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

Iowa News

Sioux City man guilty of making false claims to Medicaid
Vincent Stroman Sr., 44, pleaded guilty earlier this month to a felony charge of fraudulent practices. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay $155,338 in restitution to the Iowa Department of Human Services. Stroman was the treasurer of We Care Wheelchairs, a Sioux City company his family formed in 2006 to provide local transportation services to the elderly and the disabled. At one time, the company employed 13 people. (Des Moines Register)

Washington County Hospital Provides More Than $1.5 Million In Free And Discounted Care
Washington County Hospital and Clinics says a new study of 2009 figures shows it has provided over $1.5 million in free and discounted benefits. The hospital says those services were specifically implemented to help Washington County residents, and in addition to $1.3 million in uncompensated care, community benefits include programs such as Lifeline, support groups, and community education.  The Iowa Hospital Association completed the report. (KCII)

Vinton hospital plans open house events to mark expansion
Virginia Gay Hospital will unveil the hospital’s recent $8.5 million expansion project with a series of events scheduled September 15-18, 2010. A re-dedication deremony is planned for September 15, and a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony will be held Thursday, September 16.  Invited VIPs for the events include Iowa Hospital Association President Kirk Norris. (Eastern Iowa Health)

Time to invest in cancer center for area
With all the uncertainties surrounding health care reform, the time has come to invest in the future of cancer treatment in Cedar Rapids and the surrounding communities. We must ensure that those who are diagnosed with cancer can find the care they need right here — at home. (Cedar Rapids Gazette)

U.S. News

Nonprofit hospitals juggle earning with charity mission
Today’s nonprofit hospitals, which make up slightly more than half of the nation’s 5,000 community hospitals, are trying to juggle the demands of making money with being a charitable organization. “You’re supposed to show a good bottom line, but at the same time you’re supposed to show that you lost tons of money by giving charity care,” said Jessica Berg, a law professor at Case Western University who has studied the nonprofit-hospital system and its tax structure. (Washington Post)

Cash-poor governments ditching public hospitals
Faced with mounting debt and looming costs from the new federal health-care law, many local governments are leaving the hospital business, shedding public facilities that can be the caregiver of last resort. Officials in Lauderdale County, Ala., this spring opted to transfer their 91-year-old Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital and other properties to a for-profit company after struggling to satisfy an angry bond insurer. (Wall Street Journal)

Midlevel providers fill primary doctors’ shoes
Increasingly, the doctor is not in when it comes to delivering primary care. But the nurse practitioner or physician assistant is often taking the doctor’s place. “We are ideally suited for it. And it’s so cost-effective compared to any other form of medical provider,” says Jim Love, a physician assistant from rural Pittsfield, Maine. “We need to be educating a lot more of us.” (National Public Radio)

Tech firms help governments weed out fraudulent claims
Shaun C. Barry, director for fraud solutions in IBM’s public sector business, said his company began working with the state of New York after its tax department estimated it was losing $1 billion annually in improper tax refunds. So IBM built a predictive model that would score every refund request on the likelihood it was valid — the 4 percent of returns deemed the most questionable were rejected outright. Investigators examined others considered high risk to decide whether or not they were valid. (Washington Post)

Record number in government anti-poverty programs
More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA Today shows. That’s up at least 17 percent since the recession began in December 2007. “Virtually every Medicaid director in the country would say that their current enrollment is the highest on record,” says Vernon Smith of Health Management Associates, which surveys states for Kaiser Family Foundation. (USA Today)