Healthcare Roundup: McKesson to Pay $350M, Insurance Consolidation, No Advantage to Advantage Plans, and More
McKesson agrees to $350M drug-cost settlement -- The major drug and medical-supplies distributor said it will pay $350 million to settle allegations that it conspired to inflate the cost of drugs for consumers and health-insurance providers. McKesson still faces similar lawsuits brought by federal, state and local agencies. [Source: Modern Healthcare]
Health-insurance sector could see consolidation -- Rising medical costs and shrinking profits among health-insurance companies could force consolidation among the industry's weaker players. Analysts suggest Health Net and Coventry Health Care could become prime acquisition targets. (See our earlier take on Coventry's finances and acquisition prospects.) [Source: American Medical News]
Medicare Advantage plans boost cost and complexity, but not care quality -- Privatized plans that serve nearly a quarter of all Medicare recipients cost considerably more than traditional Medicare but do little to coordinate care or improve patient outcomes, new studies suggest. The data may bolster efforts in Congress to rein in these Medicare Advantage programs, which are key to the business of major health-insurance providers such as Humana. [Source: Modern Healthcare]
Healthcare sector nears 10-year record for layoffs -- Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that healthcare employers may idle more people in mass layoffs this year than at any time over the past decade. Layoffs have already accounted for more than 38,000 new unemployment filings this year. [Source: Modern Healthcare]
Indiana's Clarian Health acquires two-hospital system -- Clarian Health, a six-hospital system in Indiana, will take on two additional hospitals when it formally acquires Cardinal Health System on Jan. 1. Clarian is also negotiating to take over the 280-bed Bloomington Hospital, perhaps as soon as 2010. [Source: Modern Healthcare]
Angioplasty overused in stable heart-attack victims -- A new study suggests that angioplasty, whose use has more than doubled since the early 1990s, is no more effective than drug treatment and lifestyle changes in patients with stable heart disease. The technique, in which catheter-deployed stents or balloons are used to open clogged arteries, is now a $10 billion industry and a major source of competitive advantage in the hospital industry. [Source: Kansas City Star]
Pittsburgh medical center lowers transplant standards -- The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, once a leader in transplant medicine, has seen that business shrink as other hospitals jumped into the lucrative market. So UPMC did what any right-thinking business might do and lowered its standards in order to double its volume of liver transplants. UPMC now uses more organs from older and sicker donors, treats more high-risk patients and increased its use of live donors. [Source: WSJ Health Blog]
Michigan medical society plans health IT exchange -- The new network aims to connect 15,000 doctors across the state, offering them access to online applications for e-prescribing, laboratory results and patient registries. It is the first such health-IT network to be sponsored by a state medical society, and will be free to the society's doctors. [Source: American Medical News]