Dr. Bernard Lown speaks out against overtreatment
Bernard Lown believes less medical treatment can sometimes be more. Convincing you and your doctor has become a mission for the 91-year-old cardiologist.
By Chelsea Conaboy
| GLOBE STAFF JULY 29, 2012
Dr. Bernard Lown speaks out against overtreatment
Bernard Lown believes less medical treatment can sometimes be more. Convincing you and your doctor has become a mission for the 91-year-old cardiologist.
By Chelsea Conaboy
| GLOBE STAFF JULY 29, 2012
Medicaid managed care program doesn’t reduce fees, report says
By Chelsea Conaboy
| GLOBE STAFFIt’s not perfect, but new health law is a start
Pressures of rural medicine force Boothbay hospital to close ER, lay off 50
By Jackie Farwell, BDN Staff
Posted Aug. 02, 2012, at 7:08 p.m.
BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine — A plan to close the emergency room and revamp services at a small Lincoln County hospital won final approval Thursday, highlighting challenges faced by many rural hospitals in the state.
St. Andrews Hospital and Healthcare Center in Boothbay Harbor, operated by Lincoln County Healthcare, will drop the word “hospital” from its name next April.
The plan got the green light Thursday by a unanimous vote of the board of trustees of MaineHealth, parent company to Lincoln County Healthcare.
St. Andrews will cease inpatient care and outpatient surgical services and replace its emergency room with a daytime urgent care center. The century-old hospital, which serves Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor and Southport, isn’t treating enough patients to warrant keeping the ER open, according to James Donovan, president and CEO of Lincoln County Healthcare.
Remember Managed Care? It's Quietly Coming Back
By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS
The Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2012
The Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2012
Under pressure to squeeze out costs, some of the U.S.'s biggest health insurers are quietly erecting more hurdles for patients seeking medical care.
The companies are in many cases reaching back to the 1990s and boosting the use of techniques that antagonized patients and doctors alike.
Today's approaches are tweaked, but may feel familiar to many: Insurers are rolling out plans with more restricted choices of doctors and hospitals, and weighing new requirements for referrals before patients can see specialists.
UnitedHealth Group Inc., Cigna Corp. and others are increasingly requiring doctors to get prior authorization before patients can get certain care such as spinal surgeries.
Earlier versions of these practices were closely identified with the managed-care era of the 90s. They later receded in many parts of the country, as employers switched away from restrictive health-maintenance organizations, and insurers backed off some limits.
Health insurers say today's versions of 1990s strategies are very different, and use new technology to focus closely on improving care as well as reining in expenses.
UnitedHealth, for one, said it is using prior authorization "surgically" to counter "extreme variations in quality and cost." But doctors aren't sure how much things have changed.
"There seems to be a return we're hearing about to some of the old practices that have been very frustrating to physicians," said Jeremy A. Lazarus, president of the American Medical Association.
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