Modern Healthcare articles from August 2005

Modern Healthcare archives from August 2005

The price of poor care; Feds link care to False Claims Act.(Central Montgomery Medical Center)
August 1, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor The government's attempt to equate substandard hospital care with fraudulent billing bore fruit last week when a Pennsylvania hospital agreed to pay $200,000 to settle allegations that it violated Medicare's conditions...

Good Times; New accounting rules mean fewer stock options for healthcare CEOs, but the highest paid execs are still raking it in.(chief executive officers)
August 1, 2005... Byline: Laura B. Benko, Vince Galloro and Joseph Mantone Slowly but surely, the pay packages of chief executive officers are changing, and healthcare CEOs are no exception. The still-smoldering furor over executive pay-in particular,...

Other Voices.(hospitals improve quality in patient care)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2005... "The simple act of measuring quality appears to improve the care that patients receive. This is one promising result from a study done over two years, 2002 to 2004, that looked at the way hospitals across the country treated patients with heart...

On the move ...(appointments, dismissals and awards)
August 1, 2005... HOSPITALS, SYSTEMS Ira Walton III, 56, was removed as CEO of Kona Community Hospital in Kealakekua, Hawaii, after a vote of no confidence by the medical staff of the hospital on the state's Big Island. Walton and his deputy, COO Glen...

State of the unions; Split in AFL-CIO may pose hardships for bosses.
August 1, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans The union split in the AFL-CIO last week won't likely benefit healthcare employers. In fact, the Service Employees International Union's break July 25 from the AFL-CIO could lead to more hard-line contract...

Providing incentives; Execs see modest pay gains as focus turns to quality.
August 1, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans As governing boards face scrutiny for how much-and increasingly how-executives get paid, healthcare executives can expect dwindling guarantees on their compensation, with more bonuses linked to strategic and financial...

David and Goliath; New firm buys five hospitals from HCA.(Capella Healthcare)
August 1, 2005... Byline: Vince Galloro For HCA, selling five hospitals is paring less than 3% of its 190-hospital portfolio. For Capella Healthcare, buying those five hospitals is the real start of the 3-month-old company. Nashville-based HCA said last...

Protection for reporting; Law creating database snuffs fear of litigation.(Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act and Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-Cost, Timely Healthcare Act of 2005)
August 1, 2005... Byline: Tony Fong After years of waiting, providers won a major victory last week when President Bush signed into law a bill giving them liability protection when they report medical errors. A bill limiting noneconomic damages in...

Doc-execs wielding power.(50 most powerful physician executives in healthcare industry)
August 1, 2005... Byline: David Burda, Editor The readers of Modern Physician, Modern Healthcare's sister publication, recently voted for and ranked who they believe are the 50 Most Powerful Physician Executives in Healthcare. Those who made the inaugural...

Late News; Surgical quality pushed.(Yale-New Haven Hospital)(appointments and obituary)(Obituary)
August 1, 2005... A nationwide hospital recruitment drive for surgical quality improvement, the Surgical Care Improvement Project, was launched by a coalition of hospital and healthcare organizations. The participating groups are: the American Hospital...

DaVita to sell 70 dialysis centers; Sale would help clear deal with Gambro.(Gambro Healthcare US)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone Dialysis provider DaVita said it reached an agreement to sell 70 dialysis centers for $320.5 million as a result of its pending acquisition of Gambro Healthcare US, the U.S. subsidiary of the Sweden-based company, as...

The risks of healthcare IT; Psychiatry an example of why digital records must be pursued cautiously.(information technology)
August 1, 2005... Byline: Jon Meyer and James Pyles Throughout the practice of medical care, the ethics of medicine have guided clinical practice. Doctors have practiced according to standards that call for healthcare to be provided in a manner that is...

Tax break broken? San Francisco hospital's tax status at issue.(California Pacific Medical Center)
August 1, 2005... Byline: Laura B. Benko San Francisco's largest hospital may be liable for more than $4 million in back taxes after a preliminary investigation by the city assessor-recorder's office found that the not-for-profit facility may not have been...

St. Rose poised to go solo; Calif. hospital leaves Via Christi, faces costly woes.(Via Christi Health System to sell its Californian St. Rose Hospital)
August 1, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans Unable to find a buyer after a five-year search, Via Christi Health System won state approval for a $22 million deal to sell its only California hospital, St. Rose Hospital, Hayward. California's attorney general...

Personal space; Guidelines call for only private rooms.
August 1, 2005... Byline: Michael Romano Semiprivate hospital rooms have been fading fast for years as planners focus on patient preference, safety and simple privacy in new construction. Only a tiny percentage of multiple-bed rooms have been included in...

Louisiana turnaround; The CMS rejects rural hospital coalition's plan for Medicaid waiver.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
August 1, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor Members of the Louisiana Rural Hospital Coalition approved a new membership dues structure late last month after the June rejection by the CMS of a controversial state Medicaid waiver plan. That plan would have given...

Falling short; Medicare patients not getting suggested tests: studies.
August 1, 2005... Byline: Andis Robeznieks Echoing the findings of the Commonwealth Fund survey (See story above), the Journal of the American Medical Association last week published two reports indicating that Medicare recipients don't get as high-quality...

Vista vision; Software to give digital boost to small practices.(Vista Office Electronic Health Record)
August 1, 2005... Byline: Joseph Conn When it comes to marketing products, free is a magic word. So the CMS appears to have its hands full getting ready to meet demand for the free release of its modified version of a clinical computer system developed by...

The party's over; Amid Medicare birthday, talk on quality gets serious.
August 1, 2005... Byline: Tony Fong As Medicare faced its 40th birthday on July 30, the quality of care delivered to the program's beneficiaries moved to the forefront in Washington. Sporadic events in the nation's capital commemorated the signing of...

Is the price too high? Execs' high compensation may be distracting them from their jobs.
August 1, 2005... Byline: David Burda, Editor How much is enough? Going into healthcare administration is always said to be a calling like journalism or teaching. The desire to inform the public, to educate young minds and to care for the sick and injured...

New Windows system opens Vista of trademark issues.(Veterans Health Administration unhappy over Microsoft renaming its new operating system similar to its clinical computer system)
August 1, 2005... While Bill and Melinda Gates are giving away tens of millions of dollars for worthy medical causes, the company Bill founded is running roughshod over a healthcare institution. Microsoft Corp., which had been developing the newest edition...

Don't believe everything you hear; Despite grim prophecies, healthcare is hanging in there just fine, thank you.
August 1, 2005... Byline: Charles S. Lauer, Vice President-Publishing/Editorial Director Too often these days we hear the death knell of healthcare being sounded. Hospitals are on the financial ropes, the uninsured are filling up emergency rooms, everybody...

Corrections & Clarifications.(Correction Notice)
August 1, 2005... * This year's Physician Compensation Survey contained an incorrectly color-coded chart for the urology specialty (July 18 pullout section). Firm names and corresponding data are correct. The properly color-coded chart can be viewed at the...

Reading, writing and relating; Providers--rural and urban--urged to pay more attention to health literacy.
August 8, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone If J. Edward Hill has his way, improving the nation's health literacy could start in pre-kindergarten. "It's been a passion of mine for 35 years,'' says the president of the American Medical Association. For...

Hard to handle; New guidance helps boards navigate Sarbanes-Oxley.(Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Paul Barr In what could be another sign that not-for-profit hospital and system boards may soon become subject to Sarbanes-Oxley-style accounting standards, new guidance on how to handle the sticky subject of financial auditing was...

Post-acute pain; Hospitals battle new inpatient-transfer policy.(United States. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, post-acute transfer policy)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Tony Fong An announcement last week by the CMS that the number of DRGs subject to its post-acute transfer policy would be increased by six times led to an immediate response from hospitals, which are asking Congress for legislative...

Chronic questions; Can disease management deliver promised savings? The programs are gaining in popularity, but they're also under pressure to prove their value.(chronic conditions management)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Laura B. Benko The disease-management industry has been under the proverbial gun since October 2004, when the Congressional Budget Office issued a report concluding there was "insufficient evidence'' to prove that disease...

Other Voices.(Bill First)(Brief Article)
August 8, 2005... "Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist... jeopardized his influence earlier this year when he participated in the shameful interference into the Terri Schiavo case, questioning her doctors' findings that she was in a permanent vegetative state...

Florida Hospital moves into the healthcare publishing industry.(Super Sized Kids: How to Rescue Your Child from the Obesity Threat, Brian Pickens and Marjorie Smelstor)
August 8, 2005... Lots of hospitals have tried a variety of diversification strategies over the past couple of decades-everything from managed care to laundry services to real estate. Now one is joining the ranks of hospitals that publish books. Florida...

Briefly: Hospitals.(Ottumwa Regional Medical Center, Albuquerque Regional Medical Center, Baptist Health Care Corp. and United States. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
August 8, 2005... Eligibility in question * Ottumwa (Iowa) Regional Medical Center is scheduled to lose Medicare eligibility Aug. 12 after a follow-up inspection by the state found continued problems with the hospital's care of psychiatric patients. Lynn...

On the move ...(News Makers)
August 8, 2005... SPECIALTY PROVIDERS Charles Slaton will be promoted from president and COO of MedCath Corp. to CEO effective Oct. 1. Slaton, 48, will replace John Casey, who has served as CEO of the Charlotte, N.C.-based cardiovascular services provider...

A safety net is needed; Policymakers must not forget the poor and underinsured.(healthcare services and costs management)(Column)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Thomas Chapman In the early 1990s, national political and policy leaders determined that competition in healthcare services was a powerful way to reduce costs and expand access to care in America. During the past decade and a half...

Putting family first; For-profits find selling easier with other for-profits.(HCA Healthcare Inc., LifePoint Hospitals L.L.C. and Capella Healthcare)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Vince Galloro When selling a hospital, every buyer-whether for-profit, not-for-profit or government-has money that's green, and the bidder with the most green usually wins. For-profit sellers, such as HCA with the 10 hospitals it...

PacifiCare deal draws fire; Consumer advocates decry $314 million for top execs.(Pacificare Health System Inc. and UnitedHealth Group Inc.)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Laura B. Benko In the latest insurance deal that has consumer advocates seething, PacifiCare Health Systems' 39 top executives could receive up to $314 million in compensation if the health insurer completes its megamerger with...

System starting Medicaid HMO; The business model can be a tough one.(Children's Hospital and Health System)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans Children's Hospital and Health System, Milwaukee, is banking on its brand, its niche market and customer loyalty to win over enrollees for its newly formed Medicaid HMO in a competitive marketplace. The...

It's one step toward quality; Many hurdles remain to establishing new patient-safety groups, which will use confidential provider data on medical errors.(Patint Safety and Quality Improvement Act)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Joseph Conn The theory behind the new Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act is simple: create an incentive for healthcare providers to report medical errors to a centralized database where researchers will analyze the...

In search of surgical quality.(Surgical Care Improvement Project)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Joseph Conn It may have been coincidental, but just as the ink was drying on President Bush's signature on a new law on medical error reporting, a nationwide recruitment drive was launched to encourage hospitals to improve surgical...

Noncompliant and unconcerned; Survey finds many not meeting HIPAA security rules.(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Andis Robeznieks A large segment of healthcare organizations are still not in compliance with the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and more than one-quarter reported data security breaches, but...

Safety in numbers; Vendor attracts prominent docs to join board.(Peter Pronovost appointed in DocuSys Inc. )
August 8, 2005... Byline: Mike Romano Peter Pronovost, a well-known patient-safety expert at Johns Hopkins University, has been named to the advisory board of DocuSys, a for-profit company that markets a wide range of high-tech services for hospitals,...

Last one standing; Conemaugh wins control of Johnstown, Pa., market.(Conemaugh Health System, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Lee Regional)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Cinda Becker The far-reaching University of Pittsburgh Medical Center exited the Johnstown, Pa., hospital market last week, leaving it a one-hospital town and making four-hospital Conemaugh Health System the third-largest hospital...

HMA buys back to spend more.(The Week In Healthcare)(Health Management Associates)(Brief Article)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Vince Galloro Health Management Associates, Naples, Fla., said its board authorized a buyback of as many as 10 million shares, an initiative that could cost up to $240 million based on the company's current stock price. The...

Going ambulatory; NQF quality standards await implementation.(National Quality Forum)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Andis Robeznieks Now that long-awaited quality standards for outpatient care have been completed, the next step will be to put them to use in clinical practice and in evaluating and rewarding physicians. There are signs it may...

Putting a price on care; Low nurse-to-patient ratios save lives but are costly: study.
August 8, 2005... Byline: Melanie Evans A national study of nurse staffing has a local angle in Massachusetts, particularly for one health system in the thick of a battle to beat back tough nurse-to-patient ratios in the Bay State. Writing in the August...

Late News; King-Drew may be downsized.(Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and John Currin appointed in Alamance Regional Medical Center)
August 8, 2005... Los Angeles County health officials recommended eliminating several key services at troubled Martin Luther King-Drew Medical Center, moves that essentially would reduce the 233-bed academic medical center to a small community hospital. Under...

Who will pay this tab? New IT cost estimate spurs discussions.(national information technology system)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Joseph Conn A new study on an interoperable national healthcare information technology system shows that costs remain the biggest barrier to fulfilling President Bush's dream of a paperless system within a decade. Though the study...

Not much of a cure; A healthcare quality act that's worse than no law at all.(Editorial)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Todd Sloane, Assistant Managing Editor/Op-Ed You'd think that those of us who have ceaselessly advocated better quality of care would be elated to see President Bush signing legislation creating a national medical-error reporting...

Watch your step--literally; Serious injuries can come from the most mundane things.
August 8, 2005... Byline: Charles S. Lauer, Vice President-Publishing/Editorial Director My son called me one afternoon to tell me he thought he had broken his foot. I asked him where this had occurred and he told me it was in his office. Of course, I asked...

Material gains; Gainsharing discussion dominates annual gathering of material managers.(Association for Healthcare Resource and Materials Management)
August 8, 2005... Byline: Cinda Becker Last month's 43rd annual conference of the Association for Healthcare Resource and Materials Management in Anaheim, Calif., gave material managers an opportunity to commiserate about the costs of so-called...

Of Two Minds; Annual survey shows another year of growth for GPOs-an industry that's intensely competitive but has mounted a united front against threat of regulation.(Group purchasing organizations)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Cinda Becker It's been a schizophrenic year for group purchasing organizations, the services and supply brokers for the nation's hospitals. After three years of political pressure from the Senate Judiciary Committee's...

Combine support with doc report cards: study.(Physician Affairs)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Andis Robeznieks Confidential, in-house "report cards'' to doctors aren't enough to improve healthcare quality, according to a new study. Instead, hospitals and physician practices are likely to find that they must back up data...

New look at final instructions; Do-not-resuscitate orders less common at for-profit, academic hospitals: study.(The Week In Healthcare)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Andis Robeznieks Do-not-resuscitate orders were less common at for-profit and academic hospitals than at rural facilities and also varied widely by county, even after accounting for patient characteristics, a new study found. ...

Speaking the same language; AHRQ seeks common method of safety reporting.(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Joseph Conn Patient-safety reports most often are written in narrative, with hospitals having their own particular forms and styles. But computers like numbers and uniform data fields, without the variability of free text. ...

Alliance, Vanguard join forces; Reprocessing merger narrows competition, options.(Alliance Medical Corp.)(Vanguard Medical Concepts Inc.)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Cinda Becker Hospitals, effectively tossed out of the device-reprocessing industry five years ago, will see their choice of contractors even further constricted as two of the three major third-party reprocessors combine. ...

N.C. Blues strikes back; Insurer sues coalition over publishing details of $500,000 golf outing.(The Week In Healthcare)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Laura B. Benko A physician-backed special-interest group in North Carolina has found itself embroiled in a nasty legal battle for exposing what it calls corporate excesses by the state's largest health insurer. Blue Cross and...

Concentra wants Beech Street; Move would expand firm's group-health offerings.(Concentra Operating Corp.)(Brief Article)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Laura Benko Concentra Operating Corp. agreed to acquire national PPO company Beech Street Corp. for $165 million in a bid to expand its group-health offerings. Founded in 1951 as a third-party administrator for the workers'...

Multiple problems; Disease-specific guidelines risky for the elderly: JAMA.(Physician Affairs)(Journal of the American Medical Association)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Andis Robeznieks Using single, disease-specific clinical practice guidelines for older patients with multiple chronic conditions can have dangerous consequences, according to a report in the Aug. 10 issue of the Journal of the...

Tough act to follow; Hill-Burton reshaped healthcare and showed what government can accomplish.(Editorial)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Neil McLaughlin, Managing Editor For those who believe government never accomplishes anything of value, consider the Hill-Burton Act. In fact, if you are a healthcare executive, ponder whether you would even have your job if not for...

Accreditation explored; Voluntary criteria sought for public health agencies.(public health associations committee on voluntary accreditation system )
August 15, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone Four public health associations are forming a committee to explore a voluntary accreditation system for state and local public health agencies. What no one knows is, would accreditation be worth the trouble? ...

Late News; Mass. to boost free-care pool.(negotiations of government aid to medicare)(Iowa Regional Health Center medicare program)(Health maintenance organizations profits)
August 15, 2005... Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney plans to ask lawmakers to restore $24 million to the state's free-care pool that was wrongly eliminated by a budgeting error, a spokesman said. The roughly $500 million annual program covers the cost of care for...

End the stalemate on tort reform; Senate still a barrier to lower costs, better availability of malpractice insurance.
August 15, 2005... Byline: Kenneth Raske On July 28 the U.S. House of Representatives passed important medical malpractice legislation, a measure that would, among other things, cap noneconomic damages at $250,000 and limit each party's share of damages to...

Leading Indicator; Program in Maryland has analyzed hospital quality for 20 years.(Information Edge)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Joseph Conn The CMS is in only its first year of rewarding hospitals financially under Medicare for reporting clinical information. And legislation to set up a national system of databases on patient safety was signed into law just...

Medicaid limits; HHS proposes restricting federal funds to cost of care.(Department of Health and Human Services medicaid proposal)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Tony Fong In recent years, HHS has clamped down on what it calls abusive accounting schemes used by states to inflate their federal Medicaid funding. Now in a formal proposal to Congress, the agency has drawn a hard line, asking...

Lingering side effects; DRG changes called positive but other woes remain.(diagnostic related groups)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Paul Barr The CMS' changes to cardiac DRGs are a positive step, but healthcare has related problems still to be addressed, said Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change. Inequities in Medicare...

Alabama feud ends; Cullman Regional now completely in local hands after deal is closed with Baptist.(Regional News)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Michael Romano A local hospital authority in Alabama finally won total control of its hometown hospital after doing battle off and on over the past two years with the state's biggest and most powerful healthcare system. The...

Other Voices.(medicaid cost analysis)(Brief Article)
August 15, 2005... "The real problem... with the entire idea of slashing Medicaid to cut costs is that it's built on a false premise. By cutting Medicaid, we just shift those costs onto hospitals and clinics. They recover their expenses mostly by charging more....

Briefly: Quality.(Food and Drug Administration drug evaluation procedures)(racial disparities in health care industry)(Brief Article)
August 15, 2005... FDA called lax in monitoring * An Institute of Medicine report last month criticized the Food and Drug Administration for lacking procedures to monitor safety studies conducted by manufacturers after a medical device is on the market....

Aultman case headed to trial; Judge denies request to dismiss Ohio antitrust lawsuit.(Aultman Health Foundation and its insurance business cases)(Brief Article)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Mark Taylor An unusual antitrust lawsuit against a Canton, Ohio, hospital and its health plan subsidiaries is set to go to trial Oct. 31, after a state judge denied a request to dismiss the case. A judge in Stark County (Ohio)...

Higher standards; Fitch presses not-for-profits to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley rules.(The Week In Healthcare)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Paul Barr Fitch Ratings wants to sew up the holes in the healthcare industry's SOX compliance. Last week, the bond-ratings agency published a report endorsing the idea that not-for-profit hospitals and health systems completely...

Exec gives back to hospital, which gives him the boot.(Outliers: Asides & Insides)
August 15, 2005... Christopher Rich felt lucky to be alive after eight brain surgeries to treat a cluster of aneurysms. Though the Salem, Mass., lawyer still has some paralysis on his left side and a slight speech impediment, it's a lot better than his initial...

The Big Bang; The Hill-Burton act put hospitals in thousands of communities and launched today's continuinghealthcare building boom.
August 15, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone In 1952, 25-bed Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County-the community's first and still its only hospital-opened its doors in rural Darlington, Wis. The hospital cost $500,000-or $3.7 million in 2005 dollars-and...

Subpoenas fly at HRDI; Conn. attorney general queries think tank, members.(Richard Blumenthal, Healthcare Research and Development Institute)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Cinda Becker Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has subpoenaed a prominent Florida-based healthcare educational organization and some of its corporate members as part of what he described as a broad antitrust...

Remembering a Renaissance man; Walter McNerney left a legacy in administration, education and policy.(Walter James McNerney)(Obituary)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Charles S. Lauer, Vice President-Publishing/Editorial Director Trying to sum up the contributions of Walter James McNerney to the healthcare industry is no easy task. His death at age 80 on July 29 leaves such a huge void. He was a...

Insured grapple with debt, too; Even those with coverage have problems: study.(The Week In Healthcare)(Brief Article)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Paul Barr Having health insurance doesn't mean patients will avoid medical debt or problems paying their medical bills, according to new research by the Commonwealth Fund. Researchers took a closer look at data from the fund's...

South.(Regional News)
August 15, 2005... BIRMINGHAM, Ala.-RehabCare Group, St. Louis, completed its largest acquisition ever, a $35 million purchase of Meadowbrook Healthcare, Birmingham. Meadowbrook, which operates two acute rehabilitation hospitals and two long-term acute-care...

Midwest.(Regional News)
August 15, 2005... LAFAYETTE, Ind.-A judge dismissed an antitrust lawsuit alleging that two-hospital Greater Lafayette Health Services used illegal tactics to block a physicians group from building a 140-bed hospital in the town last year. U.S. District Judge...

West.(Regional News)(Brief Article)
August 15, 2005... LOS ANGELES-Los Angeles County supervisors agreed not to pursue the planned closure of one public hospital and to limit cutbacks at another, ending a two-year legal battle with local patient-advocacy groups. Under the settlement, the county...

Apria, Tenet settle cases.(medicare fraud cases)
August 15, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone It's hard to imagine a $17.6 million settlement of Medicare fraud charges as good news, but that's billions of dollars less than Apria Healthcare Group once feared. In 2001, government investigators told the home...

It's a small world, after all; Global nature of today's economy demonstrated in a call to customer service.(Lauer's Letter)(Column)
August 22, 2005... Byline: Charles S. Lauer, Vice President-Publishing/Editorial Director It was Friday at about 5:30 p.m. when I decided to look over some of my outstanding credit card balances. I don't particularly enjoy paying the interest rates that...

Many medical groups lost money in 2004.(Physician Affairs)(Brief Article)
August 22, 2005... Byline: Michael Romano Even as some medical specialties enjoyed modest increases in compensation last year, many U.S. medical groups lost money in 2004, according to a new survey by the American Medical Group Association looking at data...

McKesson closes $105 million Medcon deal.(Physician Affairs)(Brief Article)
August 22, 2005... Byline: Michael Romano McKesson Corp. has completed its $105 million acquisition of Medcon, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of cardiology imaging and information management technology. Medcon, which had reported sales of $17 million in...

Going public; As head of the oldest, largest public health association, Georges Benjamin sees daunting challenges ahead for America.(American Public Health Association)
August 22, 2005... Byline: Tony Fong Georges Benjamin could not have picked a more turbulent time to take the reins at the American Public Health Association. A little more than a year removed from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the...

In the Spotlight.(Marie Damian Glatt will step down from Provident Health System, Herman Grey appointed in Children's Hospital of Michigan and Marc Boom and Dirk Sostman appointed in Methodist Health System)
August 22, 2005... * Five years ago Sister Marie Damian Glatt thought she would oversee mission leadership at the Oregon division of Providence Health System, Portland, for one or two years. She was already 68 and thought she was not far from retirement. She...

Dueling bids for Beverly; Two firms push offer to $1.86 billion--so far.(Beverly Enterprises Inc., North American Senior Care and Formation Capital)
August 22, 2005... Byline: Joseph Mantone William Floyd, chairman and chief executive officer of Beverly Enterprises, recalled a phrase from New York Yankee legend Yogi Berra when he addressed employees shortly after a merger agreement with North American...

Tying quality to premiums.(medical malpractice insurance)
August 22, 2005... Byline: Joseph Conn Six Sigma, ISO 9000, Malcolm Baldridge and other quality improvement systems are increasingly in vogue across the nation, but a Pennsylvania state legislator wants to spur their use with a relevant fiscal carrot-lower...