Boston-based Tufts Medical Center has begun warning thousands of patients that Tufts doctors will no longer accept Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO coverage after Jan. 31. A letter to patients states that Blue Cross refuses to pay Tufts doctors at a "reasonable rate." The medical center is encouraging its patients to contact Blue Cross directly to "express your frustration."
Four hospitals in New York state paid kickbacks to get more patients into their drug treatment programs, which billed Medicaid for services that weren't standard or necessary and lacked state certification, lawsuits allege. Another hospital paid people to search homeless shelters and other places for patients to enter a three-day stay in detox in exchange for cigarettes, beer, food, and other items, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuits allege those five hospitals and two others fraudulently billed Medicaid for more than $50 million in more than 14,000 different claims.
Applicants for nursing jobs are still so scarce that recruiters have been forced to get increasingly inventive. One Michigan company literally rolled out a red carpet at a recent hiring event. Recruiters across the country have tried similar techniques, offering chair massages, lavish catering, and contests for flat-screen TVs, GPS devices, and shopping sprees. The shortage has left employers no choice: it has led to chronic understaffing that can threaten patient care and nurses' job satisfaction, and the problem is expected to worsen.
Alaska has launched a new database designed to help healthcare officials track Alaska residents' vaccine history. The data base, called VacTrAK, is the state's first Web-based immunization information system. The Alaska's Department of Health and Social Services' public health division will manage the database.
Kaiser Permanente's decision to send nearly all its patients needing hospitalization to the Cleveland Clinic was designed to enhance the health-maintenance organization's reputation and boost profits by consolidating care from 11 hospitals to one. A decade and a half later, Kaiser has gone back to using numerous community hospitals as well as its own health centers for members who do not need transplants or specialized care. Kaiser never saw the increase in Cleveland-area customers it expected, and instead went from 206,000 members when the decision was made to 150,000 today.
After eight years, a dissident group of Tenet shareholders has dissolved its committee. The Tenet Shareholder Committee group published a final report on its Web site, recounting how it attempted to influence the corporate culture at the healthcare giant and recommended specific enforcement reforms for consideration by the new administration, Congress, and the states.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has accelerated his administration's efforts to control spiraling statewide healthcare costs, warning that rising premiums threaten to crush families and businesses and doom Massachusetts' experiment with universal insurance. Patrick said officials are considering using state insurance regulations to block excessive healthcare premiums, and he is also summoning leaders of insurance and hospital companies for meetings to ask for their "vigorous cooperation."
Philadelphia-based health Insurer Cigna Corp. said it will cut about 1,100 jobs and take a fourth-quarter after-tax charge of $30 million to $40 million for 2008. The company's 4% workforce reduction will be complete by the middle of the year, and some offices will be consolidated. A declining stock market and the recession have eroded the earnings outlook for Cigna.
If Barack Obama makes good on his promise to increase access to healthcare for America's 45 million uninsured, more people will be seeking appointments with busy primary care doctors. But now some say that the increased demand that would follow health reform could lead to an exodus of Canadian doctors to the United States.
This New York Times article examines the question of whether part of the informed-consent process is doctors having an ethical obligation to tell patients if they are more likely to survive, be cured, live longer, or avoid complications by going to Hospital A instead of Hospital B.
