August 15, 2018 Recent News

Healthcare

HIPAA

Hospitals

Physicians

Healthcare

A poll showed that 57% of those asked prefer government involvement in providing healthcare insurance.  They wereasked to choose between three questions and two of them showed government intervention.  Could this be a polling bias??

The Texas physicians are reporting Blue Cross and Blue Shield for denying patient care.  This problem is leading to a decrease in those practitioners willing to provide care to Texas Medicaid people.  The patients are complaining to the state about practices no longer seeing Medicaid patients and the insurer is then forced to renegotiate terms with the medical practice.  

Texas Blue Cross and Blue Shield will start its program of not paying for unnecessary out of network ED visits .  This will affect the HMO plans. The Texas Department of Insurance has signed off on this.

The Portneuf Medical Center ED physicians formed their own practice which meant a contract negotiation with two major Idaho insurance companies.  If they are out of network patients get larger bills.  t is hoped that any contract signed will be retroactive to reimburse patients for the higher charges.  The ED physicians are amenable to that type clause.  

The idiot lawmakers of California are having to justify their actions.  Eli Lily has increased the price of insulin and has said it will not comply with the state law that mandates justification of the price increase until a lawsuit that had been previously filed has been resolved.  They did disclose the price increase.  There are no penalties for not following the law.

For some strange reason Italy is in the process of lifting the requirement that parents vaccinate their children prior to pre-school.  This is a political mandate by their new government.  It still needs approval from Italy's lower house.    Top

HIPAA

In 2018 there have been only 700,000 paper records breached.  Of these almost two third were attributed to one break in at California's Department of Developmental Services.  There 582,174 records were breached.  Paper continues to be much safer than electronic especially when hospitals and others are so negligent in protecting them.    In the same period there were 3.14 MILLION patients records breached which were electronic.  Almost all preventable.    Top

Hospitals

Kaiser reported higher revenue for the second quarter but lower net income due to high expenditures including capitol spending on opening new facilities.  

The administration dumbos at Children's Minnesota wanted their neonatal physicians to become hospital employees.  The problem is the physicians do not want to be under the thumb of the hospital.  They are leaving at the end of the year to go to another hospital.  One of the members of the board also allegedly said at a cocktail party that the neonatologists were crooks.  He is being sued for slander.  Not bright people.

Speaking of not bright people the Mayo Clinic may vie for this honor.  In a macabre story they are accused of kidnapping a patient.  Alyssa Gilderhus, a 18 year old had a ruptured brain aneurysm and was treated successfully at Mayos.  The problems began on the rehab unit with conflicts between the staff and the family.  The parents say they found errors of care and eventually asked that the social worker who discussed private information in front of others and a physician be replaced. The day after a meeting with the staff where the family asked others to be replaced the mother was forcibly removed from the hospital.  The father was allowed to stay but was not allowed to interfere with care plans.  The family was told, when they asked, that there was no patient advocate.  At the same time Mayo was attempting to get guardianship of Alyssa without the parents knowledge.  Mayo also then forbade any family from sleeping over or attending any sessions.  A family friend and a Mayo board member attempted to intercede but was also rebuffed.  The family attempted to get her transferred to another hospital but also rebuffed here.  Shortly thereafter the family rescued her from Mayo.  The police were called and after an investigation concluded there was no abduction but a patient leaving the hospital against medical advise.   Mayo wanted a national manhunt for them but they were now rebuffed by the Rochester police.  The family took her to a teaching hospital in South Dakota where the physicians said not only does she not need hospitalizations but she can make her own decisions.  One year post hospital rescue Alyssa was voted Prom Queen of her high school, graduated and his a Freshman in college.  Although the thuggery of Mayo may be extreme it is not unheard of with hospitals and some physicians.        Top

Physicians

Dr. Ricardo Quarrie, was a cardiothoracic fellow at Yale New Haven. He was publicly accused of lying to a patient to cover up a medical error.  The lawyer who accused him of this has now recanted and it is now known that he never made the statements attributed to him.  He has not been able to get a job due to the lies by the attorney for the past two years.  The story is still on the first page of Google.  The retraction is lower down.  The shyster will not be sued as he required a promise of not suing him for the retraction.  Scum.

California Medical Board continues to find ways to embarrass their physicians.  Now they have an app that can track up to 16 physicians in California.  The app will ding if their is a change of status with any of them which may be just an address change or a disciplinary action.  

UnitedHealth has acquired a small health plan in Louisiana.  However, it also came with Capital City Medical Group.  United continues to purchase physicians via Optum.        Top

 

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 DISCLAIMER: Although this article is updated periodically, it reflects the author's point of view at the time of publication. Nothing in this article constitutes legal advice. Readers should consult with their own legal counsel before acting on any of the information presented.