Georgia has been selected to take part in a program that will provide thousands of dollars to help physicians digitize medical records, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and Gov. Sonny Perdue announced. In Georgia, 100 physicians will receive funds of up to $58,000 per physician and $290,000 per practice to convert records to electronic ones. Another 100 Georgia physicians will take part as part of a control group. They will receive some funds to maintain paper records and report the progress of their patients' health to be compared with patients of the doctors who go digital. About 1,200 doctors across the country will participate in the Medicare project.
The Johnson Health Network, including Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford Springs, CT, laid off the equivalent of 76 full-time employees as part of an effort to lift the hospital out of the red. The layoffs came less than three weeks after Peter Betts, a specialist in hospital turnarounds, took over as interim president and CEO of the network. In 2007, Johnson decided to add 120 jobs, expecting an increase in patients that never materialized. The new cuts represented about 5.8% of the total 1,300-person workforce. In addition to layoffs, 40 vacant positions were eliminated.
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has signed a bill that makes lying or willfully withholding evidence in connection with an investigation of TennCare fraud a felony in the state. State leaders hope the bill will aid the TennCare Provider Fraud Task Force, which has recovered more than $7.7 million in about 10 healthcare provider fraud cases since January 2007.
Members of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts will soon be able to go online to look up their healthcare claims and some medical records. The feature is being offered through the new Web health portal Google Health, and Blue Cross-Blue Shield said it is the first health insurer to sign on to the service. Blue Cross representatives said the service will help patients manage their medical care and have more productive discussions with doctors.
Hospitals and health clinics are increasingly turning to "undercover patients" to evaluate the performance of doctors and their staffs, and to grade the healthcare experience being offered. As a result, the ethics council of the American Medical Association is pressing the doctors group to endorse such practices. AMA delegates are expected to vote on the proposal during their five-day meeting beginning June 14. Some doctors are outraged at the idea, however, saying that the practice is deceitful and could have disastrous consequences.
Republican senators have blocked legislation that would trim payments to private health insurers serving people in Medicare and use the savings to raise reimbursement rates for doctors. Democratic leaders in the Senate tried to advance a bill costing $19.8 billion over five years and paid for mainly by phasing out some payments to insurers. Payments rates are set to drop by 10.6% on July 1 as a result of a formula that calls for cuts when spending exceeds established goals.
Healthcare experts say that due to a growing fraud problem, there is a need to devote more resources to theft prevention. Law enforcement authorities estimate that healthcare fraud costs taxpayers more than $60 billion each year. A critical aspect of the problem is that Medicare automatically pays the vast majority of the bills it receives from companies that possess federally issued supplier numbers.
In the past 15 years, the healthcare economy has pumped out 4.5 million new jobs, and a dozen of the 30 fastest-growing occupations are related to healthcare. Last month, the unemployment rate took its biggest jump in 22 years, but healthcare continued to add thousands of jobs. And the healthcare economy is only bound to grow larger: The aging baby boomer population is about to spur a new wave of healthcare needs, and advances in technology are improving the survival rate of terminally ill and injured patients.
Western Pennsylvania Hospital's new president has offered more details about the initiatives under way to reverse operating losses, cut costs and increase revenues at West Penn Allegheny Health System. In an e-mail sent to employees, Dawn Gideon cited a new "financial improvement project" that would identify ways to "reduce expenses, increase revenues, improve cash flow and tighten management controls." Among the areas under scrutiny are purchasing practices, how the system collects revenue and "productivity and staffing."
