About 1,000 primary-care physicians in New York City have given up their doctor's pens over the past year to collect the smallest details of their patients' lives in a database as part of a $60 million city health department project. Experts say it is the most ambitious government effort nationwide to harness electronic data for public-health goals like monitoring disease frequency, cancer screening, and substance abuse.
So many adults without children have enrolled in Indiana's year-old subsidized health insurance plan that their numbers threaten to reach a federal cap—especially as the recession lengthens and more people find themselves out of work. About half of the 41,948 people in the Healthy Indiana Plan are Hoosiers without dependent children. The cap on enrollees in that category is 34,000.
Retirement healthcare for as many as three-quarters of a million Americans will be placed at high risk if conditions proposed as part of auto rescue loans are enforced by the incoming Congress and Obama administration, labor experts say. At issue is a condition of the loans that calls for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler to use company stock or the equivalent to pay half, or $10.5 billion, of the cash owed to a union retiree health care trust. The last company to use that strategy was Enron, and workers there lost the lion's share of their retirement savings when the company's once fast-gaining stock became worthless.
California's failure to check the criminal backgrounds of health professionals extends well beyond nurses, encompassing tens of thousands of doctors, dentists, psychiatric technicians and therapists. The Los Angeles Times reported this fall that regulators had not vetted about 195,000 of the state's registered and vocational nurses, exposing patients to caregivers with histories of violence, addiction, predatory behavior or corruption. Prompted by those articles, the state Department of Consumer Affairs has identified 104,000 more professionals from all levels of medical care to add to that tally. All told, the agency now estimates that close to a third of the state's 937,100 licensed healthcare workers have not been screened through fingerprint checks.
The Connecticut Department of Social Services is mailing notices to approximately 60,000 households enrolled in the HUSKY health insurance program telling them that they must switch to a new managed care network by February 1. The change is staunchly opposed by advocates who say the new networks don't have enough doctors. The switch is happening because the state wants to end HUSKY's relationship with Anthem Blue Care, one of the managed care providers for the health plan for low-income children and adults. Anthem withdrew from bidding for HUSKY last March, but has continued to provide coverage. DSS officials have said Anthem's continued participation in the program was preventing doctors from joining the other HUSKY plans.
About 3,700 retirees were notified last week that their fee-for-service Medicare plan known as North Star Advantage would be cancelled. NorthStar was launched in 2007 by Metropolitan Health Plan of Minneapolis, which is owned by Hennepin County. The Hennepin County Board decided to end the plan—primarily because fewer doctors will accept fee-for-service clients and to staunch the flow of red ink, estimated this year at $3 million to $6 million—but hoped to wait a year. However, Medicare officials in Washington convinced them last week that acting now would benefit clients.
A Colorado physician who used the Internet to prescribe an antidepressant to a Stanford University student he'd never examined is facing charges of practicing medicine in California without a license. Student John McKay killed himself in 2005. McKay's family says a conviction would send a strong message to physicians who blindly write prescriptions for patients they know nothing about. Opponents say a conviction could have a chilling effect on telemedicine across state lines.
Experts say that most drugs, whatever the disease, work for only about half the people who take them. Not only is much of the nation's approximately $300 billion annual drug spending wasted, but countless patients are being exposed unnecessarily to side effects. No wonder so much hope is riding on the promise of "personalized medicine," in which genetic screening and other tests give doctors more evidence for tailoring treatments to patients, potentially improving care and saving money.
Business is booming at Abbott Northwestern Hospital Minneapolis and doctors at Minnesota Gastroenterology are doing 14% more procedures—mostly colonoscopies—in November and December than at the same time a year ago. What gives? It's the Year-End Mini-Boom, a new phenomenon brought on by health insurance plans with deductibles. Early in the year, patients are more likely to hold off getting care because they are paying out of pocket. Later in the year, some have paid enough to reach their deductible and insurance kicks in.
Florida's Cover Florida program will soon introduce new health insurance options at lower costs. Beginning January 5, the program will offer 10 new low-cost but bare-bones health policies to South Florida. Four insurers will sell the policies. The program is open to anyone under age 64 who has been uninsured for at least six months and who also is not eligible for other government or job-related coverage. It's also open to those who recently were laid off, whose post-layoff employer coverage expired, or who were covered by a spouse who died or was laid off.
