This year, 2.8 million of the oldest baby boomers will be eligible for Social Security benefits but he won't be eligible for Medicare until they turn 65. Finding a way to bridge the gap when they eligible for Social Security but not for Medicare will be the hardest and costliest challenge for many of the boomers who want to retire early or are forced out of their jobs.
Thanks to an infusion of $325 million in federal dollars, Georgia's embattled health insurance program for working-class children is safe for another year. PeachCare will now have enough funding to cover the 254,820 children now enrolled and to grow by up to 40,000 children, said State Health Department Commissioner Dr. Rhonda Medows.
The new $152 million, 138-bed Adventist Bolingbrook Medical Center in Bolingbrook, IL, is now open for business and is the first non-replacement, full-service community hospital to open in Illinois since 1980. The contemporary facility with is in Will County, one of the nation's fastest growing areas. The rapid changes are affecting the local hospital landscape and, in turn, fueling political battles in the region.
Lake Forest (IL) Hospital has presented a merger proposal to Condell Health Network, parent of Libertyville-based Condell Medical Center "to create a new healthcare system" in northern Illinois. The financial terms of the proposal were not disclosed, but Lake Forest said it presented a "significant line of credit to Condell Medical Center to support the financial needs of the hospital."
Aetna Inc., WellPoint Inc. and other big insurers are moving to ban payments for care resulting from serious errors. The companies are following the lead of Medicare, which starting in October 2008 will no longer pay the extra cost of treating bed sores, falls and six other preventable injuries and infections that occur while a patient is in a hospital. Some hospitals are concerned that the strategy could drive up medical costs as hospitals absorb or pass on the expense of introducing the safety and screening procedures needed to help avoid mistakes.
The dramatic increase in the number of Americans undergoing CT scans is fueling concerns about radiation exposure from the prodedure. Some doctors say the exams could cause a small but significant excess of cancers in coming decades, spurring debate about whether the tests are being overused and exposing millions of Americans to needless risk.
Half of all emergency room patients waited 30 minutes or more before being examined by a doctor in 2004, a 36 percent increase from a median wait time of 22 minutes in 1997, according to a study by researchers at Harvard Medical School. The trend is a potentially deadly result of the shrinking number of emergency departments and rising demand for emergency services, researchers said.
About 68 percent of Americans say individuals should be required to have medical insurance, with government help for those who cannot afford it, according to a survey from the Commonwealth Fund. The survey found health insurance mandates were supported by 80 percent of Democrats, 52 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of Independents.
A new system provides approximately 200 patients at the 750-bed Spectrum Health/Butterworth campus in Grand Rapids, MI, the technology to surf the Internet, communicate electronically with healthcare teams, watch patient videos and enjoy movies and games powered by Xbox 360 software. Other features will eventually be added, including interpreters to communicate with foreign-language patients; video-conferencing and messages chaplains can leave for patients they have missed on their rounds. The "Care Console" is a partnership between Cerner Corp. and Microsoft.
Pittsburgh-area hospitals, doctors and many home healthcare providers could see a bump in reimbursement for treating people on Medicare, if an appeal of the formula used in making the payments is successful. The appeal to the Center was made in December 2007 through Highmark Medicare Services. Winning the appeal could boost reimbursement to about 34 hospitals by $13 million starting in October, according to the Hospital Council of Western Pennsylvania.
