Healthcare Roundup: Tufts vs. Blue Cross, $100B Stimulus for Healthcare, and More

(MoneyWatch)  Tufts Medical plays chicken with Massachusetts Blue Cross -- In the latest challenge to health-insurance providers in Massachusetts, the Tufts Medical Center said it will no longer accept HMO coverage from the state Blue Cross Blue Shield unless it boosts its reimbursement rates by the end of the month. The center says the Blue pays Tufts 20-40 percent less than it pays other teaching hospitals in the state. [Source: Boston Globe]

Healthcare industry could get $100B from stimulus -- A $775 billion economic-stimulus package now under discussion in Washington could shovel $100 billion into the healthcare industry. Roughly $80 billion would go straight into shoring up state Medicaid systems, many of which have recently lowered doctor fees or cut back in other ways, leading to layoffs at some medical centers. The remaining $20 billion would likely be a "down payment" on President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to spend $50 billion upgrading fragmented and antiquated electronic health-record systems. [Source: Politico]

Moody's says nonprofit hospitals vulnerable to acquisition -- The credit crunch and the stock-market crash may well force many nonprofit hospitals to sell out to better-capitalized, for-profit chains, Moody's Investment Service predicted. The for-profit chains have better liquidity and access to bank-credit facilities arranged before the economy went into a nosedive. [Source: Modern Healthcare]

Texas healthcare outsourcing leaves elderly in the lurch -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been a big fan of outsourcing management of state healthcare programs to private firms, but things aren't going so well for patients. A Dallas Morning News investigation found that firms like the UnitedHealth Group unit Evercare -- which is supposed to coordinate long-term care for elderly, blind and disabled Texans -- are largely unresponsive and prone to long approval delays and other problems. "If you're not really on top of it, you'll lose lots of money working with United Healthcare," one doctor tells the paper. [Source: Dallas Morning News]

Healthcare inflation slowed in 2007 -- Growth in healthcare spending slowed somewhat in 2007, although spending continued to rise far faster than economic growth and inflation. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that costs rose 6.1 percent to $2.2 trillion, thanks largely to greater use of generic drugs. [Source: McClatchy]

Pennsylvania Senate committee votes to block Blues merger -- The proposed merger of two Pennsylvania Blues plans -- Highmark and Independence Blue Cross -- hit a snag when the state Senate banking and insurance committee voted to recommend the state insurance commissioner block the deal. The combination would create the third-largest Blue plan in the country, and doctors and hospitals worry that it would be able to dictate financial terms to medical providers. [Source: American Medical News]

Maryland nonprofit hospitals step up debt collection despite state reimbursement -- A Baltimore Sun investigation found that many of the state's nonprofit medical centers have been suing patients with abandon to collect unpaid bills, despite receiving millions of dollars in state reimbursement for free and unpaid care. Debt-collection suits spiked between 2003 and 2006, resulting in aggregate judgments of $100 million over the past five years. [Source: Baltimore Sun]

Short takes:

• St. Jude Medical buys device startup Mediguide for $238M [Modern Healthcare]
• Liberty Healthcare to buy Owens diabetes-supply biz for $63M [Healthcare IT News]
• Eclipsys to pay $38.5M for clinical-practice software maker Premise [Modern Healthcare]
• Oregon fines PacifiCare $46K for improperly denied claims [TMCnews]
• New York AG accuses seven state hospitals of Medicaid fraud [Modern Healthcare]
• Some hospitals continue expansion despite credit crunch -- [Cleveland Plain Dealer, Springfield News Leader]
• North Carolina approves $96M Forsyth Medical Center hospital [Modern Healthcare]
• Hospitals in trouble around the country [AP via IHT]
• Credit crunch kills Florida's Baptist Healthcare $245M bid for HCA hospital [Modern Healthcare]
• Long-term care organization Ensign Group acquires Southland Healthcare Center [Modern Healthcare]
• Insurer Amerigroup calls off purchase of Centene Medicaid unit [Modern Healthcare]
• Minnesota's HealthPartners buys Wisconsin's Hudson Hospital [Modern Healthcare]
• Nonprofit El Camino Hospital pays $45M for Tenet-run hospital [Mountain View Voice]
• Success Healthcare buys two former Tenet hospitals [Modern Healthcare]
• Northshore University Healthsystem buys Rush North Shore [Modern Healthcare]