Stephanie Bouchard
How do you go from a traditional business model to one that is based on volume? That's a question being asked a lot these days in the healthcare industry and one that was addressed during the Maine chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s annual meeting last week in Rockport, Maine.
On the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Go Direct campaign website is a countdown clock. It isn’t counting down to the end of the Mayan calendar. And although some older adults may view the clock as ticking down to the end of the world as they know it, the Treasury Department and leaders of the long-term care industry say the deadline it’s counting down to will begin a new era of increased efficiency and cost savings.
Just over a decade ago, members of Arkansas Children's Hospital's management decided to go to Disney World. It wasn't a fun-and-games trip, although fun was had. They went to learn about developing a culture that would support everyone working at the hospital and everyone using hospital services. Arkansas Children's was ahead of trend recently taking hold in the healthcare industry: valuing customer service.
Maine is often regarded as being behind the rest of the country in a lot of areas, but in August, it found itself experiencing a growing healthcare business trend dubbed "Big Med."
As care models spring up across the country to test whether patient-centered, accountable care can save money and improve health outcomes, a payer-provider collaboration in Portland, Maine is demonstrating that at least theirs holds promise.
Long-term care pharmacy provider, Omnicare, may have reached a settlement in a whistle-blower lawsuit brought against the company five years ago.
In its latest budget outlook update, the Congressional Budget Office has once again marked down its forecast for Medicare spending, but the nonpartisan agency also noted that spending on the program (and on Medicaid) is still expected to grow faster than the economy, reaching 14.4 percent of the gross domestic product in 2022.
With an increasing demand for home care services, home care businesses have been springing up in communities across the country. And with the rapid expansion of these largely unregulated businesses questions about the industry's hiring practices have begun to surface.
For-profit healthcare chain, Steward Health Care System, is continuing to expand its reach, this time northward into Maine. On Monday, Mercy Health System of Maine, a nonprofit, Catholic system associated with the Sisters of Mercy and Catholic Health East, announced that it had signed a non-binding letter of intent with Steward, the first step in a possible acquisition.
A legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act's restriction on doctors owning hospitals was foiled last week when the U.S. Court of Appeals in Houston dismissed an appeal from Physician Hospitals of America and the Texas Spine & Joint Hospital.