Even as Pennsylvania struggles with a growing budget deficit, senators questioned why Gov. Ed Rendell's administration is proposing to cut at least $20 million to hospitals that disproportionately serve Medicaid patients as well as the uninsured poor. At a budget hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee, both Democratic and Republican senators expressed concerns about Gov. Rendell's proposal to slash payments to those hospitals by roughly 15% in his proposed $29 billion budget for 2009-10.
An increasing number of physicians are asking for the patient's share of that day's medical fees, including any deductible set by the insurer, at the time of the visit. At one Washington, DC, doctor's office, a video screen in the waiting area tells patients that if they don't have their insurance card, the practice would be happy to "reschedule your appointment." That practice also asks that the co-pay be provided before the patient sees the doctor and calls patients in arrears to a window in full view, and earshot, of other waiting patients.
Doctors claim they are seeing more and more cases of MRSA in children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 95,000 people in the United States developed serious MRSA infections in 2005, the latest data available. While the CDC cannot say how many children were infected, the agency reported the greatest increase in hospital visits were among those under 18 during an eight-year period ending in 2005. Children are especially vulnerable because of their underdeveloped immune systems, experts say.
West Penn Allegheny Health System released quarterly results showing operating losses of $9.1 million and a net loss of $5.6 million for the quarter ending Dec. 31. Despite a 2% increase in acute patient admissions across the system in the second half of 2008, "we're starting to see quite a bit of softening in volume," president and CEO Christopher Olivia told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "That's in concert with what a lot of other health systems are recognizing."
The board of directors for Towson, MD-based St. Joseph Medical Center has appointed an outside executive to run the Towson hospital during a federal investigation of its financial dealings with an affiliated doctors group. Beth O'Brien, senior vice president for operations at the Denver-based Catholic Health Initiative, which owns St. Joseph and 71 other hospitals, was named to the post. Three unnamed hospital executives have stepped down from their jobs to avoid a conflict of interest during the inquiry.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center said in court papers that a lawsuit filed against it by the son of a woman who died after wandering away from her hospital room was full of "scandalous" and "irrelevant" claims. Rose Lee Diggs, 89, was found on the roof of UPMC Montefiore in December, hours after she had wandered away from her 12th-floor room. The lawsuit, filed by her son in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, alleges negligence by hospital staff and includes claims that hospital workers attempted a cover-up by replacing a broken lock that led to the roof of the hospital where the woman was found.