As we noted last week, some “safety net” hospitals are working to shed that label by building out expensive high-tech facilities in order to attract well-heeled — and fully insured — patients. Others, meanwhile, appear to be making do by ratcheting back services to the point that patients are simply dropping dead, often before they’re even admitted: In May 2007,...
Health Care Industry Archive
August 2008
I was aware that self-insured health plans were popular with employers, but I didn’t know just how fast they’re growing — or, more important, why — until I happened across a recent American Medical News article that’s a fascinating primer for a largely unheralded but major issue in the health-insurance industry. (The full text, unfortunately, requires a...
As a quick addendum to a recent post on whether health insurers are more properly viewed as health plans or transaction processors, I couldn’t help noticing a recent research note by Zacks.com analyst Chris Kallos that underscores the blinkered way most financial analysts seem to view the healthcare industry. Specifically, while Kallos appears to understand several of the major challenges...
This is a guest post submitted by BNET member Craig Garner. To submit your own post, go to submit.bnet.com. In the world of medical imaging, picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) are computers or networks dedicated to the storage, retrieval, distribution and presentation of images. Typically PACS handles the gamut of medical imaging instruments, including magnetic resonance...
This is a guest post submitted by BNET member Craig Garner. To submit your own post, go to submit.bnet.com. Other than a possible seismic issue here and there, and maybe some other obvious exceptions (we’ll just let that surgeon wash those hands and arms with the water running for a full 300 seconds, just in case), healthcare facilities around the nation are jumping on, and occasionally off,...
This is a guest post submitted by BNET member Craig Garner. To submit your own post, go to submit.bnet.com. California hospitals will spend about $100 billion before 2013 in order to meet state seismic safety standards. On top of that, the nationwide mortgage and credit crisis more or less doubles that $100 billion price tag in the event that these hospitals do not have the cash on hand. ...
The financial pressure on hospitals isn’t entirely new, and neither are their increasingly desperate moves to reduce bad-debt burdens usually related to care for the uninsured or underinsured. What isn’t always clear, though, is exactly how these problems result from broader changes in the healthcare market, or exactly what sort of consequences they might have over the longer run....
Although the news still seems to be at the rumor stage, it’s beginning to look a lot like Steve Case’s much-hyped healthcare revolution — known, fittingly enough, as Revolution Health — is running out of steam. And it’s not exactly a huge surprise, since Revolution serves as an excellent object lesson in how to waste a ton of money trying to change the healthcare...
The biweekly healthcare blog carnival Health Wonk Review is up, and although I’m a tad late, here are some of the highlights from a business perspective: Roy Poses of Health Care Renewal recounts the story of Rodney Miller, an administrator at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Fla., who lost his job after a newspaper reported on alleged widespread financial abuses by Miller at his...
Just over a week ago, Joe Paduda over at Managed Care Matters took a close look at Coventry Health Care’s second-quarter conference call and made an interesting observation: Not only do Wall Street analysts seem to think it’s not much of a health plan, neither does Coventry itself. Instead, the mid-tier health insurer describes its business in terms that suggest it’s not much...
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BNET Healthcare provides daily industry trends and news coverage with insights for managers and executives, focusing on major health care providers, hospitals and facilities, insurance companies, and medical device manufacturers. In addition to detailed company profiles, you will find detailed industry analysis on new alliances and partnerships, healthcare products, medical patents, health care cost control, lawsuits, management and board changes, and all other important business issues.