Harry Jacobson, MD, who oversaw expansion of Vanderbilt University Medical Center over the past decade, will retire from that role and as the university's vice chancellor of health affairs on June 1. Jeffrey Balser, MD, dean of Vanderbilt's School of Medicine, will replace him, according to a statement.
In an industry that makes its money by selling more, Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health System officials gambled three years ago that they could succeed by doing less, but doing it better. The health system devised a 90-day warranty on elective heart surgery, promising to get it right the first time, for a flat fee. If complications arise or the patient returns to the hospital, Geisinger bears the additional cost. The venture has paid off. Heart patients have fared measurably better, and the health system has cut its bypass surgery costs by 15%.
In the past year, things have been hairier than usual at the Community-University Health Care Center in south Minneapolis.
The patients are showing up in growing numbers, according to clinic manager Amy Shellabarger, and by every measure they are showing up with greater needs. In 2006, 10% of CUHCC's patients were uninsured. In 2007 and 2008 the share was about 28%.
San Diego is about to step to the forefront of efforts to get wireless healthcare inventions out of the laboratory and into medicine cabinets. Drawing on the region's strong life sciences and wireless industries, and with a $45 million gift from a pair of philanthropists, San Diego will become home to the nation's first wireless healthcare research institute.
Workers laid off by California's smallest businesses have a shot at subsidized healthcare under a bill moving quickly through the Legislature. As part of February's stimulus package, some laid-off employees can get the government to temporarily cover 65% of the cost of continuing their health insurance under the federal COBRA law, which allows workers to keep their healthcare coverage but requires them to pay the premiums. California's AB 23 would extend the subsidy to those who worked for companies smaller than the COBRA minimum of 20 employees.
Developers are pushing ahead with construction of a North Dallas medical complex. Cirrus Group has gotten a $16.79 million construction loan for Reliant Rehabilitation Hospital, 65,000-square-foot facility that will accommodate 60 patients and be operated by Dallas-based Reliant Healthcare Partners. The company operates facilities in Austin, Houston, and Richardson, TX.
A new Illinois law that goes into effect April 1 will reduce what hospitals charge the uninsured and cap how much they can collect in payment. Under the law, hospital charges to the eligible uninsured can't exceed the cost of services plus 35%. It also caps at 25% of a patient's family income what hospitals can collect annually from the eligible uninsured.
Thousands of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield members won't be able to use Middletown, CT-based Middlesex Hospital—or will have to pay more to do so—unless the two sides agree on a new contract by May 1. Negotiations between Blue Cross and Middlesex broke down over reimbursement issues. Anthem has sent letters to its members saying that the hospital would no longer be part of its network as of May 1, but that they could still get emergency care there.
Maury Regional Medical Center in Columbia, TN, will cut 25 jobs and freeze salaries. The layoffs affect less than 1% of the hospital's more than 2,100 employees. The changes will occur in the next few weeks. Salaries of remaining workers will remain frozen until more patients use the hospital and revenues improve, officials said.
Every year or so, we hear that some big Medicare pay cuts for doctors are on the way, and almost every time Congress swoops in at the last minute to block the cuts, according to this post in the Wall Street Journal Health Blog. But now leaders of the AMA and other big doctor groups have been in Congress lately asking for a change to the underlying system that keeps creating these near misses. At issue is the "Sustainable Growth Rate," a formula Congress created in 1997 to try to keep payments from spiraling out of control.
