Corporate news

At least 25 hospitals have signed up recently for consulting agreements with the Walt Disney Co., reports Kaiser Health News. The goal: Learn how to keep customers happy now that the health law links Medicare payments to patient satisfaction.

Drug abuse and behavioral health problems vary greatly by state, says a new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Pharmacies are worried about the proposed merger between Pharmacy Benefit Managers Express Scripts and Medco.

Senators of both parties are pressing for an investigation of physician-owned distributorships, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Energy and Commerce leaders of both parties request that the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brief them on efforts to protect the U.S. food supply and track Europe's E. coli outbreak.

Other insurers aren't likely to imitate Blue Cross of California in capping profits, reports Kaiser Health News.

The largest health system in Oklahoma applauds Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) for raising concerns with Accountable Care Organizations.

ProPublica reveals the financial ties binding medical societies to pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers.

A draft of proposed labels for health insurance plans are being proposed as part of the healthcare reform law, Kaiser Health News reports.

Rick Santorum called healthcare the biggest issue facing the nation while all five candidates at the South Carolina GOP primary debate criticized the Democrats' law, GreenvilleOnline.com reports.

Pharmaceutical companies were responsible for 25 percent of fines paid to the government under the False Claims Act over the past decade, according to a new study by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

That's twice as much as the perennial top culprits, defense contractors, who only paid out 11 percent of claims.

The study found that four companies — GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Eli Lilly & Co. and Schering-Plough — accounted for more than half of all financial penalties over the past two decades, paying $10.5 billion in fines collectively.

Six of the nation's leading healthcare systems announced Wednesday that they're banding together to share data on outcomes, quality and costs in a first-of-its-kind collaborative effort.

The six health systems — Cleveland Clinic, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Denver Health, Geisinger Health System, Intermountain Healthcare and the Mayo Clinic — have a combined patient population of more than 10 million people. They'll be joining the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, a leading research institute that tracks disparities across the country in how patients are treated and at what cost.

"The intractable problems of quality and cost cannot be solved without getting to the fundamental issue of how we deliver health care in this country," Brent James, chief quality officer at Intermountain Healthcare, said in a statement. "By collaborating to gather data and identify the most effective care models, we can address variation in treatment, cost, and outcomes to give patients the quality care they need and bend the cost curve down in a meaningful way."

The collaborative will initially focus on eight costly conditions and treatments that have wide varieties in quality and outcomes: knee replacement, diabetes, heart failure, asthma, weight-loss surgery, labor and delivery, spine surgery and depression.

The six largest investor-owned health insurance companies saw a 22 percent increase in combined net income in the third quarter, putting them on pace to break profit records for 2010.

According to S.E.C. figures compiled by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which lobbied Congress to pass March's healthcare overhaul, the top six insurers made a total of $3.4 billion in profits during Q3, or $611 million more than they did during the same period last year.

The analysis looked at WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc., Aetna Inc., Humana Inc., Cigna Corp. and Coventry Health Care Inc., which had a combined enrollment of 85 million consumers as of Sept. 30. They saw an overall decrease in commercial enrollment of 3.4 million consumers between 2008 and 2010.

All but WellPoint, Inc., meanwhile, increased how much of each premium they allocate to administrative costs and profit.

On average, each of the six now devotes 20 cents on the dollar to non-medical services, compared to 16.5 cents last year and, according to HCAN, 5 cents in 1993.

March's healthcare overhaul will require insurers to spend at least 85 cents of every premium dollar on patient care. Those changes take effect next year. 

The American Medical Association announced Thursday it is opening up its in-house news organ's archives to non-members, offering the general public 10 years of research and analysis through the AMA's lenses on issues confronting physicians and trends in medicine. The online news archive dates back to January 2000 and also features selected earlier content. 

"The American Medical Association hopes the accessible online news archive, and digital conveniences offered by American Medical News, will better help readers stay on top of the trends and forces shaping a complex, ever-changing medical environment," AMA President Cecil Wilson said in a statement.

The references include tables, charts and other tools such as:

• Listings of news stories by health plan and region of the country;
• Headlines via e-mail or RSS;
• Multimedia features on stories of "enduring relevance";
• An interactive health-plan earnings tool on the nation's publicly traded health plans; and
• A new mobile version with full text, pinch and zoom, topics and search.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, slammed AARP on Friday after news broke that the powerful seniors' lobby was blaming the health reform law for an increase in employee premiums slated for next year. AARP's support of the law was crucial because of the fierce opposition from many seniors to the cuts to Medicare Advantage that helped pay for the overhaul.

In an e-mail to employees obtained by The Associated Press, AARP says healthcare premiums will increase by 8 percent to 13 percent next year because of rapidly rising medical costs. AARP is also making its plans' benefits less generous to avoid the taxes on generous "Cadillac plans" starting in 2018.

"Most plan co-pays and deductibles have been modified," Jennifer Hodges, AARP's director of compensation and benefits, wrote employees in the Oct. 25 e-mail. "Plan value changes were necessary not only from a cost management standpoint but also to ensure that AARP's plans fall below the threshold for high-cost group plans under health care reform."

"AARP supported a partisan health care overhaul that cut Medicare by almost $500 billion," Grassley said in a statement. "That will result in less choice, fewer benefits and decreased access to care for millions of its members. But now we hear that AARP’s members aren’t the only ones who will bear the brunt of the new health care law.

"Like companies across the country," Grassley continued, "AARP is shifting more costs onto employees in reaction to the health care overhaul. Despite their employer’s support, AARP employees are learning that the health care law is not going to address the top priority of making health care coverage less expensive. Supporters of the law tend to have tunnel vision and focus on how it will affect narrow groups of people, rather than recognizing that most people will just end up paying more. But the big picture is clear.  Employers and employees nationwide will pay more for health care because of the new law."

AARP legislative affairs director David Certner told the AP the new law was "a small part" of the reason for the changes and added that "(t)he impact on AARP employees is not a factor at all in our policy making, which is directed at the impact on our membership and on all older Americans."

The chairman and CEO of one of the nation's largest health insurance companies is stepping down.

Aetna announced Wednesday that Ronald Williams will retire in April 2011. Williams will become executive chairman on Nov. 29, with current president Mark Bertolini taking over as CEO and joining the board of directors on that date before taking over as chairman in April. 

Williams has been with Aetna for almost 10 years. Bertolini joined the company in February 2003 and heads its business operations. 

Aetna is one of the nation’s leading diversified healthcare benefits companies, serving approximately 35.8 million people.

A spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans says the organization is simply preparing for the challenges of the post-reform environment.