The West Penn Allegheny Health System is cooperating with a Securities and Exchange Commission probe of the hospital network's $73 million revenue write-down, said system officials. In a prepared statement, West Penn spokesman Tom Chakurda confirmed the SEC was conducting an "informal inquiry with regard to West Penn Allegheny Health System and the $73 million balance sheet adjustment." West Penn Allegheny refinanced $758 million in bonds last year, but questions arose last month when the president and CEO announced that the health system may have overstated revenue by $73 million, including $67 million in patient receivables.
Cost increases incurred by hospitals in the United States slowed in 2006 as health insurers pressed for discounts and directed more people to outpatient care, according to a report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Expenses for providing care rose 0.9% in 2006, the latest year reviewed, compared with the average annual increase of 4.8% for 1997 through 2006, the report found.
In a response to an attempted suicide in Columbia, SC-based Palmetto Health Richland's emergency room, the state prison agency is reviewing its procedures and equipment while the hospital decided to open a separate waiting room for inmates. After the incident, questions were raised about how easily a woman patient was able to pull a gun from a prison officer's holster and shoot herself in the head at the hospital. Neither the hospital nor police would discuss the circumstances of the shooting that put other emergency room patients and hospital staff at risk.
An Illinois state appeals court has reversed a lower court's decision that had allowed Urbana-based Provena Covenant Medical Center to keep its tax-exempt status in accordance with state laws. The case is part of the ongoing saga over whether Provena Covenant is a non-profit charitable institution. It has also been a case followed nationally, with state and federal lawmakers attacking non-profit hospital tax exemptions and questioning whether such health facilities are providing enough charity care.
WellCare's HealthEase and Staywell plans, United Healthcare and Amerigroup—the four largest health plans in Florida's Medicaid reform experiment—are dropping out of the program, forcing more than half of 204,000 affected patients to change insurers and possibly doctors. The health plans have given written notice to the state that by Dec. 1 they will withdraw from Broward County and some of four other counties in the Jacksonville area participating in the experiment. The reform started two years ago to save the state billions and also improve healthcare for low-income people with Medicaid by switching them into HMO-style plans.
The number of people dying who were suffering from C difficile has risen by 28% in England and Wales, according to new figures from The Office for National Statistics. The figures show 8,324 death certificates mentioned the infection in 2007, compared with 6,480 the previous year. The number of reported deaths involving the infection has more than doubled in England in Wales since 2005, when there were 3,757 mentions on death certificates.
Robert Tenant, senior policy advisor with MGMA, discusses the CMS proposed timeline for implementing the ICD-10 code set and explains the administrative burden it could place on medical practices. +
Deborah Chiaravalloti, vice president of public relations and marketing for Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport, MA, discusses how she increased top-of-mind awareness at her hospital from 17% to 68% in just two years. +
The American Hospital Association is right to raise concerns about proposed rule changes that could adversely affect payments for rural health clinics and federally qualified health centers. +
Fred Karutz, senior vice president of business development of Norvax, an online health insurance technology company, talks about the individual market and how the shift to individual policies is affecting healthcare. +
Since technology is often blamed for the increase in hospital noise over the last few decades, I'm curious about how it's also being used to communicate quietly. +
