Center for American Progress: Provider Consolidation Drives Up Health Care Costs
Provider Consolidation Drives Up Health Care Costs By Emily Gee and Ethan Gurwitz Getty/Robert Gauthier Patients wait to see a doctor at an emergency room in Los Angeles, September 2011. Compared with other developed nations, the United States spends far more on health care yet performs no better on many measures of health.1 Moreover, health care spending […]
Chicago Business: Why you’ll have to go farther for some hospital care
Why you’ll have to go farther for some hospital care Mergers spell the end of one-stop shopping. By: STEPHANIE GOLDBERG Hospitals are embracing specialization as cost pressures and consolidation upend health care service models. Expanding Chicago-area chains have begun reconfiguring themselves as networks of specialty hospitals with narrower offerings. Three-hospital Loyola Medicine is consolidating open-heart […]
YakTriNews: Kadlec charged thousands of ER patients “hidden fees”
Lawsuit: Kadlec charged thousands of ER patients “hidden fees” By: Emily Goodell, 6/12/19 RICHLAND, Wash. – Kadlec Regional Medical Center is facing a class-action lawsuit claiming the hospital wrongfully charged thousands of emergency room patients a hidden fee —allegedly making millions in the process. In court documents, former patient Stephen Bradford says he filed the […]
Top 82 U.S. Non-Profit Hospitals: Quantifying Government Payments and Financial Assets
Top 82 U.S. Non-Profit Hospitals: Quantifying Government Payments and Financial Assets Our OpenTheBooks Oversight Report – Top 82 U.S. Non-Profit Hospitals, Quantifying Government Payments & Financial Assets studied the largest charitable healthcare providers. Taxpayers deserve to know whether our non-profit healthcare providers, which use our laws to structure themselves as charities, are truly working for […]
New York Times: Politicians Tackle Surprise Bills, but Not the Biggest Source of Them: Ambulances
Politicians Tackle Surprise Bills, but Not the Biggest Source of Them: Ambulances July 22, 2019 After his son was hit by a car in San Francisco and taken away by ambulance, Karl Sporer was surprised to get a bill for $800. Mr. Sporer had health insurance, which paid for part of the ride. But the […]
Axios: The cost of unnecessary ER visits
The cost of unnecessary ER visits July 23, 2019 We waste more than $30 billion per year on emergency-room care that could be better delivered in a primary-care setting, according to new data out today from UnitedHealth Group. By the numbers: According to United’s analysis of its own claims data, about two-thirds of ER visits are […]
Mission Local: Hospitals mobilizing to kill legislation that would prevent hospitals from gouging you
Hospitals mobilizing to kill legislation that would prevent hospitals from gouging you By Joe Eskenazi Late last month, we introduced you to Conan Mattisson, a 40-year-old Mission Street resident who inadvertently plunged a knife into his dominant right hand deep enough that he could peer in and observe his tendons moving around. This is neither […]
ProPublica: The Nonprofit Hospital That Makes Millions, Owns a Collection Agency and Relentlessly Sues the Poor
The Nonprofit Hospital That Makes Millions, Owns a Collection Agency and Relentlessly Sues the Poor MEMPHIS, Tennessee — In July 2007, Carrie Barrett went to the emergency room at Methodist University Hospital, complaining of shortness of breath and tightness in her chest. Her leg was swollen, she’d later recall, and her toes were turning black. […]
NPR: Why Air Ambulance Bills Are Still Sky-High
Why Air Ambulance Bills Are Still Sky-High In April 2018, 9-year-old Christian Bolling was hiking with his parents and sister in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, near their home in Roanoke. While climbing some boulders, he lost his footing and fell down a rocky 20-foot drop, fracturing both bones in his lower left leg, his wrist, […]
Modern Healthcare: Revenue growth overtakes cost-cutting as hospital executives’ top priority
Revenue growth overtakes cost-cutting as hospital executives’ top priority Hospital and health system CEOs are prioritizing revenue growth in 2019, according to a new survey. Revenue growth overtook cost control as executives’ top priority, Advisory Board Co.’s survey of 90 C-level executives found. While administrators still aim to develop nuanced strategies to cut costs, their focus is […]