Health insurer Aetna Inc. has warned employees that it will pursue "selective" staff cuts as it adjusts to the major economic downturn. Company Chairman and CEO Ronald Williams did not say how many cuts would be made in a memo posted on the company's intranet site. He also did not offer a timeframe. Williams said Aetna was looking at staff reductions as it pursues "all appropriate options" to reduce costs.
Hoping to tame soaring healthcare costs and prevent unfair competition, Massachusetts regulators have significantly strengthened their oversight of medical building projects. The measures could substantially constrain Boston teaching hospitals from colonizing the suburbs, territory viewed by the city hospitals as prime terrain for growth. Companies that want to open outpatient clinics costing more than $25 million will have to prove to state officials that their services won't duplicate what's already there and won't imperil existing facilities. All physician-owned day surgery centers will undergo the same review.
Baptist Health South Florida has announced that it is considering taking over operations at Fishermen's Hospital in Marathon—a move that would give it control of two of the three hospitals in the Florida Keys and expand its geographic dominance in the southernmost area of the state. The Baptist system already owns Mariners Hospital in Key Largo.
Hospitals across Alabama are bracing for deep cuts in Medicaid payments they receive for treating the state's poorest residents. Because of a change in the way the federal government defines hospitals' costs, the Alabama Medicaid Agency has warned that reimbursements to hospitals could be slashed by about $50 million in 2009.
The nation's second-biggest health insurer, Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., is dipping a toe in the medical tourism marketplace. Starting in January, WellPoint will offer employees of Wisconsin-based Serigraph Inc. the option of traveling to India for nonemergency procedures. Serigraph will waive the insurance deductible and coinsurance for employees who agree to go, paying all medical costs as well as travel expenses for the patient and a companion.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal plans to unveil a proposed restructuring of the state's Medicaid program that would steer hundreds of thousands of low-income Louisiana residents into private managed-care plans in an effort to control costs and improve the state's historically poor healthcare outcomes. The long-awaited Louisiana Health First Initiative would move the state's Medicaid program for the poor away from a "fee-for-service" model, where the state mostly pays claims submitted by healthcare providers.