Healthcare Trends

The merger of two outpatient rehabilitation services providers has created one of nation's largest players in this market. As a merged company, Benchmark Medical and Physiotherapy Associates will generate combined revenue of $420 million and operate more than 800 clinics.

With the merger the new company, which will be called Physiotherapy Associates, will be second only to NovaCare Rehabilitation in size. NovaCare runs 1,100 outpatient rehabilitation centers across the U.S. …

In an era of emergency department overcrowding, it's certainly worth noting: Iowa hospitals offer the shortest emergency department visits in the United States.

Patient satisfaction research firm Press Ganey Associates, says the national average for emergency department visits is three hours and 42 minutes. In Iowa, however, the average visit is two hours and 18 minutes, shorter than …

It looks like psychiatrists are getting the most love from pharmaceutical companies, a relationship which critics say could be behind the increasing use of costly atypical antipsychotic drugs for children.

As states begin to track pharma gifts to doctors, psychiatrists are increasingly coming up as top beneficiaries for pharma payments. In Vermont, for example, pharma payments to psychiatrists more than doubled last year, hitting $45,692 per individual, up from $20,835 in 2005. …

Patients who wonder whether they should get procedures done at a cheaper India-based facility may get a boost from one hospital's series of YouTube promotions. Over the past month India's Wockhardt Hospital, already a haven for medical tourism, has seeded the popular video site with a series of slick videos promoting the sophistication and safety of its services, including brain tumor surgery, …

Most consumers assume hospital meals will be bad--right up there with airline food. And in the past, that's usually what they got. But increasingly, as hospitals work to please consumers with hotel- and retail-style amenities, hospital food is going upscale. Over the past several years, hospitals have begun offering a "liberalized" diet, giving patients the option to eat what they want.

These new offerings are built with the idea that patients are more likely to stick with a …

It looks like full-scale war is on the way. Arguing that they could endanger patients, particularly children, some attendees at the AMA's annual conference are demanding the group ask for a ban on retail clinics. Unless the AMA intervenes, "in five years, the chairs [at the AMA] meeting will be filled with representatives from Walgreens, Wal-Mart" and other retailers, one physician told the assembly. At minimum, speakers told the …

It's grim knowledge, but necessary. A new study suggests as many as 5 percent of all hospital and nursing home patients are infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) at any given time. If accurate, this stat would indicate MRSA is eight to 11 times more common than previously determined by other research. The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology sent surveys to more than 11,000 members, asking them to pick a day between Oct. 1 …

New research suggests OB/GYN fees and availability vary substantially across the United States. According to research by healthcare comparison shopping site Vimo.com, average OB/GYN DRGs can vary by 2,200 percent depending on the zip code in which the physician is based. The group looked at specific DRGs and compared them across the country. For example, DRG 358 (Uterine & Adnexa Procedure for non-malignancy CC) cost was $4,123 in Salisbury, MD, but …

A new study released by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee suggests that the healthcare industry is taking a leading role in funding the campaigns of this season's crop of presidential hopefuls. The CNA/NNOC analysis concludes that healthcare industry players contributed $3.7 million to current candidates during the first quarter of 2007. It also notes that the industry--which it defines as including drug and insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, …

Want to avoid bad debt? One way to do that is to simply collect what you're owed as quickly and aggressively as possible--and that's what many hospitals are doing. Increasingly, hospitals are opting to collect co-pays and deductibles at the point of care or soon thereafter, hoping to stem rising tides of unpaid bills. They're determining how much to ask for, in many cases, by analyzing not only the patient's coverage but their personal financial situation as well. Vanderbilt University …