When Barack Obama takes office in January, healthcare reform will join a list of priorities that include a ballooning budget deficit and an economy mired in one of the worst slowdowns since the Great Depression. But the bleak environment may paradoxically spur the kind of costly, sweeping overhaul of the nation's healthcare system that has eluded policymakers in Washington for decades, many political strategists, industry leaders, and economists say.
Beaumont Hospitals, long one of metro Detroit's most successful health systems, has announced a $60-million financial turnaround plan that includes layoffs, executive and physician pay cuts, and placing holds on many suburban construction projects. Beaumont is making the moves to offset $22 million in projected losses by year's end, on $2 billion in revenues. About $46 million of the turnaround plan involves savings from job freezes, pay cuts, postponement of capital projects, and other efficiencies.
A vast majority of physicians in Massachusetts say the fear of being sued is driving them to order unnecessary tests, procedures, referrals, and hospitalizations. The phenomenon is adding at least $1.4 billion to annual healthcare costs in the state, according to a study. The Massachusetts Medical Society reported that 83% of physicians surveyed said they have practiced so-called defensive medicine and that an average of 18%-28% of tests, procedures, referrals, and consultations, and 13% of hospitalizations, were ordered to avoid lawsuits.
Primary care doctors in the United States feel overworked and nearly half plan to either cut back on how many patients they see or quit medicine entirely, according to a survey released by the Physicians’ Foundation. And 60% of 12,000 general practice physicians surveyed said they would not recommend medicine as a career, the survey found.
A committee of nine Arlington, TX, physicians and officials from JPS Health Network is recommending that the Diagnostic & Surgery Hospital in Arlington be expanded into a full-service hospital. Tarrant County commissioners are expected to hear the committee's report later in November. At issue will be whether tax dollars should be used to expand the Arlington facility and whether John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth is at capacity.
University of Iowa Hospitals has fired one employee and suspended seven others after accusing them of inappropriately looking at patients' private information. The incidents were uncovered during a routine review of computer access to confidential information, officials said. "This breach of confidentiality is totally unacceptable and very disappointing," said Chief Executive Officer Ken Kates in a statement.