Seeking to salvage two years of efforts to completely remake the state's health insurance system, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislators are nearing deals intended to rein in costly, meager medical insurance policies sold directly to individuals. They are negotiating measures that would limit insurer profits on individual plans, require plans to provide a minimum set of benefits, and restrict insurers' ability to cancel policies retroactively. The new focus reflects how far Schwarzenegger remains from his original goal to orchestrate medical insurance for the 5 million Californians who lack it. The state Senate rejected that $14.9-billion plan in January.
Deborah Kolb-Collier, a senior principal in the strategy and planning practice at the Noblis Center for Health Innovation, discusses certificate-of-need laws and what they mean to competition in healthcare. +
The Medical Tourism Association is now offering an accreditation program to medical tourism organizations as a way to emphasize the legitimacy of their services. +
Bob Allen, vice president for public relations and government affairs at Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, NY, shares how his hospital's Expect the Best campaign helped the hospital grow its OB market share by 15%. +
Administrators at Jackson South Community Hospital in Miami are set to break ground on a $102 million expansion project that will double the facility's size. By late 2011, the 199-bed hospital will have an expanded emergency room, 57 new private patient rooms, and three more operating rooms. There will also be a cardiac catheter lab to treat more heart conditions. The improved facilities will let the hospital provide more oncology, surgery, and cardiology services so South Miami-Dade patients can be treated closer to home.
Health and life insurance companies are increasingly using a health "credit report" drawn from databases containing prescription drug records on more than 200 million Americans to evaluate whether to cover individual consumers. While lawmakers debate how best to oversee the shift to computerized records, some insurers have begun testing systems that tap into prescription drug information, and also data about patients held by clinical and pathological laboratories. The trend may improve healthcare and save money, but privacy and consumer advocates fear it is taking place largely outside the scrutiny of federal health regulators and lawmakers.
Cathedral Healthcare's St. Michael's Medical Center of Newark, NJ, is now a part of Catholic Healthcare East, after the Newtown, PA-based company purchased the 141-year-old facility last week. The sale keeps St. Michael's open. Cathedral closed its other two hospitals, Columbus Hospital and Saint James Medical Center, earlier this year due to financial concerns.
As part of his infectious diseases practice, University of California-Davis physician Javeed Siddiqui, MD, regularly sees Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation prisoners as patients but is never in the same room with them. Siddiqui is an example of
the increasing role that telemedicine has been playing in inmate care in recent years. Doctors who treat inmates via telemedicine say it is a win-win because it's easier on them and the patient, more cost-efficient for the prison system, and provides a patient base for medical institutions.
Of all cancer patients, teenagers are the least likely to consistently follow their care plans, which could partly explain why survival gains for young adults have lagged behind those of other age groups, experts say. But a video game, called Re-Mission, teaches them about the importance of following their care plans. Re-Mission follows the efforts of a microscopic "nanobot" as she tries to annihilate cancer cells. Players win by taking care of their health: swallowing oral chemotherapies, taking stool softeners to prevent bowel perforations, and practicing good oral hygiene to prevent mouth sores.
Jefferson Regional Medical Center has announced that it has purchased the "Mercy-HealthTrax" building in Bethel Park, PA. The 60,000 square foot facility will become known as the Jefferson Regional Medical Center Health Pavilion. Jefferson intends to maintain the current relationships with physicians, tenants and healthcare providers as established by the previous owners, according to a release.
Philadelphia has some notable laws that other cities in Pennsylvania don't, and a new 3.93% tax will be imposed on the profits of general hospitals in Philadelphia starting in 2009. When the state Department of Public Welfare proposed the hospital tax to the Legislature, there was talk of imposing it on revenue surpluses of hospitals in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia because that is where most of the state's lower-income, Medicaid recipients live. Pittsburgh hospitals won't be facing the new tax for now, but Michael Nardone, deputy DPW secretary for Medical Assistance programs, said "it's possible that in the future Pittsburgh hospitals could get involved."
The recent 2008 National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System shows there is much room for improvements in the U.S. healthcare system. Many believe, however, that the problems do not stem from the system alone—its users are partially to blame.
