Healthcare/PBM

HealthSouth construction is underway

HealthSouth Corp. has broken ground on its new 40-bed rehabilitation hospital on Southwest 19th Avenue Road. Company officials expect the $21 million project to be completed in late 2012.

The Alabama-based company, which has health care facilities in 26 states, applied with Florida health care regulators last year for permission to build the facility. It received approval in December 2010, beating out Ocala Health System, which made a similar request.

Ocala Health System, which operates as Ocala Regional Medical Center and West Marion Community Hospital, had proposed creating its own rehab center at West Marion and adding 20 beds to accommodate the new rehab patients.

Construction on the new HealthSouth building began last month as work crews started building a road on the site. The facility will offer 40 private rooms, a therapy gym and other rehabilitation amenities
http://www.ocala.com/article/20111108/ARTICLES/111109716

Medicare administrator Donald Berwick resigns in the face of Republican opposition

President Obama’s top Medicare official has resigned in the face of Republican pledges to block his confirmation in the Senate.

Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Donald M. Berwick notified colleagues Wednesday that he will step down Dec. 2, nearly a month before the expiration of his recess appointment.

The White House will nominate Marilyn Tavenner, Medicare’s deputy administrator, as his replacement.

“Don Berwick did outstanding work at CMS,” White House deputy press secretary Jamie Smith said Wednesday. “It’s unfortunate that a small group of senators obstructed his nomination, putting political interests above the best interests of the American people.”

Obama nominated Berwick to run Medicare in April 2010. In July 2010, with no confirmation hearing scheduled, the president appointed him to the job while Congress was in recess. As a recess appointment, Berwick’s term was to expire Dec. 31. Earlier this year, 42 Republican senators signed a letter pledging to block his confirmation, effectively ending any chance of him serving beyond 2011.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/medicare-administrator-donald-berwick-resigns-in-the-face-of-republican-opposition/2011/11/23/gIQA5S7mpN_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop

I havent kept track, but it sure seems like a lot of Obama folks have jumped ship

HCA Florida Gains Approval for New Trauma Centers


New trauma centers approved
The Florida Department of Health approved new trauma centers in Pasco and Manatee counties last week, but the legal battle between newcomer HCA and the incumbent health care operators is likely far from over.

Four trauma centers were approved in all, including centers in Clay and Miami-Dade counties. All four facilities will be operated by HCA.

But according to News Service of Florida, opponents to HCA’s newest openings — including Tampa General Hospital and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa — will file new appeals this month, leading to another hearing before an administrative law judge. In September, a separate hearing before an administrative law judge ended with a ruling in favor of the incumbent care providers, News Service of Florida says.
http://www.review.net/section/detail/11-25-2011-new-trauma-centers-approved/


HCA has a "Healthsouth" feel to it...keep an eye on their expansion and medicare contract awards

Moving day for U-M patients

ANN ARBOR -- Sunday was moving day for patients at two University of Michigan hospitals after a five-year, $754 million construction project.

The move at the new C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital began about 7 a.m. and was mostly completed by mid-afternoon. The patients were moving 800 feet down an indoor path from the old Mott Children's Hospital into the new hospital complex in Ann Arbor.
http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20111205/NEWS01/112050305

check out all the hospital expansion news:

MidMichigan Medical Center-Midland completes $115 million expansion‎
the project is the hospital's first major expansion since the mid-1980s when the facility's emergency rooms were renovated and expanded. ...
New era begins at MidMichigan Medical Center‎ Midland Daily News

Expansion of children's hospital opens‎
“There is a larger critical mass of patients coming through our doors that coincides with the children's hospital's expansion of its specialty and ...
Expansion Open at Batson Children's Hospital‎ WAPT Jackson
all 10 news articles »

Jewish Hospital plans $100M wing‎KENWOOD - Jewish Hospital is planning a new wing along Kenwood Road here that could cost more than $100 million and expand space for complex brain surgeries ...
Cincinnati Jewish Hospital in line for $100M expansion‎ Columbus Business First
all 3 news articles »

Laramie hospital plans expansion‎Officials of Laramie's Ivinson Memorial Hospital hope to select an architect for a $36.5 million expansion and renovation project later this month. ...

Emanuel: Hospital expansion would create 1300 jobs‎December 1, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel says more than 1300 jobs would be created by proposed expansion at Chicago's Northwestern Hospital. ...
City details 650 new jobs at expanded Northwestern hospital‎ Crain's Chicago Business (blog)

Status of Cambridge hospital expansion plans part of public drop ...‎
CAMBRIDGE — The status of long-promised hospital expansion plans, along with the state of its budget, are up for public discussion Monday. ...

Construction of New Medical Pavilion at Cohen Children's Medical ...‎
According to the American Society of Healthcare Engineering, North Shore-LIJ isn't the only medical center expanding; the latest survey reports that over ...
The Big 'Cs': Curing and Caring for Childhood Cancers at Seattle ...‎ MD News (press release)
all 7 news articles »

Moving day for U-M patients‎
AP ANN ARBOR -- Sunday was moving day for patients at two University of Michigan hospitals after a five-year, $754 million construction project. ...
A massive logistical feat: University of Michigan moves patients ...‎ AnnArbor.com
Patients tucked into beds at new facility after massive move effort‎ University of Michigan Health System News (press release)

ER building boom is wrong prescription, critics say

With medical costs spiraling upward and state-paid insurance coverage evaporating, you might think hospitals would discourage patients with sprains and cuts from coming to their emergency rooms for care that would cost much less in clinics or urgent-care centers.

But you'd be wrong.

Hospitals throughout the Puget Sound region are in the midst of a boom, building spiffy new free-standing emergency rooms and entire hospital towers with expanded ERs, and drastically remodeling existing ones.

Swedish Medical Center and Evergreen Hospital Medical Center built free-standing ERs in Redmond, and MultiCare and Valley Medical Center plan to build them in Covington.

What's more, hospitals are marketing their ERs aggressively, crowing about amenities from valet service to private rooms. One hospital posts ER wait times online.

The ER building boom has prompted a backlash from some lawmakers and advocates of affordable health care, who complain that nearly all Washington hospitals get substantial tax breaks and construction financing through tax-exempt bonds.

Free-standing ERs, these critics charge, are cash cows for hospitals, strategically built in affluent areas to lure busy, well-insured patients and collect fat reimbursements.

snip
How it works

Emergency rooms, which must be broadly equipped and staffed, are allowed under federal regulations to charge more for their services — and they do. And while the state and some private insurers have tried hard to hold a line, ERs demand — and get — higher reimbursements, even for routine care.

For example, the ER reimbursement for a sprained ankle might be $700, three or four times that for a visit in a primary-care or urgent-care clinic, says Dr. Joseph Gifford, executive medical director for Regence BlueShield.

For hospitals, he says, "It's a bonanza."

At the same time, federal law requires ERs to treat everyone. "The problem with that, in practice, is it's created a slippery slope, a blurry line" as to what's a real emergency, says Gifford.

For hospitals, the ER is the primary conduit of patients into inpatient beds, says Dr. John Milne, vice president for medical affairs for Swedish's Eastside campuses.

Maybe it's a heart-attack sufferer who is then sent to surgery and intensive care, or someone with a dog bite or a rash who, impressed with the good service, will return for elective surgery.

snip
Cost concerns

Despite the impassioned delivery, the arguments by hospital leaders haven't won over critics concerned about health costs for the state's government and businesses.

"What's troubling is, you see all this expansion, and it's not showing up in reduced rates," says Steve Hill, board chairman of the Puget Sound Health Alliance, which seeks more affordable health-care coverage for employers.

What Hill does see is more competition among hospitals — "there's essentially an arms race going on," he says. "This is bankrupting families and businesses and governments."

snip
For Keiser and Pflug, tax breaks are the rub: Hospitals get low-cost construction loans through a state agency that arranges tax-exempt bonds, which has saved them about $290 million in the past four years alone. Then they get a break on business and occupation taxes and typically pay no property taxes.

The property-tax exemption saves hospitals about $70 million a year, the state Department of Revenue says.

Despite the breaks, hospital construction costs money, critics say, and patients pay for that in their bills.

Taxpayers are "getting soaked," Pflug charges. Hospitals are making money, she says, "but where is it going?"

Lagging regulation

Efforts to regulate hospital building and ER expansion haven't worked.

The state, through its Certificate of Need program, lost in its attempt to block Swedish's Issaquah expansion, and it has no power to curtail free-standing ERs. A bid by Medicaid officials to cut nonemergency ER costs was derailed after doctors and hospitals sued. And the bills by Pflug and Keiser targeting hospital expansion and accountability didn't pass last session.

Ironically, both hospitals and critics say they agree: Incentives have shaped a "build it and they will come" economy and created an unsustainable cost spiral.

snip
Current "perverse incentives," he says, financially reward hospitals for doing more, and punish efficiency.

If he were the nation's health-care czar, he says, he'd make sure hospitals were rewarded for keeping patients out of their beds. For now, though, "we're going to keep on doing the best thing for our bottom line in the short term."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016867292_hospitalbuild27m.html?prmid=4939

and all of these expansions have to be paid for...watch for completion dates. Medicare fraud, accounting issues, whatever it takes, they will get the stuff paid for.
Regarding healthcare...i see it all the time, more unnecessary care to increase profits. It is wrong, but it is the way the system works.

GE teams up with Nueclear Healthcare to open 120 molecular imaging centres

GE Healthcare and Nueclear Healthcare Ltd (NHL), a division of Thyrocare Group have now entered into a strategic partnership to establish a network of 120 molecular imaging centres to address the rapid growth of cancer incidence in India.

The molecular imaging centres equipped with 120 advanced GE Discovery PET/CT imaging systems and 12 GE PET Trace Medical Cyclotrons will produce glucose (FDG) to aid the early detection. GE Healthcare & NHL expects to establish the whole network of 120 centres by 2015 in 3 phases. This will be a one-stop-facility for cancer detection and treatment.

According to the American Cancer Society in a 2010 report, the total economic impact of premature death and disability from cancer worldwide was $895 billion in 2008.

The figure represents 1.5 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and does not include direct medical costs, which would further increase economic impact. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in India, with about 2.5 million cancer patients, 1 million added every year with a chance of rising five-fold by 2025 prompting Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) urging the Government of India to make cancer a notifiable disease. Cancer can be treated and controlled if detected early – in Stage I or Stage II. However, over 70 per cent of cancer is detected late at a very late stage in India, when treatment is less effective and costly. While low awareness is one significant reason, unavailability of early cancer detection facilities and availability of experts is the other significant reason.
http://www.pharmabiz.com/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=66502&sid=2

Infomercial king Kevin Trudeau fined $38m for misleading Americans over 'natural cures' for deadly diseases

Infomercial veteran Kevin Trudeau has been slapped with a $38 million fine after allegedly scamming customers for decades.

Trudeau, 48, has made millions flogging what he claims are natural cures for serious and potentially fatal illnesses.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals


snip
On one episode of his radio show The Kevin Trudeau Show, he said: 'Coral calcium is the best form of calcium.'

He then tells his listeners: 'Every single one of you are deficient in vitamin D3 and calcium.
'If you take those two things, it's virtually impossible to get cancer and it's impossible to get sick.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2076656/Infomercial-king-Kevin-Trudeau-fined-38m-misleading-Americans-natural-cures-deadly-diseases.html#ixzz1hT5UPgcO


from comment section of article
Kevin gave most of his stuff away for free. Obviously big pharma hates him because he speaks a lot of truth and exposes their scam. FCC and the FDA can suck it!


I agree with the above, big Pharma is freaking out because this guy is right.

merck

Scott's Medicaid overhaul plan benefits HCA hospitals
In today's paper, reporter Richard Martin and I write about Gov. Rick Scott's controversial plan to drastically reduce the amount the state pays to hospitals for Medicaid. Although the plan's goal is to rein in Medicaid and free up dollars for education, some for-profit hospitals, including those owned by a company Scott used to work for, would get more state funding.
Here are some excerpts from the article:
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott's plan to cut about $2 billion in public funding to hospitals that care for the poor is devastating and even ridiculous, say hospital leaders who predict patient care will suffer if it is enacted.

Scott's fellow Republicans in the Legislature say they don't like his plan, either. But they admit that the hospitals — which took a considerable hit last year — will face another swipe of the ax.

Scott wants to cut Medicaid spending by nearly 10 percent this year to free up funds for education. He says health spending is a fair target because it has grown far more rapidly than other government spending.

"We need to fund education; it's the right thing to do," he said last week. "And Medicaid has been growing. And so you've got to change how you do things."

But because most Medicaid dollars come from the federal government, the move would free up about $422 million in state tax dollars for education. The rest would be federal matching funds that Florida would lose, said Bruce Rueben, president of the Florida Hospital Association.

What's more, he and others say, Scott has structured the cuts in a way that hits hardest at "safety net'' hospitals that provide the most care for poor people. Yet a few for-profit hospitals — including some owned by Scott's former employer Hospital Corporation of America — would actually get more tax funds under his plan.
Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/01/scotts-medicaid-overhaul-plan-benefits-hca-hospitals.html#storylink=cpy

HSBC Holdings PLC is under investigation by a Senate panel in a money-laundering inquiry, the latest step in a long-running U.S. effort to halt shadowy money flows through global banks, according to people familiar with the situation and a company securities filing.

The inquiry being conducted by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations could yield a report and congressional hearing later this spring, these people said. The subcommittee has a history of conducting high-profile hearings that have proved embarrassing for the world's biggest banks.

The intensifying scrutiny of HSBC is the latest in a series of investigations by U.S. officials into how global banks have processed -- and in some cases, intentionally hidden -- financial transactions on behalf of countries which allegedly support terrorism, corrupt foreign officials, drug gangs and criminals. Since 2008, European and U.S. banks have signed deferred prosecution agreements and paid more than $1.2 billion in penalties for alleged violations of anti-money laundering regulations.

The specific focus of the Senate probe of HSBC isn't known. A Reuters review of legal documents and prior regulatory probes, though, points to a number of alleged breakdowns in HSBC's anti-money laundering systems.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/25/us-hsbc-probe-idUSTRE80O1FH20120125

I find no comfort in the fact that the SENATE is investigating anybody. Crooks pretending to monitor crooks.

Report: Vatican Official Warns Pope of Corruption

The Vatican says it has no comment on a media report that an Italian prelate was transferred to Washington as papal ambassador after he wrote to the pope complaining about corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts.

The allegation is carried in a report, being televised Wednesday night, by Gian Luigi Nuzzi, author of a 2009 book outlining the shady dealings by the Vatican bank.

A report in Corriere della Sera on Wednesday said Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano used the term "corruption" in a letter to Pope Benedict XVI to explain the difficulties he faced in his position as secretary-general of the Vatican city-state.

It said the letter was sent March 27 in an extreme attempt to head off his transfer. Vigano was named U.S. ambassador in October.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/report-vatican-official-warns-pope-corruption-15438029

big shocker!....NOT.

A cut above
Who has the most plastic surgery?
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/04/daily-chart-13

The answer is surprisingly South Koreans.

strange.. whats the most popular?

As America's waistline expands, costs soar
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/30/us-obesity-idUSBRE83T0C820120430

It is all taxpayers subsidized..big pharma stock prices I mean..yawn