Robbindale, MN-based North Memorial Health Care has bought Camden Physicians Ltd., a family physician practice. Camden has 18 family medical providers at three clinics in Minneapolis, Plymouth, and Maple Grove.
Two new HealthEast clinics have opened in Hugo and Eagan to serve growing populations in the suburbs of Minneapolis. "We've been looking to build a clinic in Hugo or in the northern area for several years," said Len Kaiser, director of business development for HealthEast clinics. "We finally found the right situation."
A new University of Iowa policy would prohibit physicians from giving free drug samples to patients, a practice that hospital leaders and consumer advocates say contributes to increasing healthcare costs. Other changes include barring U of I Health Care employees from accepting gifts and meals from private companies and requiring all doctors who do industry consulting to report who they work for and how much they are paid. The restrictions come after a U of I-requested audit showed U of I Health Care needed more specific conflict-of-interest policies and better ways of monitoring potential conflicts.
An economic stimulus package under consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Committee would help provide health-insurance coverage to unemployed and uninsured Americans, give states expanded federal funding for Medicaid programs, and promote use of electronic health records by doctors and hospitals. The healthcare provisions are contained in a two-year, $875 billion package that congressional Democrats hope to enact by mid-February in response to President Barack Obama's call for action to revive the U.S. economy.
Officials with the Service Employees International Union announced they would appoint a trustee to run a 150,000-member healthcare local in California unless the local obeyed the parent union's decision within five days to move thousands of members into another local. The union's executive board made the threat on the day that Ray Marshall, who was labor secretary in the Carter administration, ruled that the leaders of the United Healthcare Workers-West had engaged "in financial malpractice and undermined democratic procedures."
One in seven Americans under age 65 went without prescribed medicines in 2007 as drug costs spiraled upward in the United States, according to the nonprofit research group Center for Studying Health System Change. That figure is up substantially since 2003, when one in 10 people under 65 went without a prescription drug because they couldn't afford it, according to the Center. "Our findings are particularly troublesome given the increased reliance on prescription drugs to treat chronic conditions," said Laurie E. Felland, the study's lead author. "People who go without their prescriptions experience worsening health and complications."