Category: Hospitals

JGrimes
Fast-growing spending on imaging tests in Massachusetts gives a closeup view to the many-sided question of whether improved technology is really worth the extra cost.
The facts, as laid out by the Boston Globe this morning: Spending on MRIs, mammograms, and other imaging tests for privately insured Massachusetts residents jumped 20%, or $214 million, […]

JGrimes
Here’s a winter storm warning: show up for work during a blizzard or lose your job.
Washington Hospital Center has fired eight more employees who didn’t show up for work during last month’s snowstorms that blanketed DC, the Washington Post reports today. That’s on top of 16 workers who had been previously fired. Three […]

JGrimes
Five CEOs from the health-insurance big dogs (UnitedHealth, WellPoint, etc.) are at the White House this morning to discuss — or more accurately, take flack — over the health overhaul’s issue de jour: rising insurance premiums.
The leadup to the meeting has been disorganized and it’s hard to figure out what’s going on or […]

noreply@blogger.com (RCoffield@fsblaw.com)
Sepsis and pneumonia, two infections that can often be prevented with tight infection control practices in hospitals, killed 48,000 patients and added $8.1 billion to heath care costs in 2006 alone, according to a study published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Researchers analyzed 69 million discharge records from hospitals in 40 […]

noreply@blogger.com (RCoffield@fsblaw.com)
Now that it’s expanded health-insurance coverage to nearly all of its citizens, Massachusetts is trying to figure out what to do about the rapid rise of health costs.
The latest proposal comes from the state’s governor, Deval Patrick, who yesterday proposed a bill that would give the state the power to review — […]

noreply@blogger.com (RCoffield@fsblaw.com)
Like plenty of other states, Tennessee is strapped for cash and looking for ways to save money. Cuts are likely for TennCare, the state’s Medicaid managed care program.
But the state’s hospitals may ask to pay more taxes in order to stave off cuts to the program, the Tennessean reports.
Because Medicaid is jointly […]

noreply@blogger.com (RCoffield@fsblaw.com)
Medical evacuation flights from Haiti to the U.S. started up again after HHS officials said hospitals can receive federal payments equal to 110% of Medicare rates for providing care to Haitians.
A flight last night took 17 patients to Palm Beach, according to the Miami Herald. (That’s one of the arrivals in the […]

noreply@blogger.com (RCoffield@fsblaw.com)
Because they can.
Some Massachusetts hospitals charge private insurers twice as much as other hospitals. It’s not because they deliver higher quality care, treat sicker patients, or have a different mix of uninsured, Medicare, Medicaid and private-insurance patients. It’s because they have market leverage and can negotiate higher prices in their contracts with […]

noreply@blogger.com (RCoffield@fsblaw.com)
WellPoint’s efforts to control medical costs include “more aggressive” contract negotiations with health-care providers and the somewhat euphemistically described “medical management levers,” according to a Thomson Reuters transcript of the insurer’s call with analysts.
The Health Blog caught up with Wayne S. DeVeydt, WellPoint’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, to ask […]

noreply@blogger.com (RCoffield@fsblaw.com)
High-tech medical equipment can improve outcomes for patients — but it can also create new complications and safety risks.
This morning’s New York Times makes that point by examining Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy — a high-tech system for treating cancer patients with radiation.
IMRT can allow for more highly targeted radiation treatments, sparing healthy tissue. […]