MedCity morning read Tuesday, Feb. 3

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland will try to plug some of the financial gaps in his new budget by charging hospitals a new franchise fee as well as increasing a tax on nursing homes, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

The new hospital franchise fee would charge hospitals $598 million over the next two years, although the net cost to hospitals is $200 million, Tiffany Himmelreich, spokeswoman for the Ohio Hospital Association, told The Dispatch. That’s because the state wants to increase its reimbursement rate for Medicaid patients by 5 percent.

“The economy is bad for the state, but the economy is just as bad for hospitals,” Himmelreich told the newspaper.

Nursing homes would pay a total $298 million in two years after a doubling of the “bed tax,” which charges a fee per day per bed. Alan Melamed, spokesman for the Skilled Nursing Care Coalition, predicted such an increase would bankrupt some facilities and lead others to cut staff.

More stories worth a read:

• Doctors overwhelmingly oppose a ban on industry supported CME (Notes from Dr. RW)
• Lured by promise of stem cells, Dallas-Fort Worth residents head abroad for medical treatment (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
• Primary Care Docs: Pay Us More, But Don’t Pay Other Docs Less (WSJ Health Blog)
• Portland’s MolecularMD Raises $3M (Xconomy)