Fulton County, GA, needs to increase payments to Grady Memorial Hospital by nearly half, by about $36 million a year, if the county is going to meet its obligations in covering the hospital's losses on indigent Fulton residents, according to Grady officials. Grady representatives delivered that message in a series of documents, numbers and files presented to county officials as the two sides spar over how much taxpayers should contribute for indigent care. Fulton officials vowed to pore over the files and see if they can verify the numbers.
Once vilified for its stingy health benefits, Wal-Mart has become an unlikely leader in the effort to provide affordable care without bankrupting employers, their workers, or taxpayers in the process. At a time when other firms are scaling back or eliminating health coverage, Wal-Mart has made a serious dent in the problem of the uninsured. New figures show that 5.5% of its employees now lack health insurance, compared with a nationwide rate of 18%.
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's investment portfolio took a $3 million hit last quarter, but it remains on target to exceed a $500 million cash flow income this fiscal year, health system officials said. Chief Financial Officer Robert DeMichiei said UMPC had $103 million in operating income for the first half of the current fiscal year—up $3 million from the same period a year ago. That money will be used to fund capital expenditures and create new programs in addition to keeping the health system running, he said.
Despite insistence from Louisiana State University System officials that they have made a final decision to build a new academic medical complex New Orleans, opponents of the plan continue to lobby for an audience with Gov. Bobby Jindal and Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine. Their hope is to convince the governor and Levine that gutting and rebuilding Charity Hospital from within represents a better option for taxpayers, future medical students, and patients.
Maryland law should be changed so that hospitals are required to provide charity care to more people and give financial-assistance information to all patients, according to the state's Health Services Cost Review Commission. In a report to Gov. Martin O'Malley, the Commission recommends several changes to the state's unique rate-setting system. The commission also recommended that hospitals be required to provide written notice about the availability of financial assistance to all patients before or as they are discharged, and that hospitals and their collection agencies be barred from adding interest and penalties on bills to uninsured patients for periods before court judgments are entered against them.
Fort Worth, TX-based John Peter Smith Hospital is seeking approval to become a Level 1 trauma center, the highest-level of accreditation that would allow the most serious injuries and illnesses to be treated at the hospital. JPS trauma services are currently at Level 2, and JPS would need to add the ability to perform cardiac bypass surgery, among other things. The process to become a Level 1 trauma center could take about a year.
Brownsville Tri-County Hospital, a long-troubled 40-bed facility in Fayette County, PA, has finally closed. The board of directors surrendered the hospital's operating license to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, which helped transfer the remaining 15 patients to other facilities. The 93-year-old hospital, which had closed once before, has been in tangled bankruptcy proceedings for four years and indicated earlier this month that it couldn't pay its 150 employees.
Amid allegations by college students that school health insurance is skimpy, Massachusetts regulators have proposed that colleges start tracking how many students rack up annual medical bills beyond what their policies cover. Under the proposal, colleges would be required to report to state regulators information such as the number of times insurers refuse to pay for student injuries or illnesses; the number of grievances students file against the companies; and the percentage of profits the companies apply toward students' medical services. Regulators said the proposal would be a first step as they consider whether to make insurers offer student plans that provide more generous benefits.
University of South Florida wants to build a freestanding, 100-bed, general acute-care hospital on its Tampa campus. USF disclosed its plan in a letter of intent to Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration, seeking a certificate of need to build the hospital. The proposed hospital would be adjacent to the Carol & Frank Morsani Center for Advanced Healthcare, a newly opened outpatient center on campus, and near the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute.
The emergency room of Santa Clara County, CA's busiest hospital was closed for more than four hours Feb. 12 because of a scare involving a man who had been overcome by a byproduct of sewer gas at his home. The 18-year-old man was brought to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose after being found unconscious in his home. He was not decontaminated before being admitted, and at first authorities had no idea what had felled him. As a precaution, the emergency department was quarantined, and dozens of people were decontaminated.
