Innovation, influence and business in America's medical cities.

The healthcare reform law is indisputably an emotionally charged, complicated piece of legislation that can thwart even the best intellects and intentions.Just take LifeScience Alley’s seminar on how the law will impact Minnesota’s healthcare industry. By my last count, I witnessed an unfortunate analogy, two Freudian slips, and an ill conceived attempt at humor…I think.

Politician’s fudging the numbers? Say it ain’t so! But don’t worry. It’s only America’s health care we’re taking about. The new entitlement programs will be better. Much better.

The 0.4 percent Medicare reduction in inpatient hospital rates for fiscal 2011 will hit nonprofits harder than their for-profit counterparts, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:Medicare: Solvent until 2029? The annual report from Medicare’s trustees says the program has enough money to be solvent until 2029–an improvement of 12 years over last year’s report–thanks mainly to savings contained in this year’s controversial health reform law. Sounds good, but the [...]

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:Introducing the BlackPad: Research In Motion, makers of the Blackberry, are expected in November to unveil a tablet computer called the BlackPad that could battle the iPad for supremacy in the very young healthcare tablet space. The tablet will be closely integrated with the [...]

In the recent AMNews, June 7, 2010, pp 6-7, we physicians were given talking points on how to tell our patients about ObamaCare. It was so full of “happy-speak” that one must wonder if the AMA has paid lobbyists for the Administration.A typical question might be, “What’s in it for me?” We are to say [...]

To help all stakeholders who want to better understand the latest HIT regulations:1. Here’s a quick summary of the Meaningful Use Core and Menu Set Objectives and Measures complied by Robin Raiford.2. Here’s a quick summary of the Standards cross referenced to the Code of Federal Regulations Citations compiled by Robin Raiford.3. [...]

The U.S. Justice and Health and Human Services departments charge 94 individuals in five states for allegedly submitting $251 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.In the largest takedown since the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the Health & Human Services Dept. began collaborating to prosecute Medicare fraud three years ago, 94 [...]

Remember when the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act in 2003, providing ’Part D’ drug benefits to Medicare recipients while enacting offsetting cost cuts and tax increases to make the measure deficit neutral?If you do you’re memory’s faulty because the net cost of the program in its first ten years is [...]

I had missed the news that the Massachusetts health care experiment, the prototype for the national reform law, was going down the tubes. So my eyes immediately gravitated to the op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning whose headline warned about the coming “train wreck” in the Bay State, soon [...]