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Prime Healthcare has been allowed to purchase the New Jersey hospital St. Mary's in Passaic. The sale had been controversial because some elements do not like Prime. The alternative was closure. Duh. The opponents want a judge to put huge restrictions on Prime's management. They also want to stop the organization from purchasing St. Michael's hospital. This is one of the only times the nursing unions have agreed with Prime.
In a rare rebuke of a institution the FDA warned about poor mammograms at the Butte Montana, Big Sky Diagnostic Imaging. They had their mammogram accreditation revoked by the ACR and then shut down doing the procedure. The FDA warning are for those who received mammograms for the three months prior. Top
California's Dept. of Managed Care has fined Honored Citizens Choice Health Plan (don't you love these names) $65,000 for not meeting fiscal guidelines. They also fined ValueOptions $60,000 for failure to pay claims and failure to provide appropriate medical staff. Top
Massachusetts is spending $35 million to break its contract with CGI Group. This group is responsible for the state website that does not work. This group also was the organization responsible for healthcare.gov that also did not work. CGI will transition to Optum, the new integrator.
The OIG has issued a special fraud alert against the practice of labs paying money to physicians for helping the labs out. Suggest that any physician or lab doing this quit.
California officials have a problem. They had a backlog one month ago of 800,000 people applying for Medicaid and not acted upon. Now the backlog is 900,000. They will not hire any more people to process so the "patients" will need to wait. The state has not given any timeline.
In jolly olde England the NIH is attempting to have Gilead scale back it's price for Sovaldi, the hepatitis C drug. It costs $60,000 but is the best drug on the market. It is the only drug on the market. People will die without the drug. NIH is playing with people's lives. A precursor to what may happen here?
France's high administrative court has ruled that a brain dead male may be taken off life support. They sided with the wife over the parents. This does not legalize euthanasia but does state that treatment should not involve "excessive obstination". The devout parents are appealing the decision to the European Court of Human Rights for an emergency stay.
Iran has passed a law that forbids any type of birth control surgery. They used to have a large birth rate but in the early 1990s the then president and the Ayatollah Khamenei said birth control was OK. The rate plummeted and Iran now has a graying population. Top
TJC has put out its latest Sentinel Event Alert. This one is the use of single use/multiple use vials. The problems are mostly in the reuse of single dose vials. The guidelines are good and should be followed.
TJC states that on July 1 hospitals must conform in how they do their maintenance of equipment. Top
Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski of Houston has been reinstated by the FDA and allowed to continue to prescribe experimental cancer therapy. He had been barred from enrolling new patients after a young patient died. He uses antineoplastons especially for brain stem tumors in children. Mainstream oncologists are not happy with the FDA decision.
The Federation of State Medical Boards is finally doing something. They have drafted a model law to make it easier for physicians to treat patients either via telecommunication or in person across state lines. It would create a new pathway to speed the licensing for doctors seeking to practice in multiple states. The physicians would not have to apply to each state separately. The flip side is that if a medical license is suspended or revoked in one state it would automatically be revoked or suspended in all participating states. The expedited licenses and therefore the flip side would only be for specialists board certified and without any med mal or state actions against them. Top
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.