Under a new California law which took effect Jan. 1, health insurers are required to provide patients who lack English comprehension with an on-site interpreter or access to one through telephone or Web-hosted video conferencing. The new law also requires health plans to translate their standardized documents into the top two languages spoken by their members, typically Spanish and Mandarin or Cantonese.
Hospitals across California are reeling from the effects of the economic downturn and the troubled financial markets. When these hospitals need working capital the most, the credit markets are all but frozen. And in California, low Medi-Cal reimbursements for poor patients and the state budget crisis are making matters worse. The latest complications follow a dozen years during which more than 70 hospitals closed in California, and there is concern that some may not pull through this downturn.
About 1,000 people packed the Great Hall at Hartford's Union Station for the presentation of a comprehensive plan to eventually provide healthcare coverage to all Connecticut residents. The proposal is called SustiNet, and is drawn from the state motto to "reflect the proposal's commitment to health and sustainability," according to the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut. Several years of research and work by a host of interest groups led to the proposal, said Janet Davenport, vice president of communications for the foundation.
Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare-Iowa plans to eliminate about 80 full-time, non-clinical positions over the next year because of worsening national economic conditions. Wheaton officials plan to immediately lay off 15 people who work at hospitals and clinics in Waterloo, Cedar Falls, and Oelwein.
More mainstream physicians suggesting complementary and alternative medicine, such as meditation, massage, and acupuncture. The future success of the holistic CAM movement in the U.S. hinges on the very people who once viewed alternative medicine with cold skepticism: mainstream, conventionally trained doctors. Though many still believe medical treatments should be backed by rigorous scientific data, they will not rule out adding into the treatment mix mind-body therapies that have been used for centuries in other cultures.
Walgreen Co. plans to announce a network of pharmacies, in-store clinics, and company health centers it will market to corporate and government employers nationwide. Under the drugstore chain's "Complete Care and Well-Being" program, participating employees at work would be able to get checkups, preventive care and other services. Walgreen's Take Care health clinics would be available for basic services outside of business hours.
Rising unemployment and the sinking economy are driving sharp increases in the number of Washington, DC-area families seeking state health insurance for their children, and more of these families are qualifying for coverage. The increases are particularly pronounced in the region's largest and wealthiest jurisdictions as employers cut benefits and eliminate jobs. In Fairfax County, for example, requests for the state's insurance program for children were up 16% between November 2007 and November 2008. In Alexandria County, caseloads increased 20%, and in Loudoun County, they were up 16.5%.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government should be investigated for crimes against humanity for overseeing and ignoring the breakdown of the nation's healthcare system, an international doctors group said in a report. The cholera outbreak gripping the country is just one sign of the disintegration of a once-admired healthcare structure that essentially ceased to function in late 2008, according to U.S.-based Physicians for Human Rights.
It's not hyperbole to say that if the economy were one of your patients, it'd be lying unconscious in your ICU right now. The global recession is unforgiving and indiscriminate. We're all up against it.
Credit and funding have never been so tight, but that's not to say that it doesn't exist. Before the credit crunch, Apax Partners LLP raised Europe's largest fund in 2007 to the tune of $15.5 billion U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal. The U.K.-based private equity firm—which has investments in Apollo Hospitals and General Healthcare Group, among other healthcare investments—is now in a position to benefit from low valuations.
I had the chance to meet Khawar Mann, one of Apax's London-based partners, last month at the medical travel conference hosted by Consumer Health World. Mann was on a panel of experts talking about medical travel investment opportunities. What I found so refreshing and worth mentioning about the discussion was Mann's candidness in assessing medical travel investments. In sum, he's not a big fan of them—at least not when medical travel is the centerpiece of the investment.
Mann says that Apax is skeptical about building an investment case around medical travel. A worthy investment, such as Apollo Hospitals, needs to have a core local market that has strong growth potential. If the investment has additional growth projections from medical travel, well he says that's just "icing on the cake."
This doesn't mean that Mann and other partners at Apax are skeptical about the overall impact of medical travel on global healthcare. He's just not buying into all the hype. He says the cost advantage in countries like India will continue for 10 or more years, but expects no more than three countries will find real success from the medical travel phenomenon—with Thailand, India, and Singapore the likely winners.
However, the globalization of management talent will continue to help improve health system quality and profitability, says Mann. For example, he says Apax searches for great hospital managers from around the world to insert into health system management teams. The idea is that these new managers will get better results and margins in short order. While most might look to a private equity firm foremost for capital, it is also enlightening to see what the future of global healthcare looks like through this stakeholder's lens.
Surgical Trip, LLC, of Boca Raton, FL, will now offer its medical tourism program to members of USNow, L.P., of Plano, TX. The partnership will provide members with access to surgical procedures at significantly lower cost when performed at select, accredited hospitals overseas. This is the first time a national marketer of limited medical plans will make a medical tourism program available to all of its members.
