health news o'the day
...actually, of the past month.
link3/18 - A "growing number" of U.S. hospitals are accessing patients' personal financial information to help determine how likely patients are to pay their medical bills... Some credit industry officials "argue that a hospital typically takes on the role of creditor the minute a patient walks in the door" and has a right to access credit reports without explicit permission.
link4/4 - Data from the American Hospital Directory shows that the combined net income of the 50 largest not-for-profit hospitals in the U.S. increased nearly eight fold to $4.27 billion from 2001 to 2006... Seventy-seven percent of the 2,033 not-for-profit hospitals in the U.S. earn money, compared with 61% of for-profit hospitals, according to the AHD data... "Much of the industry's profit growth comes from strategies it honed to increase profits," such as demanding upfront payments from patients and increasing list prices for procedures and services to several times the actual cost... In 2009, new standards will take effect that require not-for-profits to break down their community-benefit contributions, but hospitals will not be required to provide a minimum amount of charity care.
link4/8 - The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation will donate $200 million to the financially troubled Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, one of the largest U.S. public hospitals in the nation... Grady leaders signed an agreement to transfer control of the hospital to a new not-for-profit corporation.
link3/17 - The cost of coverage for U.S. residents who have insurance is increasing because the number of uninsured keeps rising. According to a Families USA study, unpaid health care expenses for the uninsured added an average $922 in 2005 to premiums for employer-sponsored health plans, and the extra costs could increase to $1,502 in 2010.
link3/14 - The Charlotte Observer on Tuesday examined the "small but growing number of people enrolled in faith-based alternatives to health insurance." Such organizations collect monthly donations and distribute them to help members pay medical bills... Most faithcares offer high-deductible, low-cost assistance and are limited to Christians who attend church regularly, do not smoke, drink only in moderation and abstain from sex outside of marriage.
link3/18 - Some restaurants in San Francisco are adding a surcharge to customers' bills, increasing food prices or charging a flat fee to help pay the cost of workers' health insurance under the city's Healthy San Francisco ordinance... The program is intended to ensure access to health care services for San Francisco's 82,000 uninsured residents.
link3/10 - Oregon last week began drawing names in a statewide lottery to fill 3,000 open slots in the Oregon Health Plan... 91,675 residents have signed up for the lottery since it was announced last month.
link4/4 - Maine Gov. John Baldacci (D) on Tuesday announced that he supports a proposed 50-cent-per-pack cigarette tax increase to fund the state Dirigo Health program.
link3/20 - According to a Harvard University School of Public Health and Harris Interactive poll... 68% of Republicans said that they consider the U.S. health care system the best in the world, compared with 32% of Democrats.
link4/9 - During a period in which the number of ED visits significantly increased, the proportion of uninsured patients visiting EDs dropped slightly, while visits by affluent patients and those who usually receive care in a physician's office rose sharply.
link4/10 - The average wait time to obtain a doctor's appointment at Philadelphia-area public health centers is more than five months.
link3/26 - An online poll released on Tuesday by the AFL-CIO... included responses from more than 26,400 U.S. residents... Union members accounted for 57% of survey respondents... One-third of the respondents said that they did not seek necessary medical care because of cost concerns... 53% of Medicare beneficiaries who responded to the online poll said that their medications were not covered by the program or unaffordable... 48% of respondents said that they or a family member remained at a job to retain health insurance... Almost one-third of respondents said that their health insurers initially refused to cover a medical treatment for themselves or a family member they should have covered.
link4/7 - The Kentucky General Assembly on Wednesday approved a bill (HB 440) that would require health insurers to allow parents to keep unmarried children on their health plans until age 25.
link4/7 - At least 33 U.S. states have implemented laws to allow or study programs that redistribute unused prescription medications to uninsured or low-income individuals.
link3/31 - India is "fast becoming the destination of choice for patients seeking complicated high-end procedures" they cannot afford or cannot schedule with a U.S. physician they trust... Some major U.S. employers currently are researching the costs of sending employees to other nations to undergo elective surgeries, and several large health insurers cover treatments in Mexico and Thailand, according to AMA.
link4/7 - A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday introduced legislation that would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to adapt in an attempt to improve care for female veterans... The number of female soldiers accessing VA care is expected to double in the next five years... The legislation would require each VA facility to have at least one women's health expert on staff... The bill also would require VA mental health professionals to be trained to treat women who have been sexually assaulted.
link3/7 - About 15% to 20% of U.S. soldiers in Iraq have signs of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, and about 30% of soldiers on their third or fourth tours have experienced emotional illnesses, according to a study released on Thursday by the Army.
link3/25 - The use of contract workers by the federal government is "quietly" contributing to the number of uninsured U.S. residents because some of the contractors do not offer employee health benefits... From 1990 to 2005, the number of federal contract employees doubled to 5.4 million.
link3/14 - The U.S. syphilis rate in 2007 increased for the seventh consecutive year... According to preliminary data from CDC, the overall national rate of syphilis in 2007 increased by 16%... Men accounted for six times as many cases as women. According to CDC, the black community also was highly affected, with rates seven times higher for men and 14 times higher for women when compared with whites.
link3/25 - [According to US census data from all US counties,] from 1980 to 1982, higher-income residents could expect to live an average of 75.8 years, compared with 73 years for lower-income residents, a difference of 2.8 years. From 1998 to 2000, higher-income residents could expect to live an average of 79.2 years, compared with 74.7 years for lower-income residents, a difference of 4.5 years, the study found... The largest disparity occurred in the life expectancies of white women and black men. The highest-income white women in 2000 lived an average of 81.1 years, compared with 66.9 years for black men, a 14-year difference.
link3/17 - Blacks with a "suspicious, hostile personality" have higher blood pressure than whites with the same tendencies, according to a report presented on Friday at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting... Hostile blacks "may interpret innocuous events as threatening" and perceive more threats than others... [In response,] Vickie Mays, a psychologist and director of a UCLA center on minority health disparities, said that "things are not as innocuous as they seem."
link3/26 - The fate of the Anne Arundel County, Md., Healthy Start program, which seeks to reduce the county's infant mortality rate, is "unclear" after the loss of $610,000 in federal funding... The black infant mortality rate became a "widespread concern" for the county five years ago, when data indicated that... the infant mortality rate for blacks in Anne Arundel County is four times higher than that of whites, and... three times higher than the national average.
link4/9 - A 2003 report by NIH found that on average, one black person dies by suicide every 4.5 hours in the U.S. Researchers in a study published in the Journal of Black Psychology in 2006 said that suicide can be attributed to hopelessness.
link3/31 - Acting Indian Health Service Director Robert McSwain... said the suicide rate among American Indians "may be the highest suicide rate in the world," adding that HHS [Health and Human Services] has formed a team to visit reservations where suicides occur.
link3/7 - Congress last week approved the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, which reauthorizes the Indian Health Service through 2017... President Bush's budget proposal would reduce IHS funding by $21 million.
link3/31 - The Bush administration's proposed 2009 budget would cut $11 million from [Indian Health Service] substance abuse prevention and behavioral health programs, $21 million from health facilities construction, $14 million in funding for health professionals and $35 million from urban health programs... The budget proposal is Bush's third attempt at cutting funding for urban American Indian health programs.
link3/14 - First lady Laura Bush on Thursday visited the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince as part of a trip to highlight U.S. efforts to promote health care issues... "It's important for young people to know if they do get tested and are HIV-positive, there are good things they can do," Bush said.
link4/1 - The number of HIV cases recorded in [Baltimore, Maryland] among people ages 20 to 29 increased by 10% annually between 2000 and 2006.
link4/8 - The Chicago Tribune on Sunday examined the "unexpected challenges" that some parents of HIV-positive teenagers face... "Thousands of parents who adopted" children living with HIV/AIDS in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s "had not planned" on the children surviving... Some HIV-positive teens experience depression and other mental health problems, skip school, resist antiretrovirals and struggle with telling friends about their HIV status... There are no data available on how many HIV-positive teens are being raised by adoptive parents, but a 2003 study in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes found that HIV-positive mothers in the U.S. who died between 1980 and 1998 left behind 20,715 HIV-positive children.
link3/31 - Budget proposals introduced in the Florida House and Senate... would eliminate hospice coverage for 8,000 terminally ill beneficiaries, coverage of hospitalization costs for 20,000 transplant recipients, and diagnosis and care for 2,300 children with cleft lips or cleft palates. The House measure also would eliminate coverage of dental and vision care, as well as hearing aids, for 146,000 seniors... Nursing homes would face a 10% payment cut, totaling about $350 million, and would have a two-year exemption from minimum staffing requirements... The House proposal also would close A.J. Holley Hospital, the state's only tuberculosis hospital.
link4/3 - Forty-one percent of Michigan's 40,000 licensed physicians do not plan to continue practicing medicine 10 years from now, and 61% said that their practices are full or almost full.
link4/13 - Congress is under pressure to fix a national doctor shortage that could worsen on July 1, when physicians who treat Medicare patients will get a 10 percent pay cut.
...One-third of the nation's active doctors - or roughly 250,000 of them - are over 55 and likely to retire in the next decade.
...Doctors will face a second pay cut - of 5 percent - on Jan. 1, 2009... Under the cuts, doctors who treat Medicare patients face a loss of $110 million, or an average of $16,000 per physician.
...If Congress does not stop the July 1 pay cut, doctors say they'll respond by reducing staff, deferring the purchase of new equipment, discontinuing nursing home visits and rural outreach, and reducing their workload and hours.
Those findings are part of a survey of nearly 9,000 physicians conducted by the American Medical Association. It also found that 60 percent of the respondents said they would limit the number of new Medicare patients they treat.
