Two national civil rights organizations are criticizing commissioners in a Texas county for prohibiting nonprofit clinics from treating illegal immigrants with county funds. Several clinics in the county have complained that new reporting requirements requires them to violate patient confidentiality laws and play the role of immigration officer.
Under a recently unveiled plan, Georgians would pay an extra $10 annually for each car they register to help fund a statewide trauma care network. The plan could provide millions of dollars to financially strapped Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Atlanta's Emory University is considering moving its hospital, outpatient clinic and some research facilities to one of the its satellite campuses. Emory is also considering another plan to consolidate hospital, outpatient and research facilities and expand its Crawford Long medical campus.
Congressional watchdogs have opened an investigation into potential mismanagement of a U.S. medical training program in Afghanistan. The program began in 2003 to reduce death rates for Afghan newborns and mothers, but numerous obstetricians and other healthcare workers have warned the Department of Health and Human Services that the program was in trouble.
Two more men who say they were sexually molested by Dr. George Reardon have filed lawsuits Thursday against St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, CT. The lawsuits claim the hospital was negligent in its supervision of the doctor during the 30 years he practiced there.
New Medicare rules for a small but promising class of cancer drugs may cause thousands of lymphoma patients to lose access to the treatment. The companies that make the drugs, and patient advocates, say the changes will cut reimbursement for the medicines and cause many hospitals to stop offering the treatments.
Massachusetts employers will spend an estimated $175 million more a year for health insurance under the state's healthcare reform law, according to a report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
In the 1970s, St. Mary's County in Maryland was once a place where no doctor wanted to settle. The county hospital used decades-old equipment, struggled to make payroll and had no full-time specialists. Then came Vinod K. and Ila Shah, Bombay-educated husband-and-wife doctors who were eager to open a practice in the rural area. The Shahs are a perfect example of a trend that has seen foreign-born doctors become the medical backbone of rural America.
In recent years, Medicaid has spent more money on antipsychotic drugs for Americans than on any other class of pharmaceuticals-including antibiotics, AIDS drugs or medicine to treat high-blood pressure. One reason: Nursing homes across the U.S. are giving these drugs to elderly patients to quiet symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.
