New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced the details of a new national database that would help determine how much insurance companies should reimburse patients who go out of network to see a doctor. Consumers would also be able to check a new Web site to see what an insurer was likely to pay before they went to an out-of-network doctor. The announcement is part of a settlement reached with more than a dozen insurance companies concerning the industry's controversial payment of out-of-network claims.
People have lined up across the country in recent days in the hope of getting a H1N1 vaccine, but a dearth of the vaccine has forced local government officials, hospital workers, and doctors in private practice to be conscripted as ad hoc swine flu police. The goal is to make sure that those Americans with the highest risk for contracting the virus get injected first. But the somewhat haphazard nature of the vaccine's distribution in some areas and the rather large population legitimately considered high risk have brought hundreds of thousands of people to vaccine distribution points, the New York Times reports.
The Minneapolis-based nonprofit MN Community Measurement has become a model for a tool now proliferating around the U.S., in which local and regional healthcare providers and insurers cooperate to make performance data public. In Minnesota, the state legislature recently passed a law requiring all medical practices to participate in the ratings system starting in 2010. In all, there are more than 50 regional health-improvement collaboratives in the U.S., according to the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement, a Pittsburgh-based association of the nonprofits.
Naples, FL-based hospital company Health Management Associates Inc. reported net income of $25.4 million, or 10 cents a share, for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with net income of $10.8 million, or 4 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago. Revenue for the three months ended Sept. 30 was $1.12 billion, up 5.8% from revenue of 1.06 billion a year earlier. HMA owns and operates 56 hospitals throughout the United States.
Minneapolis-based Park Nicollet Clinic abruptly shut down its flu-shot hot line after it was swamped with 120,000 calls in four hours from people trying to get the H1N1 vaccine, officials said. The clinic, which had announced that it had 17,000 doses, was so unprepared for the outpouring that its entire phone system temporarily crashed under the weight of the calls.
A University of California-San Francisco program to improve accuracy in administering drugs—with particular emphasis on reducing interruptions that often lead to mistakes—resulted in a nearly 88% drop in errors over 36 months at the nine hospitals. The UCSF program, which was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, involved UCSF Medical Center, Kaiser hospitals in Hayward and Fremont, San Francisco General Hospital, St. Rose Hospital in Hayward, Contra Costa County Medical Center, Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, San Mateo Medical Center and Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City.