Latest California Healthline Stories
Time Reports on Workplace Accommodation for Chronically Ill
Employers are searching for new ways to manage and retain the rising number of U.S. workers living with chronic illnesses, this week’s issue of Time magazine reports.
Kennedy, Grassley Could Work Together on Rx Drug Benefit
Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) together might be “critical” figures in passing a Medicare prescription drug benefit, “one of this year’s most contentious health issues,” Albert Hunt writes in his Wall Street Journal column, “Politics & People.”
Chao Supports ‘Strong’ Patients’ Bill of Rights
Labor Secretary-designate Elaine Chao yesterday said that she supports a “strong” patients’ bill of rights that “would not increase the number of uninsured Americans,” CongressDaily reports.
State DOJ Seizes Beverly La Cumbre Nursing Home Records
The California Department of Justice on Tuesday seized documents and electronic files from Beverly La Cumbre nursing home, looking for evidence of Medi-Cal fraud, criminal abuse and neglect, the Santa Barbara News-Press reports.
Deaths at Women’s Prison Were Unrelated, Reports Find
Two physician reviews of three inmate deaths at the Central California Women’s Facility last month have concluded that the incidents were not related, the AP/Fresno Bee reports.
Nursing Recruiters Look to Poor Countries
As a result of a worldwide nursing shortage, many poor nations such as Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa and Jamaica are “losing” nurses to richer nations such as Great Britain, Australia and the United States, “reflect[ing] the way talent today goes to the highest bidder, regardless of national borders,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Report Finds ‘Service Gaps’ in State’s Trauma Centers
Almost all of the Central Valley and large portions of Northern California lack immediate access to “high-level” trauma centers, and the 42 existing centers “maintain records so flawed” that advocates cannot determine how much funding is necessary to keep the system operating, according to a CDC-funded report conducted by the Sierra-Sacramento Valley Emergency Medical Services Agency.
HCFA Proposes New Rules for Medicare+Choice Enrollees
Managed care organizations that participate in the Medicare+Choice program would have to provide enrollees with “advance notice of termination” of certain pre-authorized health services, a “fast-track process for appealing such decisions,” and other protections under new rules proposed yesterday by HCFA.
Ashcroft May Have Hidden Opposition to DOJ Tobacco Suit
While Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft testified last Wednesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing that he had “no predisposition” to dismiss the Justice Department’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry, CongressDaily reports that the former Missouri senator indicated in a letter last summer that he had “serious reservations” about the litigation.
Bayer To Pay $14M to Settle Inflated Medicaid Claims
Bayer Corp. agreed yesterday to pay $14 million to 45 states and the federal government to settle charges that the company engaged in wholesale price manipulation practices that caused hospitals and doctors to submit inflated reimbursement claims for prescription drugs used by Medicaid patients, the AP/Los Angeles Times reports.