Health Care Industry Archive

As the deadline for the government to finalize its meaningful use and EHR certification criteria nears, the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) has called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take a fresh look at the work that has been done thus far to ensure that physicians will be fairly treated and that the program will have a good chance of success. As those who...

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Big Calif. Group Rescued From Bankruptcy - Lakeside Healthcare, a Burbank, CA-based medical group that includes more than 1,800 staff and contract physicians, has been acquired by Heritage Provider Network of Northridge, CA. Lakeside, which has long taken financial risk from HMOs, was headed for bankruptcy when it was acquired. Its financial troubles began this year when its medical expenses...

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Sliding in under the radar, the House has followed up its passage of health reform legislation by passing another bill that would restore nearly $200 billion in projected Medicare payment cuts to physicians over 10 years. The Senate recently defeated a similar proposal, and it’s doubtful that the upper chamber will reverse itself, especially in the midst of a fierce battle over healthcare...

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Just as the Senate’s reform legislation was about to be unveiled, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), one of the chamber’s leading experts on healthcare, published a piece in the New England Journal of Medicine about why the bill would be disastrous if it passed. The piece adds little to the litany of Republican complaints about the Democrats’ approach, but it does contain more...

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The Democrats in the U.S. Senate have finally worked out a healthcare reform package that, judging by initial reports, seems remarkably similar to the one that came out of the Senate Finance Committee last month. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the legislation will cost $848 billion over 10 years, but that it will reduce the deficit by $130 billion, because the costs will be offset by...

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Medicare and Medicaid fraud is a perennial target of government cost-cutters. While a perfectly honest system-which we will never have-would not have a major impact on the rising cost of healthcare, the ante was raised recently when the White House revealed that Medicare and Medicaid improperly paid out $54.2 billion in fiscal 2009. Of that amount, $24.1 billion came from the Medicare...

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The nation’s hospitals are bouncing back from the recession in a big way, even though the rising unemployment rate has reduced their pool of paying customers. According to a new Thomson Reuters study of financial data on more than 400 hospitals, the median profit margin of U.S. hospitals increased from near zero in the third quarter of 2008 to 8.4 percent in the second quarter of 2009. To...

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Physician shortages are much more on hospital leaders’ minds these days than shortages of nurses or allied health professionals, a new AMN Healthcare survey of 285 hospital chief executive officers shows. The CEOs doubt there are enough clinicians available to cope with the sharply increased demand for services that healthcare reform is expected to generate. Ninety-five percent of the...

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As healthcare reform starts to look more and more inevitable, various interest groups are stepping up their efforts to influence the legislation. And, while special interests have traditionally been branded as profit-driven at the expense of the public interest, some of them have potent arguments. Take Medicare HMOs. Reformers in both the House and the Senate want to trim government payments to...

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Many physicians have complained that they must invest in electronic health records now in order to qualify for government subsidies that will be paid in increments over five years, starting in 2011. These incentives are substantial-physicians may be eligible for up to $44,000 from Medicare or $64,000 from Medicaid if they have enough Medicaid business. But physicians either have to lay out a...

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