President Bush has vetoed a bill designed to protect doctors from a 10.6% cut in their reimbursement rates when treating Medicare patients. The White House supports rescinding the pay cut, but objects to the way the legislation would finance the plan by reducing spending on private health plans. Lawmakers are under pressure from doctors and the elderly patients they serve to void the rate cut, which kicked in on July 1. As a result, both chambers of Congress are expected to move quickly to try to override the veto.
The California Assembly has approved a bill to toughen the state's power to fine insurers for failing to pay medical bills. The issue is whether the state needs extra legal powers to penalize health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations that are found to regularly underpay their bills to doctors, radiologists, anesthesiologists and other specialists. Assemblyman Jared Huffman said his bill was needed to put "teeth into our state's healthcare watchdog." But the measure now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is under pressure from HMOs and his own regulators to issue a veto.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has proposed asking businesses, insurers, and hospitals to kick in about $100 million to close a gap in funding for the state's health insurance law. Consumer groups praised the proposal, saying patients were asked to pay more when copayments and deductibles for subsidized health plans were increased earlier this year, and now it is time for others to step up and pay their share. But business and insurance industry leaders are opposed to Patrick's plan, saying it is unfair to ask them to pay more, especially during an economic downturn.
University of Iowa officials have named Kenneth Kates, a healthcare consultant with Alvarez & Marsal in Chicago, CEO of U of I Hospitals. Kates will take the U of I post Sept. 15 and be paid an annual salary of $540,000. Kates succeeds Donna Katen-Bahensky, who resigned Dec. 5 after leading the hospital since 2002. University officials said they did not renew Katen-Bahensky's contract because she did not support a reorganization of the hospital and the U of I Carver College of Medicine.
American Health Network, a large physician practice with offices in Ohio and Indiana, and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield have settled a longstanding dispute over reimbursement for care. The disagreement between the two organizations intensified in 2007 when American Health Network stopped accepting new Anthem patients at two of its offices due to declining reimbursement rates. Ben Park, MD, chief executive of American Health Network, said his practice is satisfied with the agreement that keeps it part of the Anthem network of providers. American Health Network has about 50 locations with approximately 160 physicians in areas including primary care, general surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology.
About 33% of Americans agree that the U.S. healthcare system needs to be completely revamped, prompting its ranking as the least popular healthcare system out of 10 developed countries in a recent survey. The Dutch healthcare system was cited as the most popular, with only 9% of people there calling for an overhaul.
A Canadian man suffering from degenerative disc disease has found some pain relief after seeking care in India after finding little assistance from doctors in his own country. This is an increasingly popular move, as research shows that more and more Canadians are reporting finding such quality healthcare overseas at more affordable costs.
A Louisiana teen plans to travel abroad this year for a second time in hopes that stem cell surgery will ultimately reverse paralysis resulting from a 2006 car accident. Kayla Spano, 18, last year traveled to China for the surgery—while it didn't help her walk again, it did help her to regain some feeling and control in her lower abdomen. Remaining hopeful, she is now planning a trip to Costa Rica, where she will undergo a series of stem cell implants.
"You can't stop this; it is as fundamental as life," says Vishal Bali, CEO of Wockhardt Hospitals Group, one of India's fastest growing private hospital chains.
You might have guessed that Bali was talking about the globalization of healthcare, but more specifically he was commenting on worldwide consumer demand for high quality and affordable healthcare.
In an effort to serve India's surging middle class, Wockhardt hospitals have cropped up across the nation over the past decade and a half. Its size, technology adoption, medical staff reputation, and affiliation with Harvard Medical International have made Wockhardt one of the strong healthcare brands in the country's rapidly growing private healthcare system.
A relatively young company, Wockhardt Hospitals Group wields significant influence in the region. "The agenda of healthcare in India is in the hands of private healthcare," Bali told me in a phone conversation last week. With little government investment or oversight of healthcare, private companies spar for business and the best physicians.
Given the size of India's self-pay population and emerging economy, Wockhardt's primary business opportunity doesn't come from the patients it gets from the West. At the same time, Bali sees an enormous opportunity for his hospitals to continue on as a destination for Americans and Europeans, mostly baby boomers who are looking for quick and inexpensive access to elective procedures like joint replacement, hip resurfacing, and spine and heart surgeries.
"[Boomers] can't wait for U.S. healthcare to fix the system and bring down the cost of care," says Bali. "We don't do soft medicine or cosmetic surgery at all. We are basically focused on areas I call serious medicine … these are truly the life saving and life enhancing surgeries."
Wockhardt serves uninsured and underinsured Americans, who pay for care out of their own pockets, but like many destination hospitals, the system has also begun negotiating deals done with American insurance companies. In fact, Bali says Wockhardt has recently performed surgeries on five Americans, but under terms of the agreement he cannot disclose any specifics.
"We've already done that," he says. "We are already treating employees from a particular corporation in the U.S." Even though U.S. employers and insurers are keeping the details of these deals quiet for now, Bali says that economic pressures will cause a significant and swift increase in the number of employer-sponsored insurers that add global hospitals to their networks.
To Bali, everything old is new again. He sees a parallel between the ways medical travelers sought care some 20 years ago and the so-called new wave of medical travelers. While the first group consisted of people with means from all over the world who were spurred by the lack of access to quality healthcare and traveled to U.S. academic medical centers, Bali says today's medical travelers have means but are motivated by the overall perceived value of select healthcare services.
"It is no longer about lower cost care," he says, "but about high-quality care at a lower cost."
Part of an agreement between Mubadala Development Company and Siemens Healthcare developed last year, construction of a new medical molecular imaging center at the Tawam Hospital in Al Ain is now underway. The Tawam Molecular Imaging Centre, scheduled to be completed in 2009, is expected to improve diagnostic imaging in the region and contribute to more efficient treatment for patients with cancer as well as cardiovascular and neurological diseases.
