Humana will hire dozens of healthcare professionals to staff its new Humana Cares national operations and service center in St. Petersburg, FL. Humana initially is employing 275 people at the new center, located in the Carillon business park, and plans to expand its on-site staff to more than 325 by the end of this year. Since fall 2008, the program has added about 100 workers and currently is hiring registered nurses, social workers, community health educators and other support staff.
A project to expand University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics has been altered because of the economy. Officials say the project has been split into two phases and it won't be known until June 30 whether the first phase will move forward immediately or be delayed. The first phase of the project is a new Children's Hospital tower, remodeling of operating rooms, and construction of an ambulatory care clinic. The price of the first phase is less than $500 million.
Without changes in federal policy, the number of Americans without health insurance will grow from about 45 million in 2009 to about 54 million in 2019, the Congressional Budget Office said. Driving the increase will be health insurance premiums that rise faster than incomes. The CBO says premiums will increase to keep ahead of increased costs of medical breakthroughs that are extending and improving people's lives. Also contributing to higher insurance costs will be wasteful and unnecessary medical care, the report found.
An ambitious effort to cut costs and keep aging, sick Medicare patients out of the hospital mostly didn't work, a government-contracted study has found. The results show how tough it is to manage older patients with chronic diseases, who often take multiple prescriptions, see many different doctors, and sometimes get conflicting medical advice. The study also showed how hard it is to change the habits of older patients and their sometimes inflexible doctors, and points to the challenges the Obama administration will face in trying to reform healthcare for an aging nation.
Anthem Blue Cross, which plans to raise premiums for about four-fifths of the health insurer's individual policyholders effective March 1, has outraged members, many of whom have been hit with price increases of more than 30%. Anthem Blue Cross, formerly Blue Cross of California, covers about 800,000 individual policyholders in California. In a statement, the insurer blamed the increase in health costs for the higher premiums, in particular "the increasing need for medical services, the use of new, expensive prescription drugs and advanced technologies."
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine said it is going to look into the case of a mother who gave birth to octuplets, and who now has 14 children. The mother, 33-year-old Nadya Suleman, went to a Beverly Hills doctor, whose fertility treatment led to the birth of her octuplets and her six previous children. West Coast IVF Clinic is run by Michael M. Kamrava, MD, who has declined to comment about the case. The California Medical Board previously announced an investigation, and the reproductive medicine society is now following suit.
A Doylestown, PA-based nonprofit may have found how to keep the sickest Medicare patients out of the hospital and save taxpayer money in the process. The group, Health Quality Partners, educates patients who have chronic diseases and gives them monthly face-to-face contacts with nurses. The program could inspire those involved in ongoing efforts across the U.S. to find better ways to manage chronic illness.
Connecticut women under 40 would pay less for individual health insurance policies if legislators approve a ban on using gender to figure rates. But the proposal, considered by the state legislature's insurance and real estate committee, would result in higher premiums for other policyholders, an industry lobbyist warned. The committee hearing also included a bill that would stop health insurers from using gender and age in rates for small employers.
Health insurer Cigna Corp. is launching an online tool that will enable doctors and hospitals to inform Cigna enrollees in advance of treatment how much they're likely to pay in out-of-pocket costs.
The tool, known as the Cigna Cost of Care Estimator, will be launched in April. It helps in-network healthcare providers to estimate how much of the cost Cigna will pay, and what the patient will owe. It factors in deductibles and co-payments specific to the patient's plan as well as funds that can be tapped, such as money in flexible spending accounts.
Pfizer has announced that it will start reporting payments to doctors, part of the growing trend of transparency around the financial ties between doctors and industry. Sen. Chuck Grassley has been looking into undisclosed payments and pushing a bill that would require broad disclosures from industry, as well. But Grassley's Physician Payment Sunshine Act would be still more stringent than the companies' self-imposed disclosure policies, at least in a few respects, according to this Wall Street Journal Health Blog posting.
