HEALTH CARE
Medical Errors Continue to Dog Health Care A new Wolters Kluwer Health Survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers revealed that nearly one third of Americans (30 percent) have experienced a medical mistake either firsthand or from a third-party. A majority (68 percent) believe that as the medical field continues to adopt new technologies, medical errors will decrease.
Time for Medicine to Take Its Own Pulse The truth is that for a large part of medical practice, we don’t know what works. But we pay for it anyway. Our annual per capita health care expenditure is now more than $8,000. Many countries pay half that — and enjoy similar, often better, outcomes. Isn’t it time to learn which practices, in fact, improve our health, and which ones don’t?
UnitedHealth Ends WI Medicaid Contract Over Lower Payments After seeing the state cut payment rates in 2011 and then again this year, UnitedHealthcare has opted to end its contract with the state to oversee care for 174,000 people insured through the BadgerCare Plus program in southeastern Wisconsin.
Medicare Fraud Squads Wield New Weapons But if crooks are smart, it may turn out that computers are smarter. The federal health law and other legislation directed the federal government to start using sophisticated anti-fraud computer systems. Budetti said the systems, which are being used first in the Medicare program, are similar to those used by credit card companies to detect suspicious purchases.
Allina Buys Home Health Care Provider Allina Health has reached a deal to acquire ConnectCare, a Hutchinson-based provider of home health care and hospice services.
NOTES ON NURSING
Home-grown Human Trafficking – Nurses on the Frontlines Ellen LoCascio, RN, BSN, CEN, knew something was amiss when a female patient said she was 24 years old and the middle-aged man accompanying her was her spouse. The girl looked about 15, and the pair lacked any signs of intimacy typical for married couples. The girl had come to an ED at a hospital in Southwest Florida four years ago because she was suffering from abdominal pain, but strangely, she was cheerful and chatty — as if she were playing a role, according to LoCascio
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