Nearly 12,000 people have been cut from the Polk County, FL, government-run healthcare plan for the poor because it was bleeding money. Slightly more than 1,300 people remain covered by the plan, funded by a voter-approved half-cent sales tax. The county won't be able to cover more people until it plugs a $12.5 million shortfall, according to Steve Yaskal, fiscal manager with Polk's Community Health and Social Services.
Despite opposition from physician and patient groups, Hawaii will kick off a new managed care Medicaid program next month that will cover 39,000 Medicaid beneficiaries, who are aged, blind, and/or disabled. Two insurers, UnitedHealth Group Inc., and WellCare Health Plans Inc., will offer the coverage. They have each recruited more than 1,000 healthcare providers. Some doctors have refused to participate in the program because of lower reimbursements and fears associated with changing from a fee-for-service program.
St. Louis-area community health centers, a large chunk of the healthcare safety net that serves the uninsured and underinsured, have been strained by a major boost in business during the past year. The uptick comes as jobless rates spike and more people lose their employer-based health insurance. For the growing group that depends on the health centers, officials said, the increased demand could mean longer waits to get appointments. The financial strain could reverse some of the recent progress at St. Louis area sites toward keeping wait times down, they added.
Doctors in western New York have a new, electronic way to access patient records with the launch of the HEALTHeLINK Western New York Clinical Information Exchange. One goal of the health data exchange system is to reduce medical errors and avoid costly duplicative tests. The system is also a step toward Gov. David Paterson's goal of creating a unified statewide system where doctors can access records that are now scattered among different clinics and offices.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster has put fighting financial and healthcare fraud at the top of his to-do list. Last year, the attorney general's office received about 1,000 healthcare related formal complaints out of more than 40,700 complaints. They involved medical billing practices (497), healthcare professionals (69), medical products (331) and nursing homes, hospital care, and child care facilities (95.) In the past, that relatively low number of complaints might not have warranted priority status. But Koster plans to change that and will pursue problems for which there may be no complaints, a spokesman says.
Robbindale, MN-based North Memorial Health Care has bought Camden Physicians Ltd., a family physician practice. Camden has 18 family medical providers at three clinics in Minneapolis, Plymouth, and Maple Grove.
Two new HealthEast clinics have opened in Hugo and Eagan to serve growing populations in the suburbs of Minneapolis. "We've been looking to build a clinic in Hugo or in the northern area for several years," said Len Kaiser, director of business development for HealthEast clinics. "We finally found the right situation."
A new University of Iowa policy would prohibit physicians from giving free drug samples to patients, a practice that hospital leaders and consumer advocates say contributes to increasing healthcare costs. Other changes include barring U of I Health Care employees from accepting gifts and meals from private companies and requiring all doctors who do industry consulting to report who they work for and how much they are paid. The restrictions come after a U of I-requested audit showed U of I Health Care needed more specific conflict-of-interest policies and better ways of monitoring potential conflicts.
An economic stimulus package under consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Committee would help provide health-insurance coverage to unemployed and uninsured Americans, give states expanded federal funding for Medicaid programs, and promote use of electronic health records by doctors and hospitals. The healthcare provisions are contained in a two-year, $875 billion package that congressional Democrats hope to enact by mid-February in response to President Barack Obama's call for action to revive the U.S. economy.
Officials with the Service Employees International Union announced they would appoint a trustee to run a 150,000-member healthcare local in California unless the local obeyed the parent union's decision within five days to move thousands of members into another local. The union's executive board made the threat on the day that Ray Marshall, who was labor secretary in the Carter administration, ruled that the leaders of the United Healthcare Workers-West had engaged "in financial malpractice and undermined democratic procedures."
