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Flagler, Florida and Beyond
FlaglerLive | August 12, 2011
A divided panel of the conservative 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, in a case from Florida, ruled health reform unconstitutional, saying it is “unprecedented, lacks cognizable limits and imperils our federalist structure.”
FlaglerLive | August 11, 2011
University of Florida researchers have used laboratory-based methods to objectively measure the amount of energy older adults use up as they go about their daily activities. Activity means less senility.
FlaglerLive | August 4, 2011
The Jacksonville Business Journal’s fifth annual Ultimate CEO Award drew some 40 nominations from northeast Florida. Ottati, Florida Hospital Flagler’s CEO for the past five years, was among 13 winners.
FlaglerLive | July 28, 2011
U.S. Health spending will grow by an average of 5.8 percent a year through 2020, compared to 5.7 percent without the health overhaul. With that growth, the nation is expected to spend $4.6 trillion on health care in 2020, nearly double the $2.6 trillion spent last year.
FlaglerLive | July 23, 2011
Florida Hospital Flagler won HIMSS Analytics’s Stage 6 designation, on a scale of eight IT-related stages, signaling advantages over competitors for patient safety, clinician support, clinician recruitment and competitive marketing.
FlaglerLive | July 5, 2011
Florida just rejected a federal grant that would have allowed elderly patients to get care at home instead of in nursing homes, where staffing levels may begin to drop this month, thanks to a new Florida law.
FlaglerLive | June 29, 2011
The $700,000-a-year federal grant would open a community health center focused on the uninsured and providing the sort of care people seek out more expensively in emergency rooms.
FlaglerLive | June 18, 2011
Nationwide, hospitals performed double scans on 5.4 percent of Medicare patients who received chest CTs, but 618 hospitals performed the tests on at least 10 percent of Medicare patients, though experts say the double scans are unnecessary.
Pierre Tristam | June 4, 2011
Medicare’s demise is overblown. Modest fixes, eliminations of tax favors and a small rise in the Medicare tax can preserve America’s best and fairest government-run single-payer insurance system.
Pierre Tristam | May 19, 2011
David Ottati, Florida Hospital Flagler’s CEO, is investing, building, innovating, and taking risks despite–and because of–a sputtering economy and health care’s jaggedly changing landscape. So far, it’s paying off.
FlaglerLive | May 16, 2011
Saying the hospital was looking for a presence on Palm Coast Parkway, FHF CEO David Ottati said the 34,000-square-foot building will add up to 25 jobs and an urgent-care clinic, among other services.
FlaglerLive | May 10, 2011
Health care reform opt-out, broad abortion restrictions, managed care for 2.8 million Floridians, less care for patients in nursing homes, Healthy Start slashed: Florida redrew the state’s health care map in the 2011 legislative session.
FlaglerLive | April 22, 2011
Dentists, doctors and pharmacists can still practice in Florida even after committing crimes, while the Department of Health passes over criminal backgrounds in a lax and self-reported licensing procedure.
FlaglerLive | April 19, 2011
Managed-car plans will take over almost all of Florida’s 2.8 million Medicaid patients. The overhaul does nothing to change the status of 3.8 million uninsured Floridians.
FlaglerLive | April 12, 2011
Taken for dead only weeks ago, a revised bill that would preserve many pill-mill regulations, ban doctors from dispensing some pills and require permitting process for pharmacies cleared a Florida House committee Tuesday.
FlaglerLive | April 11, 2011
Hospitals, Medicaid, the poor, the very sick and the Department of Health would all face severe cutbacks as the Legislature enters its session’s second half, with abortion, pill mills and medical malpractice issues yet unresolved.
FlaglerLive | April 7, 2011
Premiums are rising by up to 37 percent for many of the 1,337 school district employees who seek health coverage, particularly for those with family coverage. Employees also face another pay cut next year if retirement contributions are expected of them.
FlaglerLive | April 1, 2011
Department of Health Administrator Patrick Johnson cautions that Flagler’s health rankings should not be overdramatized–for good or ill–but that they still point to trends that should clarify where the county’s health priorities should be.
FlaglerLive | March 24, 2011
As the former CEO of a private hospital chain, Scott was opposed to publicly-run hospitals, which he considers to have an unfair competitive advantage over the privately run sort. The commission is a first step toward privatization.
FlaglerLive | March 14, 2011
Measures that would bar public money from subsidizing abortion coverage in Florida in nearly all cases passed a Senate panel on Monday. The ban would extend to the health-insurance exchange that will be set up by 2014 as part of health care reform.
FlaglerLive | March 10, 2011
Senators voted 29-10 to approve the proposed constitutional amendment, which would allow people to opt out of the “individual mandate” requirement that they buy health insurance or face financial penalties.
FlaglerLive | March 2, 2011
The plan doubles the original estimate of job losses at the department. Of those jobs, almost 1,050 would be outsourced or privatized, for budget reductions of $185 million.
FlaglerLive | February 26, 2011
Florida’s drug database, even if caopable of fighting pill mills, is “Big Brother” to Rob Schenck, Republican House Health and Human Services Chairman. Others are joining him to do away with the drug database.
FlaglerLive | February 16, 2011
A Florida Senate proposal would vastly increase the role of managed care in Florida’s $20 billion Medicaid program, and pull out of the federal system if the federal government doesn’t approve it.
FlaglerLive | February 6, 2011
Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty forfeit a $1 million federal grant that was supposed to go toward beefing up oversight of health-insurance rates.
FlaglerLive | February 1, 2011
Though Florida Federal District Judge Roger Vinson termed his ruling “reluctant,” he also ruled that the private insurance mandate is so intricately tied to the the law that the entire law must be repealed.
FlaglerLive | January 26, 2011
The $65 million cost of the proposed pill mill rules would be due to urine test requirements on patients and other minor costs that would be spread out among 1,300 pain management clinics and tens of thousands of patients.
FlaglerLive | January 21, 2011
If repealing health care without presenting an alternative is the best thing the new GOP majority can do in an economic crisis, pack up your worries about 2012 right now and congratulate Obama for his second term.
FlaglerLive | January 13, 2011
Florida senators are complaining about the state department of health’s slow implementation of pill mill crackdowns. But the Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott are to blame for the delays.
FlaglerLive | January 6, 2011
Lower prescription costs for seniors, calorie counters in restaurant menus, higher Medicare premiums, more restrictions on health savings accounts: some of the changes you can expect this year, and more.
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