The Florida Department of Health recently gave the Lake County Health Department a three-year grant to increase healthcare access for low-income and uninsured residents. Under the Lake Primary Care Project, the Umatilla (FL) Health Clinic will expand its staff and extend hours. Planners hope it will be a first stop for patients’ medical needs and a place to work out health-insurance issues, and it’s also part of an effort to cut down on the number of people using hospital emergency rooms for nonemergency medical attention.
Sixty percent of federal employees will see their healthcare premiums balloon by nearly 13% next year, with the average increase for all federal workers about almost 8% in 2009. These figures are a sharp increase over the 2.9% and 2.3% over the past two years. An official pointed to increased costs of services and previous healthcare costs estimates being too low as the reasons for the spike.
A new Florida law will disallow health insurers from seeking reimbursement from doctors for overpaid claims after one year. The current law allows insurers to audit claim payments for up to 30 months. The law change was part of a class-action lawsuit settlement with physicians that involved Blue Cross groups last year.
Memorial Regional Hospital, the mother ship for Florida's South Broward Hospital District, continues to reproduce. Opened as Memorial Hospital with 100 beds in 1953, the 20-acre facility in what became the heart of Hollywood, FL's residential area is now three hospitals in one with 690 beds, and needs to grow more, executives said. Annually, about 75,000 adults receive care at Memorial Regional.
Barack Obama and John McCain present voters with starkly different visions of how to change the nation's troubled healthcare system.
But don't expect the election to hinge on healthcare, political and healthcare experts said after the Wall Street debacle grabbed the spotlight for the foreseeable future.
Alan B. Miller got into the hospital business in the Philadelphia area in 1969 after a friend asked him to join a new hospital company, American Medicorp. The day after that company was purchased in a hostile takeover in 1978, Miller started Universal Health Services Inc., with a similar philosophy of operating hospitals in fast-growing areas. Last year, its revenue was $4.7 billion, and Miller calls his company's recent performance "spectacular." UHS has 25 acute-care hospitals and 107 behavior health hospitals.
Thousands of Connecticut senior citizens could face some of the largest premium increases in years on their Medicare supplement insurance as insurers seek regulators' approval for 2009 rate increases as high as 12 or 15%. The Connecticut Insurance Department approved rate increases mostly in the 8.4% to 10% range for 2009 on Medicare supplements sold by United Healthcare Insurance Co. to AARP members.
A new master's program offered by Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Business is part of a national trend to equip doctors, nurses, and others with more knowledge about the dollars-and-cents side of healthcare. The University of Tennessee and Meharry Medical College are other schools with similar courses or degree programs aimed at improving the financial knowledge of the medical community. During a recent Saturday on Vanderbilt's campus, professor Larry Van Horn used a discussion of the medicines that his son takes to explain how consumer choices about drugs might change if people had to pay full price for medicines without insurance discounts.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's agenda was dealt a major blow after a state appellate court ruled he doesn't have the power to expand state-subsidized healthcare without lawmakers' approval. The decision upholds a ruling that found Blagojevich had overstepped his bounds when he used his administrative powers to add more people to the state's FamilyCare insurance program. The ruling jeopardizes coverage for those enrolled in the program, though it's unclear how many people may be dropped. Critics have long complained that the administration can't provide solid numbers on how many people have benefited from Blagojevich's healthcare expansions.
Some patients who have suffered seizures or blackouts get behind the wheel anyway, not waiting to see if their unconscious spells or other medical issues persist. But Michigan physicians worry about getting sued if they alert the secretary of state's office to unfit drivers. Bills passed by the state Senate are designed to fix the problem by shielding doctors from lawsuits. Physicians wouldn't have to warn the state about drivers whose physical or mental conditions make them unfit to drive, but the legislation would specifically allow them to act.
