charity hospital news from FierceHealthcare

While there's some gaps, it appears that most hospitals in New York City are complying with a new state law requiring them to tell uninsured patients that they could qualify for state financial Read more...

> Community Health Systems continues to divest properties, this time by selling a 75-bed Louisiana hospital. Read more...

While the state of Louisiana would like to put a 484-bed teaching and research hospital in downtown New Orleans, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development isn't sure it's a good idea. HUD has agreed to release $74 million to buy land and prepare a design for the next Charity Hospital, which sat in downtown New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. But HUD isn't thrilled about the idea of giving the state an additional $150 million or so to build the hospital. In a …

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Few hospitals have been through the kind of trauma faced by New Orleans facilities during Hurricane Katrina. No one at the city's Charity Hospital, in particular, can forget being trapped there with sick and dying patients as the city struggled to recover from flooding. But as hospitals must, given their 24-hour-a-day mission, the city's facilities are preparing to try again if faced with another emergency. Among other steps, they're digging wells, stockpiling supplies and buying …

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> Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, has been slapped with $634.5 million in fines for misrepresenting the risks of using the drug. Article (sub. req.)

> In part due to nursing shortages, demand for medical assistants is on the rise. Article

> Louisiana health planners continue to …

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Hoping to rebuild services that were cut or reduced after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana State University officials have asked state legislators for more than $200 million above and beyond the existing state budget. Services went away, in part, because Katrina-related flooding closed New Orleans-based Charity Hospital, which provided a wide range of services to poor and uninsured. More than half of the money, about $122 million, would be used to rebuild the still-devastated New Orleans-area …

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The Federal Trade Commission has asked for more information on a $120 million merger between a money-losing charity hospital and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), slowing down what has already been a drawn-out process. Under the terms of the deal (which parties hoped would close last year), UPMC would take over Pittsburgh's Mercy Hospital. Mercy is not doing well on its own, having lost about $42 million over the past three years on its hospital and primary care …

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Louisiana legislators continued to debate fundamental issues of health system reform this week, as different factions with different philosophies on public health struggle to assert themselves. To date, Louisiana's legislators haven't been able to agree on the critical issue of how many uninsured patients the state, much less how to pay for their care. This has prevented legislators from having a productive discussion on how to overhaul the state's healthcare system, and whether to fund a …

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> UnitedHealth Group has agreed to acquire Las Vegas-based Sierra Health Services, a health benefits and services provider. Article

> Much ado over medical pricing in Florida, where State Farm is suing the state's largest hospital system over claims that its prices are "highly inflated." …

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A new report by the state's non-profit Public Affairs Research Council (PAR) argues that Louisiana should shut down its rural charity hospitals and pay private hospitals to pick up the slack. PAR researchers are in favor of keeping teaching hospitals in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport open, but suggest that the seven other non-teaching hospitals in the system should be sold or transferred to local authorities. PAR's suggestions dovetail with recommendations some other researchers …

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