competitors news from FierceHealthcare

While there's always competition for good physicians, things have gotten particularly hot in northern California, where two powerful healthcare organizations have gone into recruitment overdrive. Read more...

HCA turned in a nice performance for the third quarter, posting its first quarterly growth in income since going private last year, but like its peers, it's still struggling with unpaid patient Read more...

Hospital chain Health Management Associates has vowed to take a tougher line in collecting from self-pay patients, in a move designed to rid the chain of a reputation for being less aggressive than Read more...

Walgreens subsidiary Take Care Health Systems has announced plans to scale up its operations dramatically. Take Care, which Read more...

Not long ago, we gave you a look at a retail clinic chain, Medical Mart, which staffs its clinics with Read more...

National dialysis chain DaVita is doing very well, thank you very much, with 2006 sales of $4.9 billion and earnings of $290 million. That's up dramatically from 1999, when it had revenue of $1.4 Read more...

If it gets its way, CVS will open up 30 or more MinuteClinics throughout the Boston, MA area in the near future. But it might not be so easy to do that. Under fire from physicians, state regulators Read more...

> Shareholders have approved the $5.1 billion sale of Triad Hospitals to Community Health Systems. The combined company will operate more than 140 facilities in 28 states. Article

> Working with the N.C. State Health Plan, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina has doled out $800,000 in pay-for-performance bonuses. …

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Today, if you look up the phrase "hospital complaint" on Google, you get largely the addresses of state and federal agencies charged with protecting consumers. To date, there's been no rush of sites comparable to what we've seen on the physician side, where some doctors have been flayed mercilessly (though seemingly, legally) on public consumer forums for allegedly bad attitudes, poor service or inadequate care. However, don't expect the quiet to last. One emerging site, …

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According to a new Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) study, over half of U.S. hospitals are facing financial struggles. Rural hospitals and those not affiliated with a health system--almost half of hospitals--are particularly at risk from competitors. Financial pitfalls come from many directions, including competition from doctor-owned facilities, lower government reimbursement rates, high debt and spending on necessary infrastructure and IT improvements. Some hospitals …

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