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| Current Nashville Medical News |
Data Collection Begins for National Index to Measure Healthcare Efficiency
Armed with research that concluded that $30 billion in healthcare costs could be saved annually in America if just five administrative processes were improved, Emdeon Inc. and a host of partners set out in December 2008 to take stock of industry inefficiencies. After a year of work, the U.S. Healthcare Efficiency Index is up and running, and data collection began in November.
SHARON H. FITZGERALD |
The Difference a Dozen Years Can Make
Yuspeh Helped HCA Change its Ethical Direction
When Alan Yuspeh joined what was then Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. in October 1997, the challenge was, well, daunting. The Nashville-based healthcare provider, America's largest, was in a tailspin — beset by government regulatory actions (including hospital raids), shareholder and class-action lawsuits, employee grievances, whistleblower complaints, and … needless to say … devastating media coverage.
SHARON H. FITZGERALD |
Tommy Thompson Diagnoses the Healthcare Debate
Politics in Play
Tommy Thompson, four-term Governor of Wisconsin and former Secretary of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, recently painted a scenario of political intrigue filled with back room bargaining and deal-making worthy of the latest political best seller. However, he wasn’t speaking of a fictional thriller but of the real life maneuvers that will be necessary to get a healthcare reform bill out of Congress.
KELLY PRICE |
Vital Signs: HCA prepping big deals?
After HCA announced in November it had recruited its longtime outside legal counsel Joseph Sowell to be chief development officer, we couldn’t help but wonder if it means there will be more buying and selling in the hospital giant’s future.
ERIN LAWLEY |
| REIMBURSEMENT & ACOs Focus |
It’s All About the Research
Healthcare Marketing Is Sophisticated and Targeted
When you watch a commercial on television, that’s business-to-consumer marketing, known as B2C. The commercial seeks to persuade, to prompt the purchase of a product or service. There’s nothing subtle about it.
SHARON H. FITZGERALD |
Marketing a Specialty Practice to Other Docs
A Practice's "Lifeblood," One Expert Says
"Your most important asset." That's what one healthcare marketing expert called a specialty physician's referral base, and he said way too many specialists are failing to nurture the relationship between their practice and the doctors who send them business.
SHARON H. FITZGERALD |
PHYSICIAN SPOTLIGHT: Ravi S. Chari, MD, MBA
Chief Medical Officer Centennial Medical Center
Growing up in a place named Swift Current might be a predictor of going fast and far in life.
Certainly it set Ravi S. Chari, MD, MBA, on the right path.
KELLY PRICE |
HEALTHCARE ENTERPRISE: China Healthcare Corp. Enters Market with Replacement Hospital
When Nashville-based China Healthcare Corp. (CHC) breaks ground in April on its first hospital, a $120 million facility in the Chinese city of Cixi, the project will mark the first public-private healthcare partnership of its kind. While CHC will own a 70 percent stake, the Cixi municipal government will own 30 percent.
SHARON H. FITZGERALD |
Bringing up the "O" Word
Clinicians Still Struggle to Broach Subject of Weight
My word, you're fat! Someone go see if Mr. Jones broke our scale.
While no provider (at least none we know) would bring up the sensitive subject of weight in this manner, there are many who feel that no matter how carefully words are chosen, a patient will process them as something similarly offensive.
CINDY SANDERS |
Good News for Bariatric Surgery Self-Pay Patients
Bariatric surgery is typically handled as a coverage rider rather than included in the umbrella policy. Therefore, rather than being carrier-driven, coverage is often employer-driven.
CINDY SANDERS |
Get Fit TN
State Provides Tools to Help Residents Shape Up
New decade … same old resolutions.
At the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, Tennesseans from the northeast corner to the Mississippi River made similar vows … to make 2010 the year they finally lose weight/quit smoking/start exercising. In short, this is the year to get healthier.
CINDY SANDERS |
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