Doctors, dentists and psychiatrists with the federal receiver's office overseeing inmate medical care are the highest paid state employees in California, according to government salary data the state controller's office released. Two prison doctors make more than $700,000 a year. Dozens of other prison medical personnel, some with the Department of Mental Health, make more than $300,000 a year. A top official with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection makes $309,000 annually. The controller's office began requesting the data in response to the compensation scandal in the Los Angeles County city of Bell. Residents there voted the entire city council out of office in March after learning that council members and other top officials were giving themselves enormous salaries and pensions. The people with the top four state salaries are two doctors, a dentist and a psychologist, all working for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, who were paid salaries ranging from $777,323 to $582,609.
As high-level budget talks drag on in Washington, the Medicaid program for the poor remains a prime candidate for cuts. In recent months, Republicans have criticized Medicaid for badly serving its target population. But a new study — the first of its kind in nearly four decades — finds that Medicaid is making a bigger impact than even some of its supporters may have realized. The study, being published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has a distinctly bipartisan flavor. Among its authors are Katherine Baicker of Harvard, who was an economic adviser to President George W. Bush, and MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who has advised the Obama administration. Overall, researchers found that compared to people without insurance, those with Medicaid had better access to and used more healthcare; they were less likely to experience unpaid medical bills; they were more likely to report being in good health; and they were less likely to report feeling depressed.
With limited money to spend on the Oregon Health Plan in 2008, state officials decided the fairest way to enroll additional people would be a random lottery. More than 85,000 people put their names in the list. Only 10,000 gained coverage in Oregon's Medicaid program for low-income residents. The chain of events inadvertently set the stage for an unprecedented experiment – the equivalent of a randomized clinical trial measuring how health insurance changes the lives of people who gain coverage. "It's provided the ideal experiment to really understand cause and effect," said Heidi Allen, a research scientist with Providence Health & Services in Portland. After one year, the experiment shows that gaining coverage makes an immediate difference in personal health and financial security. The newly insured, compared to their uninsured peers, were more likely to receive preventive services and to establish long-lasting ties to a trusted doctor.
A small but growing number of parents think vaccines against childhood diseases are unsafe and are refusing or delaying shots for their children, despite the discrediting of a medical study linking vaccines and autism that stirred alarm. Ground zero in the debate is the pediatrician's office. Some frustrated pediatricians are drawing a line in the sand by requiring parents in their medical practices to vaccinate their children or seek healthcare elsewhere, a position that rubs some medical professionals the wrong way. Among those taking a stand are the eight pediatricians of Northwestern Children's Practice in Chicago. They no longer see children whose parents refuse to follow the childhood immunization schedule developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics. A letter and email sent to parents this year announced the policy, which went into effect in June.
Hospital expansion plans in the Metro East have inspired a debate on the best way to serve areas of population growth along the Interstate 64 corridor. Memorial Hospital in Belleville jumped in front of the eastward expansion last week when its plans to build a 94-bed hospital in Shiloh were approved. Memorial Hospital-East, at Frank Scott Parkway and Cross Street, is expected to cost $118 million and open in 2016. A few days before the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board approved Memorial's expansion, Hospital Sisters Health System announced plans to purchase a nearby 105-acre property across I-64 in O'Fallon. Hospital Sisters, which operates St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Belleville, said a full-service hospital was an option for the property.
Even as skin cancer rates in the Sunshine State are on the rise, scheduling an appointment to diagnose and treat the disease may be difficult. An aging population, lots of sun exposure and the rise of cosmetic procedures are cited as reasons for the growing patient volume. That's compounded by a stagnant number of dermatologists graduating from medical school. The result is a backlog of patients who can wait from weeks to months for appointments and have to drive as long as 90 minutes to the doctor's office. Longer wait times can delay identifying pre-cancerous lesions and skin cancer, the most frequently diagnosed cancer in the United States. Florida is second only to California for incidences of melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "I think there is a shortage," said Douglas Robins, MD, of the Florida Society of Dermatology and Dermatologic Surgery. "I know some places have monthlong backlogs."