News From Around the Web
> The healthcare industry could prevent half of all heart disease deaths in the country if it could also eliminate diabetes, obesity, hypertension, high cholesterol and cigarette smoking in patients, according to a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Study abstract
> The Department of Justice has sued four Michigan hospital systems based on claims that for years they unlawfully agreed to allocate territories for marketing, depriving consumers and physicians of important information about competing providers and other benefits of unfettered competition. Statement
> Urinary tract and sexually transmitted infections in women are misdiagnosed by emergency departments nearly half the time, according to a paper in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. Paper
Health Finance News
> Massachusetts leaped onto the leading edge of price transparency when it passed one of the first laws in the nation requiring providers to furnish true prices to consumers. More than a year later and many patients are still having trouble obtaining clear and timely price estimates from providers in the Bay State. Most hospitals recently surveyed by a Massachusetts-based think tank were "flummoxed" when queried about their prices, the Boston Globe has reported. Article
> A New Jersey judge has thrown out the property tax exemption for one of the state's not-for-profit hospitals. Morristown Medical Center lost its property tax exemption when Tax Court Judge Vito Bianco ruled that the hospital had so intermingled its not-for-profit and for-profit business ventures until the two were unrecognizable, according to NJSpotlight.com. Article
And Finally… Seal of approval. Article