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.
Three people who reportedly submitted more than $17 million in false Medicare claims plead guilty to defrauding the healthcare program. The alleged ringleader, David Hernandez, faces up to 20 years in prison, and the three suspects must forfeit what they have left from their thefts, including homes, bank accounts, and retirement funds.
A new report shows the quality of medical care varies widely at clinics and hospitals across the Puget Sound region in Washington State, with many patients failing to get basic treatment recommended by national guidelines. Nearly half of clinics surveyed were below average at ensuring patients with diabetes got regular eye exams to detect vision problems caused by the disease. The percentage of heart-surgery patients who received standard treatment to prevent blood clots ranged from 59% to 96% at hospitals. The findings were released in the Community Checkup report released by the Puget Sound Health Alliance.