Florida is the epicenter of a prescription drug abuse epidemic. Doctors in Florida prescribe 10 times more oxycodone pills than every other state in the country combined. People come from all over the Southeast to visit the state's pain clinics. Florida does have a prescription drug database. After years of lobbying by law enforcement, the state Legislature passed a bill last session to create one. It just didn't provide money to pay for it. A private foundation stepped in and began raising funds for the database. But recently, Gov. Rick Scott has come out foursquare against it. Scott hasn't said much about why he wants to kill it. When pressed at a recent news conference, he said: "I believe it's an invasion of privacy and ... it appears that the money's been wasted."
Massachusetts public health officials are monitoring the heart program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center after discovering the hospital had a high death rate in 2009 for a small group of patients who had emergency cardiac catheterization. An analysis of mortality data for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009, showed that 13 of 93 patients who underwent the procedure died, the hospital said. Beth Israel Deaconess's mortality rate -- after adjusting for how ill the patients were -- was 5.82%, compared with 5.12% for hospitals statewide, according to state public health officials. The hospital's mortality rate for the 1,039 nonemergency cardiac catheterization patients in 2009 was average.
Jackson Health System executives, already facing severe cash shortages, begged Miami-Dade legislators Wednesday to fight a proposed state budget that would cut another $150 million to $240 million in state funding next year from the county's public hospital. "We need your help taking care of Jackson like we take care of your citizens," Jackson's chief transition officer, Ted Shaw, told the Miami-Dade legislative delegation at County Hall. But in response, legislators barraged Jackson with questions about the system's labor costs and other issues that have pushed the safety-net hospital to the brink of financial disaster. With the annual legislative session beginning Tuesday with an estimated state budget shortfall of $3.6 billion, delegation members said they couldn't commit to rescuing Jackson from cuts.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. has been dealt a blow in a bid to secure a multibillion-dollar military benefits contract after a lengthy fight with Humana. After awarding the contract to UnitedHealth in June 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense reversed course last week and gave it to Humana, the government's current vendor. The contract, which provides healthcare benefits to soldiers and family members in 10 southern states, is worth an estimated $23.5 billion over five years. About 93% of that goes to hospitals, clinics and doctors who provide the care. The insurer collects fees for processing claims, managing provider networks and providing customer service. Minnetonka, MN-based UnitedHealth said the contract fight isn't over.
Should policyholders get to see the figures a health-insurance company provides state regulators when it tries to raise its rates? And if so, when exactly? Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler says he wants to end the "secrecy of health-insurance rates" but can't under the current state law, which protects from public scrutiny the figures and formulas divulged by insurers trying to raise their rates. That information includes how much money their health plan lost, how much of the proposed rate is going to medical claims, how much is going to administrative costs and how much to profit. A bill now before the state Legislature would change that, allowing the public to see those numbers. The House may vote on the bill as early as today.
Beebe Medical Center in Lewes, DE said it will offer free credit monitoring to dozens of patients whose personal information was included on a financial document reported stolen in January. The report was stolen from an employee's vehicle in Florida and included the names and Medicare numbers, same as Social Security numbers, of 113 patients, Vice President for Corporate Affairs Wallace Hudson said. The hospital sent letters to notify affected patients and, where appropriate, next of kin. The employee removed the financial report from the hospital to work on it at home, Hudson explained. A briefcase holding the report was somehow packed into the family's vehicle for a vacation. The briefcase was stolen on Jan. 1 in Orange County, FL, and has yet to be recovered, the hospital said.