Challenges facing the University of Iowa Hospitals in the next five years will be recruiting enough healthcare workers, working more efficiently, and reaching out to smaller communities in Iowa, according to a group of Iowa healthcare leaders who gathered at the U of I to brainstorm ideas for the hospital's five-year strategic plan. The Iowa Board of Regents, which governs the U of I Hospitals, will consider these ideas and others to create a strategic plan.
More physicians are embracing technological advances, such as electronic medical records, but most still consider them clunky and unresponsive to their needs, according to a recent survey by the American College of Physician Executives. Some doctors embrace the new measures, but a much larger number viewed healthcare technology as frustrating and difficult to use.
U.S. immigration authorities routinely delay, deny, or botch medical care for detained immigrants in poorly equipped facilities nationwide, according to separate reports released by two advocacy groups. Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center blame the problems on unskilled or indifferent staff, overcrowding, bureaucratic red tape, language barriers, and limited services available to detainees of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Sg2 Senior Vice President Bill Woodson says it is impossible to overlook the growing shortage of primary care capacity in both urban and rural markets. As a result, the retail clinic model can help us manage some primary care needs and the inevitable access challenges that emerge as we develop mechanisms to expand the ranks of the insured over the next 5 five years, he says.
A federal jury has convicted two Miami-Dade doctors and two medical assistants of plotting to submit millions of dollars in bogus bills to Medicare. The 12-person jury found David Rothman, MD, Keith Russell, MD, Eda Marietta Milanes, and Jorge Luis Pacheco guilty of conspiring to commit fraud and other charges for filing $5.3 million in false HIV-therapy claims with the nation's healthcare program.
A policy at Philadelphia's eight primary-care health centers—free care for everyone, with or without insurance—has recently raised questions of fairness and fiscal responsibility. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health has proposed new fees on a sliding scale for patients without health insurance. Officials say that the clinics have been free because most of their patients, even those with insurance, have little money. But they concede that the practice of not collecting co-pays must be revisited.