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Breaking Healthcare Business News

More coverage costs shift to workers: report

By Rebecca Vesely | September 02, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Employers this year increasingly shifted the cost of health coverage to their workers, even as total premiums rose only slightly, according to a new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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Small-business tax credit seen as boost for employee coverage

By Rebecca Vesely | September 02, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
About 3.4 million workers are employed by roughly 1 million small businesses that are likely to take advantage of a new healthcare premium tax credit by 2013, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund.
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Calif. lawmakers OK insurer transparency bill

By Rebecca Vesely | September 02, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
California lawmakers have passed a bill that provides more transparency on healthcare premium rate changes, while rejecting another bill that would have given state regulators the authority to halt rate increases outright.
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Cincinnati, Detroit named Beacon Communities

By Jennifer Lubell / HITS staff writer | September 02, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Cincinnati and Detroit are the final two pilot communities selected under the new Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Thursday.
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Select Medical completes Regency acquisition

By Joe Carlson | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Select Medical Holdings Corp., a specialty-hospital owner based in Mechanicsburg, Pa., has completed its acquisition of long-term acute-care company Regency Hospital Co.
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Two-year sentence for ex-City of Angels CEO

By Gregg Blesch | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
A former Los Angeles hospital CEO was sentenced to two years in prison for paying kickbacks to fill beds with homeless Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.
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LifePoint completes Sumner deal

By Melanie Evans | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
LifePoint Hospitals, a publicly traded health system based in Brentwood, Tenn., closed on its deal to acquire Sumner Regional Health Systems, a tax-exempt system that filed for bankruptcy in late April. LifePoint's deal to acquire Sumner Regional, which will be renamed HighPoint Health System, was first announced within days of LifePoint's May acquisition of a 100-bed hospital in Winchester, Ky.
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ProAssurance to buy Texas insurer

By Shawn Rhea | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
ProAssurance Corp., a medical-liability company based in Birmingham, Ala., has agreed to pay $32.50 a share to acquire the Austin, Texas-based medical-liability insurer American Physicians Service Group.
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Tampa system to merge with Adventist

By Joe Carlson | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
The wave of merger-and-acquisition activity among Florida hospitals continued Wednesday as a three-hospital system in the Tampa Bay area announced it has completed plans to merge with the ever-expanding Adventist Health System Sunbelt Healthcare.
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Allscripts completes Eclipsys acquisition

By Joseph Conn | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Electronic health records systems developer Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions has announced the completion of its acquisition of Eclipsys Corp., also an EHR systems developer.
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AHA, FAH urge changes in OPPS rule

By Jennifer Lubell | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Hospital groups are asking the CMS to revise how it plans to calculate the payment adjustment for certain cancer hospitals under the proposed outpatient payment rule for 2011.
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Thomson Reuters snags data analytics outfit

By Joseph Conn | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Thomson Reuters, an information broker, media company and a provider of research and data analysis for healthcare and other industries, announced it acquired Healthcare Data Management, a firm specializing in healthcare data analytics for self-insured health benefits plans.
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Specialty Hospitals wants United Medical back

By Gregg Blesch | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Specialty Hospitals of America is asking a Washington judge to return its ownership of United Medical Center from the District of Columbia, arguing the district council botched a foreclosure on the property that allowed the government to buy the struggling hospital at auction in July.
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Carolinas HealthCare System acquires Heart Group

By Vince Galloro | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Carolinas HealthCare System, Charlotte, said it has acquired a 10-physician cardiology group and merged it into its existing cardiology practice. Heart Group of the Carolinas is now part of the system's Sanger Heart and Vascular Institute. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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FDA announces new performance initiative

By Shawn Rhea | September 01, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
The Food and Drug Administration has launched a new performance-measure initiative that will allow the general public to track how well the agency is doing in meeting key goals.
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Frick to retire from CEO post at Independence Blue Cross

By Rebecca Vesely | August 31, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Joseph Frick is retiring as president and CEO of Independence Blue Cross, effective Dec. 15. Daniel Hilferty, executive vice president and president of Health Markets at the Philadelphia-based insurer, has been chosen as successor.
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Nearly 2,000 organizations accepted for early retiree reinsurance program

By Jennifer Lubell and Rebecca Vesely | August 31, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
HHS has announced the first round of applicants accepted into the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program under the healthcare reform law.
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FDA seeks to address industry concerns about device-approval process

By Shawn Rhea | August 31, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Officials at the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health attempted to reassure medical devicemakers and other stakeholders that the agency's efforts to overhaul the medical-device approval process will result in an improved system.
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Feds appeal order blocking stem-cell research

By the Associated Press | August 31, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
The Obama administration has appealed a federal judge's order that undercuts federally funded embryonic stem-cell research.
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Former Spectranetics execs face charges

By Gregg Blesch | August 31, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Three former executives of device company Spectranetics have been indicted on charges involving a scheme to import unapproved medical devices into the U.S.
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Medical chopper crash claims three in Ark.

By Jessica Zigmond | August 31, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Three air ambulance crew members from the company Air Evac Lifeteam were killed early Tuesday morning after the helicopter they were flying crashed near Clinton, Ark., about 80 miles north of Little Rock.
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Dallas architecture firm acquires Beijing outfit

By Andis Robeznieks | August 31, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
RTKL Associates, a Dallas-based architecture, engineering and planning firm, has acquired AHS International, a Beijing-based healthcare-architecture practice. Terms were not disclosed, but the deal is described as being “structured as a simple asset purchase.”
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Minn. agencies ordered to shun reform push

By Joe Carlson | August 31, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Citing an “unwise” federal takeover of healthcare, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has ordered all of his state executive agencies to refuse to participate in optional programs and provisions included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
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MedCath selling stake in S.D. heart hospital

By Jessica Zigmond | August 31, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Heart hospital operator MedCath Corp. said it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its interest and management rights in Avera Heart Hospital in South Dakota to Avera McKennan for about $20 million.
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Caregivers should be required to have flu shots, group says

By Jessica Zigmond | August 31, 2010 | Basic Web Basic Web Subscription Details
Flu vaccination of healthcare personnel is a patient-safety concern practice that should be a condition of both initial and continued employment at healthcare facilities, according to a position paper released by the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, or SHEA.
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