The push into retail medicine is regaining momentum, and Deerfield, IL-based Walgreen Co. projects having 400 clinics nationally by Aug. 31. Although the economic downturn slowed growth, retailers and hospital systems continue to open retail clinics. The number of U.S. clinics jumped to 1,135 by December 1 compared with 1,104 just a month earlier, according to Merchant Medicine.
Hospitals are finding it pays to pump up the perks as they compete for patients who want a bit extra, and have private health insurance. Because private health insurance offers better reimbursement than government payers like Medicaid or Medicare, the perks are partly meant to lure in more profitable patients, experts say. But others see a chasm deepening between hospitals pushing into leafy suburbs to grab market share and those serving poorer patient populations.
As many as 7% of patients from a large U.S. hospital system had enough radiation exposure from CT scans during their lifetime to slightly raise their risk of cancer, U.S. researchers said. The finding is part of an effort to develop tools that help doctors assess a patient's overall cancer risk from exposure to computed tomography, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston told a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. The study's authors hope to develop a computer alert that informs a doctor of a patient's individual cancer risk based on his or her history of CT scans. The alert would pop up when the doctor enters an order for a CT scan.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has asked state lawmakers to give it more flexibility over the premiums it charges, reduce regulators' power to intervene, and toughen regulations for its rivals. If the not-for-profit insurer's controversial plan succeeds, the Michigan insurance market for individuals, which is one of the most affordable in the country, will be revamped. Blue Cross says the changes are necessary to curb the mounting losses that result from its status as the state's insurer of last resort.
With the U.S. economy officially in recession, a new report provides five useful tips for getting electronic medical record money for federally qualified health centers. +
In order to serve special populations you must understand them. And I mean really understand them. And that means taking the time to talk to them, to ask them what they want, to find out their needs. +
The Cleveland Clinic plans to announce it has begun publicly reporting the business relationships that any of its 1,800 staff doctors and scientists have with drug and device makers. The clinic is making a complete disclosure of doctors' and researchers' financial ties available on its Web site, www.clevelandclinic.org. It appears to be the first such step by a major medical center to disclose the industry relationships of individual doctors.
The West Penn Allegheny Health System reported a $17.4 million operating loss for the first quarter of the new fiscal year, while investment income fell from $7 million a year ago to $1 million. As a result, West Penn Allegheny has eliminated 300 full-time equivalent positions and reduced some employee benefits, including a restructuring of retirement benefits for nonunion employees that "yielded the largest savings" of the $23 million reduction in nonlabor costs.
Miami Beach-based Mount Sinai Medical Center is telling investors of its junk-rated bonds that it expects an operating loss of $18.5 million this year—twice as much as 2007. In addition, the hospital now projects an even greater loss next year—$19.7 million, according to hospital documents. In its third-quarter report, the hospital attributed most of the deepening losses to the hospital's shift toward employing more physicians, a move which accounted for 61% of the losses through the third quarter.
Officials at Adventist HealthCare have announced that they will continue with plans to build a hospital in Clarksburg, MD, despite a rival's proposal to build a hospital a few miles away from their site. The decision sets up a battle between Adventist and Holy Cross Hospital, two nonprofit healthcare giants in Maryland's Montgomery County. It is unlikely that two hospitals would be built so close together, and the winner will be decided by state officials.
Medical and surgical residents in hospitals should work no more than 16 hours without taking a mandatory five-hour sleep break, and they should get one full day off a week and at least two back-to-back days off a month, a panel of experts at the Institute of Medicine has recommended. The experts proposed work rules for physicians-in-training that are more restrictive than those that went into effect in 2003 but are widely violated. The panel also urged greater supervision of doctors in residencies.
