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Over the past year, regulators kept up the pressure on voluntary hospitals to prove that they were providing a reasonable level of charity care. Not only did the IRS continue to scrutinize tax-exempt hospitals, state tax authorities and federal legislators got their licks in, too. Overall, over the …

New Jersey is playing host to a growing number of long-term acute care beds, a service designed to fill the gap between standard acute care and nursing facilities. The state now has nine such hospitals, and more are planned. Nationally, there are more than 400 such hospitals currently open. These facilities, which offer no services other than extended care, target patients with serious conditions who will be hospitalized for three weeks or more. Many long-term acute care patients are on …

While risk-adjusted mortality rates for elderly patients improved, the mortality rate gap between high-performing and poorly-performing hospitals has grown in recent years, according to research by healthcare rating firm HealthGrades. For its ninth annual study, HealthGrades analyzed 40.6 million Medicare records taken from 2003 through 2005, examining care at the nation's 5000 non-federal hospitals. The firm then gave hospitals a one, three or five-star rating based on outcomes in each …

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), in 2004, Americans spent $790 billion on hospital care, more than half of which was billed to Medicare and Medicaid patients. Hospital visits account for 60 percent of all U.S. healthcare spending. The priciest procedure was coronary atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries--spending on the disease totaled $44 billion. Diseases that contribute to the condition include diabetes, obesity, and high cholesterol. …

After a stressful seven-month battle that included bitter public statements and a couple of lawsuits, plus a month-long contract gap that left patients scrambling for providers, Piedmont Healthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia have finally come to a new three-year agreement. Specific details are confidential. In a joint press release, both parties magnanimously invite those enrollees who …

The profit gap between Milwaukee and its surrounding suburbs is growing, due in part to low Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates. While Milwaukee's suburban hospitals enjoy profit margins that exceed the national average, some urban hospitals are barely breaking even. As with other markets across the country, a disproportional number of Milwaukee patients with Medicare or Medicaid are cared for by urban hospitals--and it's hard to make that work financially.

This trend isn't …

Officials say 11.5 million people signed up for the new prescription drug benefit by the May 15 deadline. The typical beneficiary is paying a premium of $23 a month. That's less than originally projected. "I'd just like to stress what good news this is for our seniors and the Medicare program," said HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt. "Competition works." Critics continue to point out that many of those who have not signed up fall into low-income categories.

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Press Ganey released a patient satisfaction study that finds that the gap between the best performing hospitals and the worst performers in many measures of patient satisfaction is growing. At a time when many consumers are joining the consumer-driven healthcare revolution--or at least thinking more about their healthcare choices--this is, of course, noteworthy.

Here are a few interesting details drawn from the executive summary. Smaller facilities with 50 beds or less tend to have …

Thousands of seniors who have signed up for Medicare Part D plans apparently are unaware of the donut hole--the gap in coverage in many plans between the initial coverage limit and the threshold when the government starts paying for everything. They'll start noticing fairly soon, BusinessWeek argues, as they discover that they are temporarily on their own and faced with thousands of dollars in bills. That may lead to even more confusion and anger directed at Washington on the part …

A consortium of seven major drug companies said that it will create a new discount program designed to help low-income seniors obtain prescriptions while they are enrolled in the Medicare Part D program. The program, which will be known as Bridge Rx, will provide discounts of 50 percent or more to eligible low-income seniors when they hit Medicare Part D's notorious "donut hole," the gap in the program's coverage that leaves participants responsible for covering their own prescriptions. …