Researchers at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare are reporting that screening all hospital patients for MRSA can sharply reduce hospital-acquired infections. The study comes a week after a well-publicized study that concluded screening of surgical patients for methicillin-resistant Staphyloccocus aureus isn't especially effective. Some experts suggest they are in fact complementary: The overall message is that "a very comprehensive, aggressive MRSA screening program can significantly reduce the number of infections," said Lance Peterson, MD, founder of Evanston Northwestern's MRSA screening program.
Coventry Health Care Inc. has lowered its full-year earnings forecast due to higher-than-expected flu-related medical costs and lower than anticipated income from its investments. The company said a lowering of the Federal Reserve's key federal funds rate has squeezed its first-quarter net investment income and will likely continue to pressure its results as rates are cut further during 2008.
Massachusetts hospitals that care for lower-income residents said they have been hard hit by the ongoing transition due to the state's healthcare reform law. Officials at the so-called "safety net" hospitals said that because the new system phases out payments for free care provided to the uninsured, hospitals are facing budget shortfalls and have been forced to cut back on investing in new equipment.
A growing number of hospitals are mining patients' personal financial information to figure out how likely they are to pay their bills. Hospitals say the practice helps them identify which patients to pursue actively for payment, and allows them to figure out more quickly which patients are eligible for assistance programs. Consumer advocates, however, say the practice creates the potential for hospitals to misuse the information by denying or cutting back on patients' care if the hospital decides the patient may not be able to pay.
Drugstore operator Walgreen Co. has announced plans to buy two operators of worksite health centers as part of a new health and wellness division. Once the deals close, the new division will manage health centers and pharmacies at large company worksites. Walgreen Co. plans to eventually operate more than 500 worksite and retail health centers in 40 states.
A bipartisan group of legislators have unveiled a proposal that would require all New Jersey residents to have healthcare coverage within three years. If approved, New Jersey would become the fourth state to require universal health coverage, following Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont. New Jersey's proposed plan would be funded by using small surpluses in NJ Family Care and Medicaid and revamping the costly and much-maligned system of Charity Care, under which the state reimburses hospitals for costs associated with caring for the poor.
Franconia, VA-based family practitioners Brett Wohler and Andrew Wise are switching to concierge care, leaving 5,000 Northern Virginia residents with some important questions about their healthcare. The two doctos will join a national doctors' network and will charge each patient an annual retainer of $1,500. In return, the physicians will offer perks such as round-the-clock cellphone access, same-day appointments and time to accompany their patients to specialists. The move follows a nationwide trend that is a reaction to what some doctors see as the excesses of managed care.
Doctors who charge an annual fee to patients in exchange for customized care including house calls are drawing the ire of some health insurance companies. United Healthcare confirmed it is dropping four local doctors from its network in April because the company disapproves of their so-called "concierge medicine" model. Cigna is also condemning the practice, in which physicians charge an annual retainer of $1,500 to $1,800 for patients who then receive more personal care.
A coalition of healthcare systems and business groups in Milwaukee is setting out to explain why a proposed tax on hospitals is not really a tax. The coalition, StopTheShift.org, came together to win political support for the tax--or, as supporters prefer to call it, an assessment. It won a major victory when Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state's largest business lobby and a group that typically opposes taxes by any name, announced its support for this one.
Robert Smith, director of cancer screening at the American Cancer Society, discusses why the organization has adopted virtual colonoscopy as a screening tool.
