health clinic. It was 2006, and Otepka, a third-year medical student at Creighton University, and her colleagues did the only thing they could — they handed four ibuprofen pills to each patient and sent them on their way. "I knew we'd relieve their pain for the day but that was it," Otepka said. "There was no work-up or treatment to fix what was really happening. I remember thinking we weren't really making a huge impact on healthcare, that there had to be a better way." Fast-forward five years to a recent afternoon. Otepka, now a resident in internal medicine at Washington University, stands beside an ambulance outside a warehouse in Fenton. One day soon, maybe in December, she says, she or other members of the university's Global Health Scholars in Internal Medicine will head to Guatemala — with the ambulance — to treat patients.
Federal disease investigators have looked into more than 200 cases of unexpected, suspected transmission of HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C through transplanted organs between 2007 and 2010, including some cases that led to the recipient's death.
Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a draft of stricter guidelines of what hospitals and others involved in the transplant process should do to prevent these tragic results. The proposed recommendations were last issued in 1994.
"Our first priority must be patient safety," said Matthew J. Kuehnert, MD, director of the CDC's Office of Blood, Organ and Other Tissue Safety Office. "The guideline will help patients and their doctors have information they need to fully weigh risks and benefits of transplanting a particular organ."
The agency's major draft recommendations include the following:
In addition to screening for HIV, the agency suggests that donors be screened for hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses.
The agency suggests that labs conducting the testing use more updated and sensitive methods to test organs destined for transplant.
The agency recommends that procurement organizations and others involved in the process use a revised set of donor risk factors that can give clinicians a more thorough picture about possible risks associated with donors' organs.
Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has implemented more comprehensive regulations for tissue and semen donors, the agency suggests that centers focus on solid organs and vessel conduits and not other tissues.
The guidelines should apply to organ procurement organizations, transplant centers, clinical coordinators, lab personnel responsible for testing and storing donor and recipient specimens and those responsible for developing and evaluating infection control programs.
"We recognize that organ demand is much greater than availability," Kuehnert said in a statement. "This guideline will assist the transplant community in ensuring that each patient is protected against unexpected diseases from the organ they so desperately need."