By Vince Galloro | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
Caritas Christi Health Care in Boston and Detroit Medical Center are like formerly broken-down cars that run again, but are stuck in third gear.
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Though it was dwarfed by the firestorm swirling around national healthcare reform, the long-simmering battle between nurses, doctors and specialty practitioners over who's qualified to do which jobs has reached a new level of rancor and immediacy, those close to the issue say.
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In a first step toward providing coverage to uninsured people who have pre-existing medical conditions, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to governors in each state gauging their interest in participating in a temporary high-risk pool. The new health reform law appropriates $5 billion...
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The CMS needs to do a better job of addressing and promptly correcting service-specific errors that result in improper payments discovered through its Recovery Audit Contractor program, the Government Accountability Office recommended in a report. The RAC program allows third-party auditors hired...
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Two for-profit hospital companies reached agreements to buy three hospitals in the South. Community Health Systems, Franklin, Tenn., agreed to nonbinding letters of intent on two separate deals in South Carolina and West Virginia, according to the two sellers. Terms were not disclosed in either...
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The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments should collect information that will help veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—and their family members—readjust to life after deployment, according to a report from the Institute of Medicine. According to the IOM, the research would...
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A Nevada judge declared a mistrial in the case against Lacy Thomas, a former CEO of University Medical Center in Las Vegas accused of felony theft and misconduct. According to a spokesman for the Clark County Courts, Judge Michael Villani said he stopped the jury trial after two weeks of...
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Harvard University, the Mayo Clinic, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston will share $60 million in federal grant money to promote research and innovation in health information technology, according to the Office of the National...
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By Vince Galloro | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
Caritas Christi Health Care in Boston and Detroit Medical Center are like formerly broken-down cars that run again, but are stuck in third gear.
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Not-for-profit hospitals today seemingly have every reason to pursue mergers, as prolonged financial strain and the passage of healthcare reform legislation have created more thirst than ever for operational efficiencies, economies of scale and geographic diversity.
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By Maureen McKinney | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
If President Barack Obama officially nominates Donald Berwick, 63, to lead the CMS as expected, some are wondering what that choice would mean for the future of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
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By Matthew DoBias | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
A longtime healthcare-quality advocate could get lost in the political turmoil on Capitol Hill as fallout from the hyperpartisan reform debate continues.
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By Melanie Evans | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
Debate surrounding a more obscure provision in the new health reform law to create networks known as accountable-care organizations underscores the challenge policymakers and the industry face as reform seeks to end tangled financial incentives cited as fuel for unneeded care.
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By Rebecca Vesely | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
Employers large and small face monumental changes to their business practices as a result of the new healthcare reform law—including added administrative work and reporting challenges.
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By Jessica Zigmond | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
As the new federal health law continues to generate uncertainty for many healthcare providers, it will provide long-sought stability to the Indian Health Service, the HHS agency that was made permanent as a result of the legislation.
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By Jennifer Lubell | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
While cautiously optimistic that the new health reform law addresses measures to boost the physician workforce, medical organizations and doctors across the country are nevertheless fed up that Congress can't deliver on the one thing they want most: adequate Medicare reimbursement.
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A two-day Food and Drug Administration public hearing to begin sorting out where providers, manufacturers and regulators can take steps to improve medical-imaging safety highlighted the need for standards creation in a host of areas.
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Medical boards across the country took disciplinary actions against 5,721 physicians in 2009, the highest number and the largest percentage jump in corrective measures in several years, according to an annual report from the Federation of State Medical Boards.
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An ambitious 10-year plan by the Federal Communications Commission to beef up the nation's broadband infrastructure and extend reliable, affordable wireless service into underserved communities could provide a huge boost to healthcare information technology efforts, industry experts say.
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By Vince Galloro | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
While Cerberus Capital Management is drawing a lot of attention for its plunge into hospitals, several of its private-equity peers might be contemplating the other end of the process—how they will exit their hospital investments.
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Though it was dwarfed by the firestorm swirling around national healthcare reform, the long-simmering battle between nurses, doctors and specialty practitioners over who's qualified to do which jobs has reached a new level of rancor and immediacy, those close to the issue say.
FULL STORY »
“Plans by a private-equity buyer to convert Caritas Christi from a nonprofit into a for-profit—and put the six Caritas hospitals onto the tax rolls—came as good news this week. ... But the attorney general and the state Supreme Judicial Court must first determine if the sale is in...
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At long last it is now the official policy of this country that all Americans have access to healthcare regardless of circumstances. And we have put this country on a path to control costs and improve the quality of healthcare in America.
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While I have profound disagreement with what President Barack Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership did with passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, their moment of jubilance is understandable. It was a significant legislative accomplishment.
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The Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Opinion Leaders Survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, is an online poll designed to highlight perspectives on the most timely health-policy issues from a panel of the nation's leading health plan executives, policymakers and healthcare purchasers.
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By Melissa Bruntlett | April 05, 2010
| Print Magazine
In my role as the chief financial officer of a small community hospital in central Mississippi, I'm required to take a lot of leaps of faith when making decisions, simply because those decisions at times involve intangibles that extend far beyond financial data. Over the past eight years, one...
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A list of states that have the most health information exchanges, based on participants from eHealth Initiative's sixth annual survey of HIEs. Source: eHealth Initiative. Published April 5, 2010.
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Images of this year's devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile served as grim reminders of the need for better healthcare services in certain parts of the globe—which is the purpose behind Containers to Clinics, a Dover, Mass.-based charitable organization also known as C2C.
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Last week, Outliers was scratching its head at the e-mail sent out by Senate Republican heavyweight Chuck Grassley of Iowa taking credit for some of the fine, upstanding provisions of the new healthcare reform law.
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In the 18th century a few Italian violinmakers crafted instruments so striking in tone that the surviving ones are highly prized—and today worth millions. Modern luthiers still quest for whatever alchemy would recreate that magic from the same basic assembly of wood and strings. Now they are...
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