Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and Web.

Iowa News

Hospitals provide millions in uncompensated care
A new survey finds Iowa hospitals were not paid for over $1 billion worth of the patient care they delivered in 2009. A survey from the Iowa Hospital Association shows the amount of charity care combined with unpaid bills that were written off increased by 12 percent last year, to nearly $800 million. The Iowa Hospital Association says on top of that, hospitals provided $310 million in care to Medicare and Medicaid patients that was not reimbursed by the state or federal government. (Radio Iowa)

Extend Medicaid lifeline to poor
It makes no sense to force states to reduce health coverage for the poor when the economy has not recovered. It’s absurd only months after Congress passed health reform legislation to insure more Americans that it would refuse to provide a lifeline to the poor. Washington lawmakers can justify extending increased matching dollars for Medicaid until the economy improves. (Des Moines Register)

Turf battle continues over pain relief injections
A legislative committee has failed to settle a turf battle between doctors and nurses over treatment for chronic pain. At issue is the Board of Medicine’s decision to prohibit nurse anesthetists  from using an x-ray machine to monitor pain relief injections near the spine. Critics say it hurts rural hospitals, which find it difficult to keep anesthesiologists on staff. (Radio Iowa)

Mercy-Des Moines adding second air ambulance
The second helicopter will be based in Knoxville, officials said. “We’ve been exploring the possibility of an expansion for a while,” said Dan Keough, director of emergency transport services at Mercy. “We have seen a large increase in the number of requests for air ambulance transport.” (KCCI)

Harkin Applauds health information technology incentives
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today applauded Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius on the announcement of final rules that pave the way for the expanded use of electronic health records in America. In March of this year, Harkin joined 37 other Senators in commending a proposed rule to distribute Recovery Act funds for health information technology and urged improvements to increase flexibility and encourage participation among providers. (IowaPolitics)

Braley to propose federal version of Ed Thomas Bill
First District Rep. Bruce Braley announced Wednesday that he’ll introduce a federal bill aimed at helping law officials track patients facing criminal charges. Braley said the legislation he will propose this week will allow hospitals to release information about patients facing criminal charges to law enforcement. (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier)

U.S. News

GOP Senators ask Kagan to step aside on health law
Senate Republicans today asked Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan whether she would recuse herself from a possible Supreme Court challenge to this year’s health care law. Kagan, the solicitor general, represents the Obama administration before the Supreme Court. She has said she would decline to participate in deciding cases that she worked on but has not said whether that includes a challenge to the health care law. (Wall Street Journal)

Most Provena tax money to go into escrow
Local taxing districts now stand to receive only a part of the $8.8 million Provena Covenant Medical Center paid Champaign County last week in back taxes. Urbana officials say most of the money will be held in escrow, until legal issues surrounding the tax payments and Provena Covenant’s taxable status for several prior years are resolved. (Urbana News Gazette)

No, the ‘free market’ will not fix health care
Free markets are wonderful. They have brought millions of humans out of poverty. But there are large problems when applying markets to 21st century health care. (Baltimore Sun)

Study: Many docs don’t blow whistle on colleagues
A new survey finds that many American physicians fail to report troubled colleagues to authorities, believing that someone else will take care of it, that nothing will happen if they act or that they could be targeted for retribution. A surprising 17 percent of the doctors surveyed had direct, personal knowledge of an impaired or incompetent physician in their workplaces, said the study’s lead author, Catherine DesRoches of Harvard Medical School. (Associated Press)

A new practice: The doctor will see you today
At this doctor’s office, no one has to spend weeks trying to wrangle an appointment, and once patients arrive, they rarely wait more than a few minutes for the doctor. That might seem mind-boggling to those who have cooled their heels for 30 minutes, or an hour, in their doctor’s reception room — after waiting weeks to get the appointment in the first place. It takes an average of 63 days in the Boston area to get an appointment with a family physician, according to a 2009 survey by physician recruiters Merritt Hawkins & Associates, and 20 days on average for the nation as a whole. (Boston Globe)