Frustrated federal health officials and prosecutors that have been unable to stop illegal kickbacks to doctors from drug and device companies are investigating doctors who take money for using these products. Within a few months, officials plan to file civil and criminal charges against a number of surgeons who they say demanded profitable consulting agreements from device makers in exchange for using their products.
Baylor Health Care System plans to ask for some of the Texas federal economic stimulus money for two of its multimillion-dollar projects. Baylor is seeking money for a cancer center to be built near downtown Dallas and a diabetes center in South Dallas. Baylor would not say how much it intends to request.
Seeking to expand its medical care and ward off competitors, MetroWest Medical Center of Framingham, MA, announced it is joining with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to provide advanced services for patients outside the city. The plan is to have some Beth Israel Deaconess physicians work part time at MetroWest facilities, which include Framingham Union Hospital, Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick, and several healthcare services.
Doctor reviews are becoming more common as consumer ratings services like Zagat's and Angie's List expand beyond restaurants and plumbers to medical care, and some doctors are fighting back. They're asking patients to agree to what amounts to a gag order that bars them from posting negative comments online.
Though their campuses are just a few blocks apart in Seattle, Virginia Mason Medical Center provides half as much charity care as Swedish Medical Center. This was among the assertions highlighted in a report by four community organizations, which argued that such disparities shortchange minorities and poor people, and partly explain why their health lags behind that of whites. Activists called on all hospitals to examine their role in perpetuating health inequalities.
For 14 straight years, a bill has been introduced in the Florida Legislature that would let nurse practitioners write prescriptions for potentially addictive drugs. Forty-seven states allow it and two state reports think Florida should follow. But even advocates bet the latest bill will die in committee. Proponents say that this class of specially trained nurses already diagnose and treat patients just as primary care doctors do and can prescribe most drugs. They say the hurdle of having to get a physician to write certain prescriptions wastes time and money.