An official Los Angeles County assessment has acknowledged for the first time that a woman who died after writhing in pain for nearly an hour on the waiting room floor of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Medical Center could have been saved if she had been properly treated. The woman was captured on security videotape as a janitor mopped around her and a triage nurse dismissed her complaints. Her death helped to precipitate the closure of the hospital's emergency room and inpatient care after federal regulators determined that staffers had failed to deliver a minimum standard of care.
Nasvhille-based HCA Inc. is letting go an unspecified number of corporate employees, including more than 100 people from its information technology department. Ed Fishbough, a spokesman for HCA, said the layoffs affect all departments at HCA's corporate headquarters. In addition to the latest cuts, HCA recently said it would close its 38-bed Portland Medical Center in Sumner County, TN.
The United Automobile Workers union has announced that it would make major concessions in its contracts with the three Detroit auto companies to help them lobby Congress for $34 billion in federal aid. At a news conference UAW president Ron Gettelfinger said that his members were willing to sacrifice job security provisions and financing for retiree healthcare to keep General Motors and Chrysler out of bankruptcy. He also said the union would agree to delay the multibillion-dollar payments to a new retiree healthcare fund that the automakers were scheduled to start making in 2009.
Aetna, health insurer to about 300,000 people in the Tampa Bay, FL, area, has notified several employers that BayCare Health System hospitals may drop out of its network as of January. Aetna spokesman Walt Cherniak said he was optimistic that the two sides will cut a deal before Jan. 1, avoiding any interruption of service. But Isaac Mallah, a BayCare executive who negotiates managed-care contracts, said Aetna is asking for payment rates below the market rate for other large insurers, such as BlueCross BlueShield of Florida and UnitedHealthcare.
England's National Health Service will have its first constitution that will set out the rights and responsibilities linked to entitlement to NHS care. The Bill will place a duty on all providers and commissioners of state healthcare to take it into account. The Bill, to be published by Health Secretary Alan Johnson, will also allow the further development of "personalized" health services and direct payments for healthcare.
St. Vincent's Health System has notified the state of Alabama it still plans to spend $6.7 million to construct a freestanding emergency department on its One Nineteen Health and Wellness campus, but it will first use a six-month extension to evaluate changes in the marketplace. The four-hospital system said it will use the six-month extension to monitor the economy and its impact on building the proposed site before beginning construction.
Washington will begin to reduce the number of people on its Basic Health Plan, a money-saving move critics say couldn't come at a worse time. The plan, subsidized by taxpayers, covers 105,000 low-income people. The state Health Care Authority plans to lower that number by 7,700 over seven months. The cuts are part of spending reductions ordered by Gov. Chris Gregoire to help balance the state budget.
A Sacramento, CA, judge affirmed the California Department of Managed Health Care's policy against balance billing, which is when out-of-network providers charge patients for services not paid by insurers. The California Medical Association and the California Hospital Association had tried to stop the balance billing ban, claiming the restriction was unfair and could undermine the networks and agreement in place between insurers and their member hospitals. The medical association said that it will likely appeal the case.
A showdown between CIGNA and Connecticut hospitals in Manchester and Rockville could end their relationship in a few weeks, sending thousands of patients scrambling for new doctors and forcing them to use other hospitals. CIGNA and the Eastern Connecticut Health Network, which includes the two hospitals, have failed so far to reach a new contract. The old one expires Dec. 31, and both sides expect to continue negotiations. The hospitals are fighting for higher reimbursement.
Nashville General Hospital, the city's financially troubled safety-net hospital, is being audited to see if it has addressed the issues identified in a 2005 audit, officials said. But Mayor Karl Dean's finance chief said Dean's administration had not requested the review of Nashville General Hospital at Meharry by the Office of Internal Audit, which is independent of the mayor's office and Metro Council. Any talk about the hospital's future being on the line is premature, Metro Finance Director Rich Riebeling said.
