Hospitals
Hospitals Spend Small Fractions of Revenue on Charity Care
“Despite a congressman’s recent assurance that many hospitals “do the work for free,” Oklahoma’s hospitals spend less than 3 percent of their net patient revenues on charity care on average, records show.”
Read MoreSpecial report: Addicted nurses keep licenses
Some nurses continue to steal narcotics or practice while impaired under state monitoring that’s supposed to stop them.
Read MoreSurgeon salesmen? Doctors profit from devices they put in patients
“Reynolds is now suing Sabit for wrongful death. One of his biggest questions centers on the screws and rods used to fuse the spine, which came from a company called Apex Medical Technologies LLC. Apex had no public phone number, website, or listing of its owners. “CBS This Morning” has learned one of its owners…
Read MoreLarge hospitals enjoy revenue, borrowing advantage
“Hospitals are confronting declining revenues and continuing investment demands from their patients and the government. These twin pressures are bringing into focus the advantages that large hospital operators hold over smaller independent ones, and why the latter might want to align with the former.”
Read MoreIn Minnesota, nurses in trouble get second chances
“Records examined by the Star Tribune of more than 1,000 disciplinary actions by the Minnesota Board of Nursing over the past four years show that it tolerates or forgives misconduct that would end nursing careers in other states. The board actively licenses more than 260 nurses since 2010 who have records of unsafe practice, including…
Read MoreVA’s opiate overload feeds veterans’ addictions, overdose deaths
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the agency charged with helping veterans recover from war instead masks their pain with potent drugs, feeding addictions and contributing to a fatal overdose rate among VA patients that is nearly double the national average.
Read MoreExtra Extra Monday: Overdoses, background checks, housing markets, midwifery and fraudulent accounting
Use only as directed | ProPublica and This American Life “About 150 Americans a year die by accidentally taking too much acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. The toll does not have to be so high.” Read the stories from ProPublica. Company Behind Snowden Vetting Did Check on D.C. Shooter | Bloomberg “The U.S. government…
Read MoreDismissal of caregiver abuse puts California patients at risk
Ryan Gabrielson of The Center for Investigative Reporting reports that “California regulators routinely have conducted cursory and indifferent investigations into suspected violence and misconduct committed by hundreds of nursing assistants and in-home health aides – putting the elderly, sick and disabled at risk over the past decade.” In two stories published yesterday, Gabrielson’s examines how…
Read MoreSponges, tools and more left inside Washington hospital patients
KUOW in Seattle reports that about 30 times per year, a sponge or surgical instrument is left inside a patient at a hospital in Washington state. Foreign ojects left behind are among the state’s most common medical mistakes. Medical experts told KUOW such an event should never happen, at that the system in place to…
Read MoreSmall-town Texas patients died amid federal, state regulatory inaction
The Dallas Morning News investigation shows how Dr. Tariq Mahmood operated a chain of dangerous small-town Texas hospitals for more than four years until regulators finally started to crack down. Before they acted, repeated warnings about grave risks to patients and potential fraud reached multiple agencies. At least four patients died. The project details how federal…
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