A month after suspending its operations when its only remaining physician took a new job, Roseville, MN-based Parker Hughes Cancer Center has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The once popular clinic had hoped to recruit a replacement but ultimately decided that it could no longer afford to remain open. The clinic lost more than $6 million in the last two years, according to bankruptcy filings.
After several tough years in South Florida, the Tenet Healthcare hospital chain reports it has just about turned things around, according to Tenet representatives. The chain saw Florida patient volumes stabilize with a 0.3 percent admissions decline in the fourth quarter. In January, admissions in Tenet's Florida hospitals grew by 2.1 percent, the first time since 2005 that chain had not seen a decline in its state operations.
Fort Lauderdale, FL-based Holy Cross Hospital has announced it has completed its purchase of North Ridge Medical Center in nearby Oakland Park and planned to quickly shut down the money-losing facility. Data shows that North Ridge had been serving only 55 to 65 patients a day recently at its 332-bed facility. Florida records indicate that in 2006, North Ridge had a 26.4 percent occupancy rate. That year, it lost $37.6 million.
Though UCLA Medical Center has portrayed its recent privacy breaches as rare actions, the hospital has known since at least 1995 that staffers were peeking into the medical records of prominent patients, according to records and interviews. The California Department of Public Health has been investigating UCLA since the hospital fired 13 workers and disciplined 12 others for snooping on pop star Britney Spears. Since then, reports showed a different worker inappropriately accessed the electronic records of 61 patients.
The embattled director of Los Angeles County's public healthcare system abruptly quit on the same day negotiations with a private entity to reopen King-Harbor hospital fell apart. Bruce A. Chernof, MD, leaves as the county Department of Health Services faces a projected budget shortfall of $750 million over the next two years and undertakes the task of moving County-USC Medical Center to a new, smaller complex. Los Angeles County operates the second-largest publicly funded healthcare system in the nation. It has an annual budget exceeding $3.3 billion, three general hospitals and a network of clinics that together treat about 700,000 patients a year, most of them uninsured.
The Joint Commission has released a safety alert saying more needs to be done to prevent medication errors in children. The alert calls on hospitals to weigh children in kilograms when admitted, and comes just days after the release of a study finding that drug mix-ups and overdoses harm roughly one out of 15 hospitalized children. Hospitals also should clearly mark products that have been repackaged from adult formulations for use with children, according to the Joint Commission.
Mason City, IA-based Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa has announced that it will reduce its 2,700-member staff by 44 employees before July 1. The hospital cited cuts in state and federal reimbursement, lower than projected patient volume, increasing operation expenses and increasing amount of unfunded care provided to uninsured and underinsured patients as reasons for the cutbacks.
A week after announcing plans to close St. Francis Hospital & Health Center in Blue Island, IL, because its treatment of uninsured patients was a financial drain, SSM Health Care has announced plans to build a 50-bed hospital in Janesville, WI. SSM’s chief executive acknowledged that the timing of the announcement to build in a more prosperous region than Blue Island was "difficult." Janesville is home to a General Motors plant with more than 2,000 union workers known to have some of the richest health benefits in the country. The St. Francis closing had already had escalated the debate about whether non-profit hospitals should be required to provide a specific amount of care to the uninsured in order for them to keep their tax-exempt status.
A Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector has updated standards that will be used to decide who faces fines for failing to have health insurance in Massachusetts. The new rules increase the monthly premium considered affordable about 10 percent from 2007 levels. Insurance premiums have been increasing at about that rate statewide, although the connector was able to negotiate an average increase of about 5 percent for the nonsubsidized plans it offers the public. The rules also use a sliding scale based on income and family size to indicate if the state considers premiums affordable.
For years, large drug and medical device manufacturers have provided consulting fees, free trips to exotic locales and funding for educational conferences that physicians attend in an effort to court doctors. Some say these moves improperly influence medical care. But now, under the threat of regulation from Congress, the two industries promise to be more forthcoming about their spending. A dozen of the nation's leading drug and device makers say they plan to publicly disclose grants to outside groups, and to publish the details on each company's Web sites.
