STORIES
5/26/2009 © Miami Herald
Miami-Dade and Florida Blue Cross & Blue Shield are launching a health plan for the uninsured that's more affordable than most on the market. But the plan can reject anyone it fears might be costly.
6/10/2009 © Fort Myers News-Press
The McGregor Clinic in Ft. Myers will receive $1.4 million in federal AIDS money over the next five years. The clinic applied for the grant, which was last awarded to a different Ft. Myers clinic, to help fund its rapid growth.
7/1/2009 Health News Florida
Today at 1:15, President Obama will host an online town hall meeting on health reform live at www.HealthReform.gov. To participate in the online chat, go to this site. Or if you're in Orlando, you can participate in a demonstration at Sen. Bill Nelson's office.
By Carol Gentry
7/2/2009 © Health News Florida
Could a Floridian become the face and voice of health reform? Summer DeMichael of Navarre Beach, a 25-year-old Crohn's disease patient, stars in a new pro-reform TV commercial that features real sick people -- but photogenic ones. "I think Americans deserve better," she says. "This is one promise the politicians need to keep."
7/2/2009 Health News Florida
Two Miami-Dade residents -- a 31-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man -- have been added to the toll of deaths from H1N1 swine flu in Florida, the CDC and Florida Health Department announced this afternoon.
7/2/2009 CDC
Only 56 percent of Floridians under age 65 had private health coverage last year, according to a new federal survey. One-fourth of the others were uninsured and the rest were covered by a government program.
6/10/2009 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Gov. Charlie Crist -- who has two doctors in his immediate family -- faces a dilemma on the bill that would change the way some insurers pay doctors. With a Senate fight coming up, would you rather infuriate the doctors or the business community?
By Carol Gentry
6/9/2009 © Health News Florida
The Florida Board of Medicine “strongly" opposes two bills awaiting action by Gov. Charlie Crist, saying they could unintentionally hurt thousands of professionals and the Department of Health. Also, the Daytona Beach News-Journal notes heavy lobbying on a drug-database bill. Crist told Health News Florida Tuesday: "I’m looking forward to giving it a final review; I think so far I like what I see.''
7/2/2009 © Ocala Star-Banner
A 2-year-old girl in Oxford, a Sumter County town south of Ocala, was found dead Wednesday, apparently strangled by an 8-foot pet Burmese python owned by the mother's boyfriend.
7/1/2009 © Palm Beach Post
In his "Town Hall" on health reform Wednesday, Pres. Obama said Americans should be able to shop for health insurance through an exchange that includes a low-cost public option. Switching to a single-payer system would be too disruptive to the economy, he said. Here is a video clip of highlights.
6/9/2009 © New York Times
President Obama recently read a New Yorker article about inexplicably high Medicare spending in some states, including Florida. Now members of Congress from high-cost states are scrambling to justify it.
6/9 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Miami International is one of 19 U.S. airports designated to receive flights diverted from other landing sites in case of a pandemic. Second-tier landing zones could include Orlando if the plan is expanded and funds permit, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
7/2/2009 © Wall Street Journal
Aetna, Cigna and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida have begun paying for online doctor visits, and while that's still rare, they expect it to expand.
7/2/2009 © Florida Times-Union
The state Department of Children and Families wants less focus on foster care and more on working with parents to keep families together. In Duval County, there has been a 52% reduction of children in foster care since 2006, but some question the inherent dangers.
6/9/2009 © Tampa Tribune
In 12 years' experience with Florida's child-welfare system, psychiatrist Rahul Mehra says, he's never seen the state document required by law to track psychotherapeutic treatment for those in foster care.
7/1/2009 © Ocala Star-Banner
Joi Partain Mraz, severely bludgeoned with golf clubs by her boyfriend, spent 16 hours in surgery to repair her face and arms. Now in recovery, she wants to speak at high schools and other organizations to spread awareness about abusive relationships.
7/2/2009 © Florida Today
Internist John Matthew Gayden, who practices family medicine in Indialantic, faces charges of engaging in sexual activity with a minor. This follows last month's arrest on drug charges.
7/2/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
Federal grants amounting to nearly $6 million were awarded to Central Florida community heatlh centers as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The funding will go toward facility repairs, new equipment, and the implementation of electronic record-keeping.
4/9/2009 Health News Florida
Here are details on the three other top health projects that won Prudential-Davis innovation awards for state employees.
7/1/2009 © Health News Florida
Spurred by high unemployment, Florida Medicaid enrollment grew by more than 13 percent in the past year to almost 2.5 million, according to new state data. Still, only two of three Floridians who qualify for Medicaid are enrolled. (Editor's note: An earlier version of this story listed the incorrect enrollment).
7/1/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
An advisory panel to the FDA has recommended curbs on acetaminophen, the basic ingredient in the well-known headache pill Tylenol. Too much of it can cause liver damage, they say, and it can be deadly in combination with narcotics.
7/1/2009 © Florida Times-Union
Results from a "comparative effectiveness" test of proton-beam therapy for prostate cancer could have an impact in Jacksonville and Gainesville, which have two of the country's five centers, each of which costs more than $100 million. Treatment costs about $38,000, far more than conventional radiation.
7/1/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Beau MacVane, a 6-foot-4 Army Ranger, would not give in to Lou Gehrig's disease. He would tie himself to trees to make it possible to swim; he was doing leg exercises on the day he died.
7/1/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Jasmine Bedwell, 17, is suing Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and the Department of Children and Families, saying they should have done more to protect her and her baby from her ex-boyfriend. He is accused of tossing Bedwell's 3-month-old son onto I-275 while driving at high speed.
7/1/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
David Ashby of Orlando had halted his 1,100-mile walk to Washington, D.C. on behalf of the homeless after his younger sister was badly injured in a bicycle accident. But the 14-year-old has redoubled his efforts now, saying he sees the importance of access to health care.
6/30/2009 © Health News Florida
Deaths in Florida from oxycodone, the prescription painkiller suspected in the death of performer Michael Jackson, rose by 33.5 percent last year over the year before, according to a report from state medical examiners. The worst danger zone for oxycodone deaths was St. Petersburg.
6/30/2009 © Health News Florida
Overall quality of health care in Florida was given a rating of "weak,” just below the average zone, in a new federal report. Diabetes and respiratory care scored worst.
6/30/2009 © Tallahassee Democrat
As Florida's 2.6 million smokers prepare to spend an extra dollar per cigarette pack starting Wednesday, retailers fear sales will drop. That would be good news health-wise if people quit, but officials expect an increase in smuggling and Internet sales.
6/30/2009 © Tampa Tribune
Authorities are aggressively enforcing Florida's new seat belt law. In Hillsborough County deputies wrote 39 tickets in an hour Tuesday morning.
6/30/2009 © Pensacola News-Journal
The National Athletic Trainers' Association's recommendations regarding high school sports last week included eliminating two-a-day football practices during the first week of August, when heat stroke risks are highest. Not all coaches are happy about it.
6/30/2009 © Palm Beach Post
A rash of brain tumor diagnoses in one community caught the attention of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. The state's Department of Environmental Protection is investigating.
6/30/2009 © Bradenton Herald
Sarasota surgeon J. David Holcomb uses an ultrathin fiber-optic laser with an unusual wave length to melt fat in the face and neck. He says his results are good enough that he's setting up a training center for other plastic surgeons.
6/29/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Alice Santy, 74, was removed from her home after being found amidst huge piles of hoarded goods, trash, cat feces, and dead animals. Investigators took her to a care center because she was emaciated and appeared to be in poor mental and physical health.
6/28/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Cathy Betz, a registered nurse at a hospital in Tampa, spends her free time doing a very different job: She works with the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization separating hoaxes from actual Bigfoot sightings in several Florida counties.
6/29/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Amateur equestrian Stephanie Shaw, 32, was left in a coma with traumatic brain injury after falling from a horse in March. Her condition remains grave after four surgeries and nearly $2 million in medical expenses; her family hopes to arrange an experimental procedure.
6/27/2009 © Miami Herald
Financing healthcare reform will likely require Medicare spending cuts in South Florida and other areas of the country where there is bloat -- excessive hospitalization, tests, and frequent referrals to specialists. Bundling services into a package deal for payment is one plan for cost-cutting.
6/28/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
An autopsy of Billy Mays of Tampa, ubiquitous TV pitchman for everything from cleaning products to health insurance, has concluded that he died of heart disease. Mays, 50, pitched insurance products at the www.icanbenefit.com Web site and on TV (see the commercial on YouTube). He was found dead in his bed Sunday morning.
6/27/2009 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Marcia Wagshol and her husband, both self-employed, pay one-third of their income for health insurance for themselves and their children. Convinced that private insurance companies won't change their ways, Wagshol has joined other Floridians in support of a public option.
6/29/2009 © Reuters
Heath Schiesser, CEO of WellCare Health Plans Inc., notified the board on Friday that he will resign as soon as his replacement is found. He took over in January 2008 after the Tampa company was raided by the FBI and other law-enforcement officials in a Medicaid fraud investigation.
6/27/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Lisa Smith, who has a shunt in her brain to off-load extra fluid, can function just fine with medication. But when the 39-year-old from Lake Worth lost her job and health insurance, she could no longer afford her drugs or a visit to the doctor.
6/26/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
Charles Brucks,an 81-year-old who was taking a cab home after dialysis, was left lying by the side of the road, unable to reach his walker, in 97-degree heat a mile from his house. The taxi company said Brucks had verbally abused the driver and that it's legal to put passengers out when that occurs.
6/26/2009 © South Florida Sun Sentinel
Mark Almy, a Ft. Lauderdale beach maintenance supervisor, pried the jaws of a pit bull open to free a 6-year-old girl.
6/28/2009 © Miami Herald
Compulsive gambling has become more of a problem during the economic crisis. Callers to Florida's hotline for problem gamblers report debts of about $62,500, up more than 50 percent from two years ago.
6/28/2009 © Florida Times-Union
Community-acquired cases of the antibiotic-resistent staph infection called MRSA have shown a sharp increase in Northeast Florida recently. Health officials are tracking deaths and taking precautions.
6/27/2009 © Miami Herald
A swine flu outbreak at the Homestead Correctional Institution for women sickened 13, sending one to the hospital. Meanwhile, homeless shelters such as the Camillus House in Miami have reduced the number of available beds - to reduce risk of transmission, the Miami Herald reports.
6/28/2009 © Florida Times-Union
The regional blood bank used the story of a burned child to get 641 pints of blood donated, far beyond the 60 pints she needed, without her parents' permission. This has raised questions of ethics.
6/28/2009 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Following a startling increase in deaths by overdose, Sarasota Sheriff Tom Knight is launching a special unit to crack down on prescription-drug fraud.
By Carol Gentry
6/26/2009 © Health News Florida
Patients enrolled in popular health plans sponsored by large insurers have been paying more than they really owed for out-of-network treatment for years, according to a Senate committee report. If it's correct, consumer advocates say, the state should go after it.
6/25/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Aton Solutions of Boca Raton, which promised free trial offers of acai berry supplements, has paid $10 million in refunds nationwide under pressure from the Florida Attorney General's office. Thousands of people complained that the company kept billing them and ignored their attempts to refuse the products.
6/25/2009 © Kaiser Health News
Proponents of health reform worry that Medicare beneficiaries -- a big voting bloc -- will oppose change since they already have universal coverage. But John Martin, 78, of Boynton Beach is on board: "My only wish is that my children and grandchildren could have a plan like Medicare."
6/25/2009 © Miami Herald
Federal drug agents say pro baseball player Manny Ramirez appears to have gotten a prescription for a performance-enhancing drug from a Coral Gables doctor. They're investigating.
6/26/2009 StateHealthFacts.org
Florida didn't rank worst or second-worst on any of the new measures of economic distress, but it ranked low so consistently that the state came out second-worst in the country. The data combine foreclosures, unemployment and food stamps.
6/25/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
One of the nation's largest meat producers has recalled about 42,000 pounds of beef cuts that were shipped to 13 states, including Florida, because of possible E. coli contamination. Some stores turned them into ground-beef products.
6/26/2009 © Miami Herald
Leon County Circuit Judge Frank Sheffield slammed the Department of Corrections for secretly negotiating with A St. Louis company to take over the contract for mental health services, but the judge turned down an injunction request to block the switch of contractors June 30.
By Carol Gentry
6/25/2009 © Health News Florida
Florida, where health care is serious business, has attracted a battle of TV ads by proponents and opponents of a public plan in health reform. An independent fact-checking group says both group's ads are misleading.
6/25/2009 © Miami Herald
South Florida hospitals are suffering big investment declines, with Baptist Health losing $71.7 million, Miami Children's $72 million, and Holy Cross $25 million. Some are better off than others.
6/25/2009 © The Times-Union
Bernard Davis, 2, died after he was left in a truck in the sweltering heat for two hours. His caretaker, Shantel Wilcher, was arrested after authorities said she tried to hide that she was operating an unlicensed day care.
6/24/2009 (c) Orlando Sentinel
A 30-year-old woman who had a respiratory condition has become the second Floridian to die of a confirmed case of swine flu. She died at Florida Hospital Altamonte Springs early Tuesday, hospital officials said. First to die was a 9-year-old Miami boy on June 15.
6/25/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
Michel Medina Gonzalez, 40, is among the first Parkinson's disease patients to get the newest generation of deep-brain-stimulation implants. Neurosurgeons at Orlando Health did the procedure earlier this month.
6/25/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
A Pinellas mental-health facility for girls has been ordered to stop accepting clients because one of its residents keeps assaulting other clients and staff. Meanwhile, a Manatee residential treatment program for teens is closing due to budget cuts, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports.
6/25/2009 © Ocala Star-Banner
Kim Sandstrom, who lost her daughter to an error during surgery five years ago, was in the audience for President Obama's town hall meeting on health care last night. She represents Mothers Against Medical Errors in Florida.
6/25/2009 © Miami Herald
Federal officials investigating health fraud say that as they've cracked down on the crisis in Miami, violators have exported their schemes to Detroit and other cities in attempts to exploit Medicare's notoriously lax oversight.
6/25/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
After going through lithotripsy to remove a kidney stone twice at Tampa General Hospital, Kelli Woodfin ended up with circulation loss in her right leg -- and eventually had to have it amputated. She believes anesthesia complications are to blame.
6/24/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
University of South Florida and Moffitt Cancer Center will use a $6 million, five-year federal grant to study why black patients do so much worse than whites with similar kinds of disease. Meanwhile, Polk health educators are taking the HIV/AIDS message to minority groups at beauty salons, churches, wherever they are likely to listen, The Ledger reports.
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| ..in jail |
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| ...before |
By Maya Bell
6/24/2009 © Health News Florida
Now that he has a green light from the state, dermatologist Hal Ridgway hopes to be back in practice in a month or two, with his bipolar disorder, drinking problem and history of relapses under control. As an old friend put it: “Doctors get sick, too, and as long as he treats his disease, it will be OK.’’
6/24/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Tampa's Phyllis Busansky, who spent three decades fighting for health care for the poor and services for the elderly, was found dead Tuesday in her hotel room in Jacksonville, where she was attending a conference. Tampa Tribune columnist Steve Otto remembers her as someone who spoke for those who couldn't.
6/24/2009 © Miami Herald
Miami was the base of a Medicare fraud ring that spread to four other states and stole $30 million in taxpayers' money, a 20-count federal indictment unsealed Tuesday says. Federal agents have dismantled the ring but most of the players fled the country.
6/24/2009 © Miami Herald
A lionfish, which carries venom that threatens swimmers, has been captured off Biscayne National Park. The invading species concerns marine scientists, since as one put it, "They pretty much eat anything (and) ..hardly anything eats them.''
6/24/2009 © Fort Myers News-Press
Time is running out for three boys seen playing with a rabid bat on Fort Myers Beach eight days ago, and health officials have alerted the national media in case the boys were tourists who have gone back home.
6/24/2009 © Bradenton Herald
Homeless advocates say tough economic times have made jail -- which has air conditioning, food and medical care -- an attractive option for ordinarily law-abiding people, especially pregnant women.
6/22/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Rafick-Pierre Sekaly, scientific director of the Port St. Lucie branch of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, says he's made progress in eradicating HIV from cells -- but only in the test tube. Animal work begins soon, but clinical trials on humans are at least five years away. The work was published Sunday in the online version of the journal Nature Medicine.
6/24/2009 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Court documents reveal that police found pills and makeshift snorting gear in the motel room where a 15-year-old was found dead Friday, apparently of an oxycodone overdose, near his unconscious mother. The stepfather, Billy Jack Courtright, has been charged with giving a controlled substance to a minor.
By David Gulliver
6/23/2009 © Health News Florida
A decade ago, Sarasota Memorial created a program that cut readmission rates for congestive heart failure patients to a tiny fraction of what they had been, and saved money in the process. Other hospitals could do it, too. But data show most of them haven't. (Last in a series.)
6/23/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Scientology chairman David Miscavage's system of "ecclesiastical justice" includes group confessions, beatings, and degrading rituals, four former high-ranking defectors say. As hard as it is to remain, they said, it was even harder to get away. Church spokesmen accuse the defectors of lying and say they just didn't make the grade.
6/23/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Vladimir Martin, who called himself "doctor," has been jailed on charges of practicing without a license. The St. Petersburg Times reported last year that Martin ran 17 clinical trials of new drugs for pharmaceutical companies before a patient blew the whistle.
6/23/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Single mother Dorothy Carmona, 48, fell into a black hole of debt from treatment for cancer, diagnosed before her workplace coverage took effect, and had to declare bankruptcy. She illustrates a trend described in a Harvard University study that found 62 percent of U.S. bankruptcy cases in 2007 were caused wholly or in part by medical bills.
6/23/2009 © Palm Beach Post
A 3-month-old West Palm Beach infant died after being left in a hot car for more than two hours Saturday. The father thought the mother had brought in the child, and vice versa.
6/23/2009 Health News Florida
A prison mental-health company says the reason it lost its contract with Florida's Department of Corrections in April was that a high-ranking DOC official wanted to help a friend get a job with the company that won, News Service of Florida reports.
6/23/2009 © WFLA.com
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida told Moffitt Cancer Center it would pay for multiple myeloma patient Patricia Zimmerman's stem-cell transplant. But at the last minute, the insurer changed its mind. Zimmerman went on TV to protest, and the decision was reversed again. Pure coincidence, a spokesman said.
6/22/2009 © AP
An appellate panel says that under a 2001 Florida law, pharmacists can't substitute newly approved generics for certain brand-name drugs, including Synthroid. The decision means the Legislature will have to decide which generics are okay and update the list each year.
6/23/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Three siblings who were quarantined in China for a week over fears they might come down with swine flu have returned home.
6/23/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
A Sunrise lawyer went through a host of pricey medical tests, including an MRI, trying to figure out what caused him to lose his sense of smell. He realized what it was last week when the FDA fingered the cold-symptom product Zicam, and now he's suing.
6/21/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Part 1: A profile of Church of Scientology Chairman David Miscavage quotes former top-ranking officials of the church saying he was violent toward subordinates -- hitting and kicking them when displeased -- and encouraged the same in others. Those are lies, say the church attorney and current members. Part 2: Defector tells inside story of the death of Lisa McPherson and admits that he destroyed evidence.
6/21/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Medicare spends a staggering $16,351 a year per Miami patient, more than double what it costs in Sarasota. Yet Sarasota costs more than Atlanta. Florida's unabashed spending appears to have no benefit, and some significant downsides.
6/22/2009 © Florida Times-Union
The CyberKnife, a radiation treatment with pinpoint precision, might no longer be covered by Medicare for prostate cancer because research hasn't shown benefits over other treatments. The state has 13 of the pricey machines.
6/21/2009 © Palm Beach Post
A federal report says global warming is "unequivocal," man-made, and largely due to greenhouse gas emissions. One scientist predicts Florida could see a 3- to 4-foot sea-level increase by the end of this century.
6/20/2009 © Miami Herald
A 7-pound Greek infant who became ill soon after birth underwent a transplant of four organs at Holtz Children's Hospital in Miami.
6/20/2009 © Pensacola News Journal
At Pensacola Naval Air Station, 22 technical school students have tested positive for swine flu. Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel reports that two people diagnosed with swine flu at Central Florida hospitals are at high risk for complications.
6/20/2009 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
The Department of Children & Families has agreed to a gradual reinstatement of parental rights to a single mother who has mild mental retardation. Her children did not fare well in foster care, and attorneys say her IQ has no bearing on her parenting ability.
6/22/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Former Hillsborough County Commissioner Brian Blair, a professional wrestler, was charged with two felony counts of child abuse after allegedly assaulting his sons. A mother in Palm Bay was charged with robbing a fast-food restaurant and leading police on a chase with her 3-year-old in the car while high on crack cocaine, reportsFlorida Today. Meanwhile, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports the parents of a 15-year-old boy were charged with neglect after he died of what appears to be an oxycodone overdose.
6/19/2009 © Tampa Tribune
Dr. Neil Fenske, director of the USF dermatology department, made over $1 million more than the university's President last year. He and other medical school employees are among the highest-paid government employees in the Tampa Bay area.
6/21/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Martin Memorial spent $1 million treating illegal immigrant Luis Alberto Jimenez after he became paralyzed in a car crash. The hospital finally got a judge's consent to airlift him home to Guatemala. But the family is suing the hospital over the deportation, saying Jimenez is getting no medication or other treatment.
6/22/2009 © Fort Myers News-Press
Lee County Health Department is looking for three boys who tossed around a bat on Fort Myers Beach before it was taken for analysis and found to be rabid.
6/22/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Critics of animal dissection in schools say the activity is archaic and inhumane. Since the Miami-Dade cat killings, more questions have been raised about asking students to pick apart specimens of animals that resemble family pets.
6/20/2009 © Naples Daily News
NCH Healthcare System, which traditionally holds seats on the board of a benefactor, the Telford Foundation, is suing to get its president and CEO on the board.
By Maya Bell and Carol Gentry
6/19/2009 © Health News Florida
Hal Ridgway, 58, a Palm Beach County dermatologist who racked up six drunken-driving arrests and served two prison terms has persuaded state health authorities that he can stay sober and safely treat patients again. His attorney calls him the "poster boy for rehabilitation."
6/19/2009 © Miami Herald
State investigators announced Thursday a sweep of 12 medical supply companies suspected of billing Medicaid for oxygen concentrators that weren't needed. They also visited 120 patients, they said, and are looking at whether some received kickbacks from the suppliers.
6/19/2009 © Florida Times-Union
Sen. Jim King, who underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville on June 4, left the hospital yesterday for a rehabilitation center. He's celebrating a clean CAT scan.
6/19/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
A Tampa bicyclist who was hit by a suspected drunk driver was unconscious for a month, and woke up to find he was missing a leg and was paralyzed from the waist down. His hospital bills amount to $785,000, and he says he has no way to pay them.
6/19/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
State records show Dorothy Ann Sampson-Monroe, operator of a Tampa day-care center, has been arrested 16 times, including at least twice on child-abuse charges. How does she keep a license?
6/18/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Pain clinics mushroomed in Florida for two reasons -- the lack of a database to detect "doctor-shopping" and a loophole in inspection laws for clinics that were cash-only. The law that Crist signed addresses both problems.
6/18/2009 AP
A report by the office that evaluates programs for the Legislature says the 3-year-old Medicaid Reform project should not be expanded until data demonstrate that it improves care or saves money. The state has spent almost $36 million on the pilot.
6/19/2009 © Miami Herald
Florida DCF administrators and child advocates who met to discuss ways to improve foster care spoke with adults who say they were overmedicated while in the system. They discussed the need for caring adults who will look for the causes of difficult behavior instead of controlling it with prescriptions.
6/19/2009 © Miami Herald
In hopes of finding better ways to deliver quality care, Jackson Health System might transfer or sell its six primary care clinics to some other entity.
6/18/2009 From a press release
Gov. Charlie Crist has signed SB 462, which creates the Prescription Monitoring Database Program, into law, according to Sen. Mike Fasano's office. The bill is aimed at repairing Florida's reputation as a pain-pill mill where addicts and pushers go to "doctor-shop."
6/18/2009 © Lakeland Ledger
Enrique Vela, who calls himself a homeopath, and his wife Ute Marquez were arrested Wednesday and charged with practicing medicine without a license at their Winter Haven clinic, The Alternative Therapy Center. The couple diagnosed two undercover detectives as having parasites, cancer and other ailments by using a machine called the Asyra System. Neither has a health-care license.
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| Brown-Waite |
6/18/2009 Kaiser Health News
A Senate committee began the long slog on health reform Wednesday, but no Floridians are on that panel. Where are they? On TV. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite touted the GOP plan, which was announced without details, on Youtube. Meanwhile, CNN interviewed Democrat Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who has had seven surgeries for cancer, about her insurance coverage.
6/18/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Is moderate alcohol intake healthy? Nagi Kumar, director of nutrition research at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, tells patients to enjoy a glass of wine a day, the redder the better.
6/17/2009 © Kaiser Health News
Bartering for health services has provided a temporary safety net for the uninsured and underinsured. David Mroz, an independent broker based in Broward County and listed on a directory at Itex Corp., said he has many Florida doctors, dentists and chiropractors on the list. Those who barter for services worth at least $600 a year have to pay tax.
6/18/2009 © Miami Herald
About 60 children attended a rally in Sweetwater asking President Barack Obama to halt the deportation of illegal immigrants who have U.S.-born children. The rally focused on a lawsuit filed against Obama in January on behalf of about 150 children of deported parents.
6/17/2009 © Ocala Star-Banner
Surgeons at Shands Hospital in Gainesville worked seven hours to repair the fractured arms and jaw of a woman, 22, who was beaten nearly to death by her boyfriend, who used golf clubs. She was said to be conscious but heavily sedated. Friends said they worry Medicaid may not pay for cosmetic surgery to repair her face.
6/18/2009 © Miami Herald
Miami's Opko Health is expanding its horizons, buying a new platform technology to quickly identify molecules that can help develop new vaccines and drugs and to create new diagnostic tests.
6/18/2009 © Bradenton Herald
A North Carolina woman who left her 96-year-old aunt in front of the Salvation Army shelter in Bradenton will not face criminal charges, authorities said, because she had permission to. Shelter officials say the woman deceived them.
6/18/2009 © WFTV-TV
A Merritt Island woman drove a mile and a half before realizing her 2-year-old, who wasn't in a car seat, had fallen out of the back seat of her car. She was arrested and charged with child neglect.
By Carol Gentry
6/17/2009 © Health News Florida
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida has ordered mental-health providers to begin getting permission before treating the company's members if they want to get paid. The new rule affects millions of preferred-provider plan customers -- including state employees.
6/17/2009 © Florida News Network
A state-sponsored report on underage drinking, a particular problem for Florida, estimates the annual cost at more than $3 billion from crime, traffic crashes and medical bills.
6/17/2009 © Miami Herald
Tyler Weinman, 18, who has been charged with killing and mutilating 19 cats, was ordered released on bail this morning after a judge said a psychiatric exam showed that he posed no threat to himself or others. Meanwhile, according to the Sun-Sentinel, the teen's father, a Miami dentist, said his son is innocent. He confirmed that Tyler's stepmother has nine cats.
6/17/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
The state's first confirmed fatality from H1N1 swine flu, an unidentified 9-year-old, had a history of asthma, health officials said. He died June 9 within 24 hours of being rushed to Baptist Hospital in the Kendall area.
6/17/2009 © Miami Herald
On Tuesday, Florida became the 20th state to require police to take a DNA sample, such as a mouth swab, from everyone charged with a felony -- not just those found guilty. Civil libertarians say that will vastly expand government power.
6/17/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Moffitt Cancer Center has received a $6 million, five-year federal grant to study racial differences in cancer rates and outcomes. It will be a center of excellence for the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
6/17/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
When a bystander scooped 3-year-old Jordan Guyer from the surf, the tot was limp, unconscious, turning purple. He had no pulse. For once, nurse Linda Simpkins was in exactly the right place at the right time.
6/17/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Florida's rate of surgical births has nearly doubled in the past decade, nearing 40 percent. The World Health Organization says it should be 15 percent, tops.
By David Gulliver
6/16/2009 © Health News Florida
(Part 3 in a continuing series) Congestive heart failure defies those fighting unnecessary hospital readmissions. Last year, at least 500 more Floridians with this condition returned through the “revolving door” within two weeks of discharge than the year before, at an estimated cost of $4 million. How did your hospital score?
6/16/2009 DOH news release
A 9-year-old boy in Miami-Dade has become the first confirmed swine-flu death in Florida, the Department of Health announced today without identifying the child. The rest of the state's 417 confirmed cases have been mild; CDC reports 45 deaths nationally.
6/16/2009 © Miami Herald
University of Florida medical school received an F on a scorecard designed to measure ethical policies concerning professors' relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, the Pew Prescription Project announced Tuesday, because UF refused to provide information. Other schools got better grades.
6/16/2007 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Gigi O'Dea, who is both a nurse and a photographer, creates portraits of her charges in the newborn intensive care unit at Sarasota Memorial; when she's done, parents have a keepsake that looks like a baby, not a critically ill patient.
6/16/2009 © Tallahassee Democrat
In his speech to the AMA on Monday, the President cited Tallahassee Memorial Hospital for its quality-improvement progress, calling it one of the "islands of excellence" in the health care system. See AM News for more coverage of the address.
6/16/2009 © Fort Myers News-Press
Lee County physicians applaud President Obama's push for an overhaul of health care, but want protection from malpractice suits to help them rein in excessive tests and treatments. On the other coast, as Florida Today reports, doctors debate the idea of a public plan.
6/16/2009 © Miami Herald
Errors that might have exposed veterans to HIV and other infections may be more widespread than initially believed, according to a report being released today. Meanwhile, in Daytona Beach, a second employee at a veterans' nursing home has filed a police complaint against the administrator.
6/16/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
When 14-year-old David Ashby found out that scores of his classmates were homeless, he decided to draw attention to the problem. He's walking in their shoes all the way to Washington.
6/15/2009 AMA news release
Winter Park internist Cecil B. Wilson, long a power in the American Medical Association, was named president-elect at the group's national meeting in Chicago on Monday.
6/16/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
Demand continues to soar at food pantries, clearing the shelves before all are served. And at summer feeding programs, there are more mouths to feed than food.
6/14/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
The Shriners pediatric care network has lost so much of its endowment that it may have to close six of its 21 hospitals. Tampa patient Leigh Dittman, 9, has raised $200,000 to help out.
6/14/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Nephrologist Abraham Awwad is protesting a delay in dialysis that he says led to the unnecessary death of his patient at Largo Medical Center. He says the problem stems from hospitals outsourcing dialysis to private vendors.
6/14/2009 © Naples Daily News
A teen-ager who ordered a supplement sold by a Florida company contracted encephalitis from yohimbe in the pills, a lawsuit says. The supplement, Xomax, is advertised in men's magazines for "male enhancement."
6/14/2009 © Miami Herald
Clean-cut Tyler Hayes Weinman, 18, faces felony charges of animal cruelty in the killing and mutilation of 19 cats. Neighbors expressed surprise, saying he seemed to be an animal lover.
6/12/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Health officials are investigating the death of dentist Edward Nacht from a massive bacterial infection that struck after he and three friends ate lunch in the club restaurant after a round of golf, and all got sick.
6/14/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
The founder of a controversial back surgery practice in Pasco County is being sued by a Michigan woman who says he operated on her 13 times and that one botched operation caused her to leak spinal fluid.
6/13/2009 © The Ledger
The strange vocalizations and movements of Tourette's Syndrome are mortifying enough for an adult, let alone a child. Jaylen Arnold, 8, is explaining his illness to others through a Web site that he hopes will discourage bullying.
6/15/2009 St. Petersburg Times
Four Bay Pines VA Medical Center employees, including three doctors, accuse executives of retaliating against them for filing gender-discrimination claims. The federal-court trial is scheduled to open today.
6/13/2009 © Naples Daily News
Emergency room physicians hope to address ER shortcomings through health-care reform. A Lee Memorial Health System official suggests working on improving surgical schedules and extending operating room hours.
6/13/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Denise Manning warned state child protection agents that her grandson was at risk from her daughter's boyfriend; sure enough, he suffered severe head injuries. Now she's suing the state in hopes of getting to take care of him.
6/15/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
After treating a 3-year-old boy who had second- and third-degree burns on his head and arms, the Spring Hill Regional ER staff sent him home. His mother took him to Tampa General, where he underwent surgery and is now in stable condition. His mother questions the judgment of the Spring Hill staff.
6/12/2009 © Naples Daily News
A seventh-grade dropout who first came to St. Matthew's House as a homeless drug abuser has earned a master's in business administration and is property manager of an apartment complex run by the shelter where she used to live.
6/12/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Nine high-schoolers who were quarantined in a hotel in China for a week over fears they were exposed to swine flu were to be released today. Meanwhile, 21 Boy Scouts and adult volunteers from a Palm Beach Gardens troop missed a camping trip after becoming mildly ill with swine flu, the Palm Beach Post reported.
6/14/2009 © Florida Times-Union
Northeast Florida's 10 non-profit hospitals report giving more revenue to charity than the national average, but the amount varies greatly by hospital.
6/12/2009 © Florida Times-Union
Shands Jacksonville hospital, already suffering financially, expects to receive $11 million less in funding from the city next year, making indigent care extremely difficult.
By Bill Hirschman
6/12/2009 © Health News Florida
A hospital system in Broward got tired of seeing the same expensive patients cycling through its emergency room instead of getting preventive care in a lower-cost clinic. So the staff set out to find those patients -- even if meant going door to door.
6/12/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
A 4-year-old Italian boy who had cerebral palsy and was brought to Florida for treatment considered too risky in Italy died on Thursday of burns he suffered last month when the hyperbaric chamber he was being treated in exploded at a clinic in Broward. His grandmother also died in the blast, which is still under investigation.
6/12/2009 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
A registered nurse who is recovering from a stroke has sued a collection agency that she says keeps hounding her to collect $1,400 in medical bills.
6/12/2009 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
Daytona Beach is about to get not one but two huge deluxe hospitals, planned before the recession hit. Halifax Health Medical Center is opening its $200-million, 10-story patient tower Saturday. A day later, the public will get its first look at the $270-million Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center. In other news, Lee Memorial tries to fix problem with patient hand-offs.
6/11/2009 © Northwest Florida Daily News
Santa Rosa County's health department cites 30 confirmed cases of the contagious disease since February, with a dozen more suspected cases in a Milton assisted-living facility.
6/12/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Florida leads the nation in illnesses caused by bad seafood and shellfish, federal health officials reported Thursday, with most of the poisoings coming from meals cooked at home.
6/12/2009 © Miami Herald
At least 18 cats are dead, apparently the work of a serial killer or killers plaguing Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay since early May. Two more mutilated cats were found Thursday.
6/12/2009 © Miami Herald
An Oakland Park man says he was turned down for a baggage-handling job at the airport in Fort Lauderdale because he has HIV.
6/12/2009 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
A homeless shelter in Punta Gorda has an unusual policy: It allows those who use drugs and alcohol to stay up to two years -- and keep getting high.
6/12/2009 © Miami Herald
A $20 million donation to Florida International University for its medical school -- promised years ago but delayed by a dispute -- is scheduled to come through today.
6/12/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
David Gorsky, 22, has been charged with manslaughter for shooting his brother to stop him from slapping their mother. Gorsky's brother had been arrested on domestic violence charges in the past, but police say the threat to the mother wasn't enough to justify the shooting.
6/12/2009 © Miami Herald
The health department has not matched any of the strains of Pseudumonas bacteria found in Miami Children's Hospital's water supply to those that killed two infants earlier this year, but will continue to monitor the water.
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06/11/2009 © Tallahassee Democrat
Gov. Charlie Crist sided with doctors and signed a hotly debated health insurance bill (SB 1122) that had been opposed by Blue Cross and Blue Shield and some consumer advocates. He said it will improve access to care as well as payment for doctors. He also signed into law a kidney transplant bill.
6/11/2009 © Washington Post
Today, President Obama visits Green Bay, Wis., one of the highest-value health communities in the nation. There, Medicare patients' health is at least as good as in Miami but costs dramatically less.
6/11/2009 © Miami Herald
After a long and exhaustive investigation, the source of a common bacteria that killed two infants and sickened one at Miami Children's Hospital is unknown.
6/11/2009 © New York Times
If a new economic report is correct, small businesses would benefit greatly by health reform, even a plan that requires all individuals and employers to participate. That's significant for Florida, where small business is the norm. Only a minority of Florida businesses with fewer than 50 employees offer coverage.
6/11/2009 © Miami Herald
Floyd Smith of Miami, struggling to house and feed his four children on $1,000 in benefits a month, is suing Medicaid for its refusal to pay his biggest expense outside of rent: diapers for his severely disabled daughter.
6/11/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Faced with a $56 million budget deficit, the Health Care District of Palm Beach County plans to cut its budget by cutting employees, lowering payments and curtailing funding.
6/11/2009 © Miami Herald
If low-income diabetics frequently communicate with nurses online, will they stay healthier? Microsoft and the University of Miami are testing the theory on 25 patients from Overtown.
6/11/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Ivo Diaz Jr. of Miami, a former ultrasound technician, was charged Tuesday with sexually assaulting a patient during a medical examination while he worked at Holy Cross Hospital, police said.
6/11/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Since April, University Community Hospital in Tampa has used several methods to prevent or quickly diagnose postpartum depression in new mothers, including support groups and calls from nurses in the weeks after delivery.
6/11/2009 © Tallahassee Democrat
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare will be designated as a Level II trauma center on July 1. Before the facility gained provisional trauma status last year, Tallahassee was the only urban area in Florida not served by a trauma center.
By Carol Gentry
6/10/2009 © Health News Florida
Broward surgeon Bernard Zaragoza is clearly an expert on gallbladders: Harvard-trained, board-certified, with close to 2,000 successful removals. But anyone can make a mistake. On Oct. 2, 2007, he made one that will dog him forever.
6/10/2009 © Tampa Tribune
In a massive, coordinated sting on child pornographers, agents arrested 77 men throughout the state, ages 17 to 83, and rescued five children. Half those arrested were in Polk County. Among the cache: an instructional video for child molesters.
6/10/2009 © Miami Herald
A press conference on the need for health reform introduced Julia Racedo, a former hospital housekeeper. She lost her job and has no health insurance to pay for her cancer treatment.
6/9/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center's cardiologists say they can no longer afford to be available to treat emergency heart attack victims for free and are threatening to quit because the hospital won't pay them to be on call.
6/9/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Nine Broward County high school students and one teacher were detained and quarantined on Tuesday in Beijing over fears of the H1N1 swine flu, and could be held for up to seven days.
6/9/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Department of Health officials think a food-service worker may be a carrier of E. coli found to have caused an outbreak that sickened 42 inmates last month. They're continuing the investigation.
6/10/2009 © Gainesville Sun
Researchers at UF have found dogs to be 98% accurate in sniffing out bed bugs. They are now working with J&K Canine Academy to develop a method to train dogs to detect acute melanoma tumors.
6/9/2009 © Fort Myers News-Press
A recent survey in Lee County found that only 37 percent had heard about KidCare, so the state is trying to get the word out about the insurance for children that any family can buy. Goal: increase enrollment by 50,000.
6/10/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Tampa's James A. Haley Veteran's Hospital is opening a $2.3 million eye clinic more than five times the size of the existing facility. The clinic will provide much-needed additional services, as eye injury is a growing problem for soldiers.
6/9/2009 © Gainesville Sun
University of Florida researchers have developed a sensor they believe can sniff hands to detect soap or hand sanitizer -- a way to reduce hospital-acquired infections.
6/9/2009 © Naples Daily News
20-year-old Tosha M. Bartrum faces 10 years in state prison followed by 10 years of probation for violently shaking and throwing her daughter and tossing a bottle at her head. Bartrum is banned from contacting her child while in prison and on probation.
6/9/2009 © Florida Today
Yolanda Garvin-Williams, a certified nurse assistant, was shot to death in the parking lot of Parrish Medical Center in Titusville as she reported for morning shift early Monday. Police have arrested her estranged husband, who had threatened to kill her if she left him.
6/9/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
A $1-a-pack tax boost on cigarettes that takes effect July 1 could send more smokers to the Internet to order e-cigarettes -- essentially steel tubes that contain a battery, a nicotine cartridge and an atomizer that makes a smoke-like white mist.
6/10/2009 © Bradenton Herald
Florida homeowner insurance policies often exclude coverage for damages resulting from pollution and construction defects. As many homeowners have recently found, this includes damage from Chinese drywall.
6/8/2009 © Gainesville Sun
Shands HealthCare and Solantic are partnering to open a Gainesville medical clinic. That puts the University of Florida's teaching hospital system in business with Rick Scott, who has become the most visible opponent of national health reform (see Health News Florida's article on Scott).
6/5/2009 © Florida Times-Union
St. Vincent's Medical Center in Jacksonville is Florida's highest-volume performer of knee and hip replacement surgeries, according to state figures. But on one quality measure that Health News Florida published last week-- the readmission rate within two weeks of discharge -- St. Vincent's didn't score well.
6/7/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Doug Stein, who's performed nearly 20,000 vasectomies, serves 28 of the state's 67 county health departments. Men are drawn from around the state by his billboards, low prices, and promise of no needles.
6/10/2009 © Ft. Myers News-Press
Rev. Rebecca Hines founded the nonprofit Destiny Diaper Bank to fill the gap left by food banks and insurance companies, which typically will not stock or pay for diapers for people who need them.
6/8/2009 © AP/Bradenton Herald
Unproven alternative treatments are making a comeback, offering patients with deadly diseases hope with outlandish claims of cures. Instead, they rob the patient of money and precious time.
6/8/2009 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
The FBI tracked former Florida psychiatrist Jerome Howard Feldman to the Philippines after he duped a dying man into paying him thousands for a liver transplant he never received. Feldman has eluded prosecution for 10 years despite many illegal medical schemes.
6/6/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
A judge ordered the daughter of Erika Piasecki, a deployed Army supply sergeant, to be taken from her home -- without notifying Piasecki -- because the child's stepfather is a registered sex offender.
6/8/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
So many births in Florida are by Caesarean section -- more than 50 percent in Dade, as The Miami Herald recently reported -- that it's hard to believe this state's not No. 1 in C-section births. But no, it's No. 2.
6/7/2009 © Naples Daily News
The Journal of Forensic Sciences reports that 36% of officer-involved shootings studied could be classified as suicide-by-cop, suggesting that rates of this phenomenon are much higher than previously thought.
6/7/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
Schools across Florida have seen dramatic increases in students with diagnosed autism over the past decade.
6/5/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
Researchers from the University of Central Florida and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando are working on an over-the-counter prostate cancer test that uses a simple finger prick, much like current tests for blood-sugar levels.
6/5/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Kayla Hess and her mother are lead plaintiffs in a federal class-action suit against Listerine, saying tainted mouthwash caused chronic strep throat and stomach cramps.
6/6/2009 © Miami Herald
Hospitals, once considered recession-proof, are now suffering economically, say speakers at the annual South Florida Healthcare Summit. But some for-profit hospitals are doing surprisingly well.
6/7/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa is using its bank of cancer samples to decode the unique genetic makeup of cancer genes. Researchers hope to use their findings to target the right treatments for patients.
6/5/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
The Florida Board of Medicine leveled stricter-than-usual penalties today against doctors found to have doled out narcotic painkillers excessively or improperly. A bill that would give the board more authority over rogue pain clinics awaits action from the governor.
6/5/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
North Broward Hospital District Commissioner Joseph Cobo is under investigation by the State Attorney's Office after a special investigator found evidence that he used his position to benefit himself and his consulting clients.
6/5/2009 © Miami Herald
Drug sales representatives, required by Miami-Dade County to register as lobbyists before contacting physicians at Jackson Memorial Hospital, are doing a ''crummy'' job of complying, a Boston-based research group says.
6/5/2009 © Miami Herald
The mother of a 16-year-old Tamarac boy who died of a sudden heart attack while taking six prescribed psychiatric medications has sued a Fort Lauderdale Hospital and her son's psychiatrist, saying they overmedicated him.
6/4/2009 © Northwest Florida Daily News
Rion Tilton, 22, who has been unconscious for more than a week after being shot in the head, surprised his doctors by coming out of his coma.
6/5/2009 © Bradenton Herald
A 19-year-old Bradenton mother could face manslaughter charges for the drowning of her son. She left him in the bathtub while she stepped away for "five to 10 minutes," according to a released statement.
6/4/2009 © Tampa Tribune
In a North Tampa office complex, a nonprofit pregnancy center has been operating next to an abortion clinic. The businesses work on friendly terms despite their differences of opinion.
By Carol Gentry and David Gulliver
6/4/2009 Health News Florida
Patients at some Florida hospitals were much more likely to have an unexpected return following knee- or hip-replacement surgery last year than those who had the procedure at other hospitals, new state data show. These potentially preventable readmissions cost Floridians a bundle. Special report: Florida hospitals' "revolving door syndrome, " Part 2.
6/4/2009 Miami Herald
A consortium of 51 medical schools working on brain injuries in children has chosen University of Miami to play the lead role in Florida and coordinate efforts nationwide on acute care in the field.
6/4/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
When a 15-year-old girl staying at a friend's house overdosed on drugs, the friends mother was charged with negligence. Experts on parental-liability questions have taken an interest in the case because it raises the question: Do adults have to monitor kids' every move until they're 18?
6/4/2009 © Palmbeachpost.com Blog
Gov. Charlie Crist signed into law a $9.5 million claims bill for the family of three boys raped and abused while in foster care. Also, as AP reported, Crist signed a bill to increase referrals for breast-cancer screening.
6/4/2009 © Miami Herald
Erik Weihenmayer, 40, had never seen his young daughter until last month, when technology helped him regain some of his vision. The BrainPort and other wizardry for the disabled will be on display this weekend at an international gathering called the No Barriers Festival.
6/4/2009 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
Florrie Miller ended up in the hospital last time water damaged her home. So she's wary of the mold growing there after 11 inches of rain came in last week.
6/4/2009 © Fort Myers News-Press
An 18-month-old girl underwent reconstructive surgery on Wednesday after her family dog, a Siberian husky, bit a large chunk out of her face. In a separate incident reported by The Palm Beach Post, a 5-year-old boy lost a foot in a lawn-mower incident.
6/4/2009 © Gainesville Sun
Animal control officers on Wednesday seized 92 live animals -- dogs, cats, a bird, and a turtle -- and 16 dead ones from a home in Gainesville in a case of apparent hoarding.
6/4/2009 © Bradenton Herald
Dr. Gladys Branic retires today after 20 years as director of the Manatee County Health Department. Dr. Marc Yacht, former director in Pasco County, will serve as interim director during the search for a successor.
By David Gulliver and Carol Gentry
6/3/2009 © Health News Florida
A year ago, Florida won applause by becoming the first state to disclose hospitals' rates of readmission, a measure of the quality of care. Now the first year's comparison data are in, and they show that the problem has gotten worse, not better. See chart for specifics. Tomorrow, Part 2: Which hospitals do best on joints?
6/3/2009 © Tampa Tribune
Gov. Charlie Crist has signed a bill making it easier for families to enroll uninsured children in KidCare. Next year's battle: expanding coverage to more children. Another bill he signed will give judges authority to assign volunteers to represent children in bitter divorces.
6/03/2009 © Miami Herald
Miami has asked Gov. Charlie Crist to move 70 convicted sex offenders living under a causeway who say they can't find anywhere that's legal. The city says the encampment is too close to a public park.
6/3/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Two of six cardiologists who were suspended from performing angioplasties at an HCA Hospital several years ago -- and sued over it -- have begun doing the procedures at another HCA hospital nearby.
6/2/2009 Health News Florida
Ben Wilcox of Tallahassee, a former journalist who was director of Common Cause Florida until its recent closing, has joined Health News Florida Inc. as executive director, the news service announced Monday. Founder Carol Gentry remains the editor.
6/2/2009 Health News Florida
A national health news service launched Monday in Washington, D.C., has hired The Palm Beach Post's Phil Galewitz, one of the most experienced health journalists in Florida, for its reporting staff. Galewitz will start with Kaiser Health News on June 15.
6/2/2009 © Pensacola News-Journal
The widow of Benny Martin, who died in 1995 of lung cancer, was awarded $30 million -- most of it punitive damages against the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company. It's the largest award of the seven tobacco cases that have gone to trial so far in Florida.
5/29/2009 Health News Florida
A hard-fought battle between business and the trial bar ended Friday when Gov. Charlie Crist signed into law a bill that reinstates fee caps for attorneys representing plaintiffs in workers' compensation cases -- a cap that lawyers said made it quite difficult for injured workers to find an attorney.
By Carol Gentry
5/29/2009 © Health News Florida
Eight states are leaders in developing a modern system of electronic medical records and are therefore in an ideal position to gain an early share of $17 billion in federal stimulus money, Tampa-based consultant Laura Kolkman says. Florida is not among them.
5/29/2009 © Bradenton Herald
Internist C.G. Rao, arrested on charges of sexually molesting five patients and accused of other incidents that now are beyond the statute of limitations, has agreed not to see patients while his legal cases are pending. Bail was set at $20,000.
By Carol Gentry
5/28/2009 © Health News Florida
Nearly half of the state's hospitals have never reported a single incident of physician discipline to a databank set up to protect patients from questionable doctors, a consumer group reported Wednesday. Earlier this year, the same group cited Florida's Board of Medicine as particularly weak.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
5/28/2009 Health News Florida
Opponents of a bill backed by Florida’s doctors released a poll today that contends Floridians are on their side of the fight. But the Florida Medical Association dismissed the results, saying the poll questions were "skewed to get the answers they wanted."
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By Christine Jordan Sexton
5/27/2009 © Health News Florida
The heat keeps rising over a bill pushed by doctors that would force insurers to change the way they pay. An attorney says it may be unconstitutional, and state Insurance Consumer Advocate Sean Shaw urges the governor to veto. But the docs plan TV ads.
5/25/2009 © Florida Times-Union
A 4-year-old in St. Johns County who snapped his femur a month ago became the first child to have his bone fitted with a stainless steel plate designed specifically for children.
By Carol Gentry
5/22/2009 © Health News Florida
An online petition to ban the painkiller OxyContin, posted two weeks ago in Tampa, has attracted more than 2,000 signatures and is headed for a national audience at an FDA meeting next week. Doctors who treat pain patients view the petition as "very dangerous."
By Christine Jordan Sexton
5/21/2009 © Health News Florida
Insurance companies and HMOs should be required by law to spend at least 85 percent of their revenue on their customers' health expenses, according to Florida Public Interest Group. Most in Florida don't.
5/21/2009 (c) Health News Florida
WellCare Health Plans' termination of 360 employees, announced Wednesday, would seem to fall into the category of bad news. But not to Wall Street.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
5/20/2009 © Health News Florida
Two health insurers in Florida control so much business that they've stifled competition and fueled health inflation in the state, according to a report released today by consumer advocates. They are lobbying for a public-plan alternative.
5/19/2009 © Gainesville Sun
The Department of Children and Families' internal audit on Kristina Hepp, the 4-year-old found dead in her father's home, concludes her parents had little experience with children and that her mother resisted offers of help.
5/16/2009 © Palm Beach Post
State Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, has been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer, his spokeswoman says. A former Senate President, King has been a moderating force in the right-leaning Legislature.
5/15/2009 © Health News Florida
Goldman Sachs' monthly survey of prices for medical care and health insurance found a 5.1 percent price hike for group medical plans in April, the biggest jump in over four years. It came even as the industry was assuring President Obama that it was serious about cost controls.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
and Carol Gentry
5/14/2009 © Health News Florida
Gov. Charlie Crist's mailbag is full of letters and e-mails about an insurance bill that hasn't even arrived at his office yet. Consumer groups seek a veto, while doctors' groups implore Crist to sign it. The finger-pointing has become downright personal for at least one consumer advocate.
5/14/2009 © USA Today
Qforma, a New Mexico firm that combs databases to identify opinion leaders in the medical field, includes 364 Florida doctors on the list. Find out who's on it.
5/13/2009 From combined sources
Gov. Charlie Crist said Wednesday he's giving close scrutiny to a bill that would restore fee caps on plaintiffs' lawyers in workers compensation cases, a do-over of a bill declared unconstitutional last year. He'll have to multitask, though, because the $66.5 billion budget bill could arrive today.
5/12/2009 © AP/Sentinel
Former U.S. Surgeon General Antonia Novello, now a vice president at Disney Children's Hospital in Orlando, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to forcing New York State employees to handle her personal chores when she was health commissioner there.
By Carol Gentry
5/12/2009 © Health News Florida
Good thing WellCare Health Plans is awash in cash. In addition to the $80 million it's paying to avoid criminal prosecution for Medicaid fraud, the company said it expects to pay at least $50 million more to settle a related civil case. Plus tomorrow it has to pay $152 million to settle a debt.
5/12/2009 From combined sources
In a year when the state was strapped, nearly everyone expected to get their budgets cut. But oddly enough, it didn't turn out that way for health and human services agencies. Spending for them grew by nearly $2.7 billion, according to News Service of Florida.'
5/12/2009 © Miami Herald
A powerful committee chair, Sen. Ronda Storms of Brandon, has asked two state agencies to investigate the Broward psychiatrist who prescribed controversial medications for a 7-year-old who hanged himself.
5/12/2009 © Palm Beach Post
On Monday, the health industry promised to cut $2 trillion over the next decade. President Obama called it "historic." But you know how skeptical journalists are.
5/11/2009 From a news release
Florida now has 55 confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu, more than double the number announced Friday, according to the State Department of Health. Dade and Broward counties lead the state with 10 cases each.
5/11/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
Homeless man Rosevelt Richardson has been in and out of Orange County Jail 123 times, more than any other inmate. Such men are typically homeless, with either mental illness, substance abuse or both.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
5/8/2009 © Health News Florida
A little-noticed provision in a Medicaid bill now on the way to Gov. Charlie Crist will double the life of valuable permits to construct 37 new health facilities -- hospitals, nursing homes and hospices. The bill could come under fire from rivals when they find out about it. (See project list).
5/8/2009 © Miami Herald
Carmen Lourdes del Cueto, a Miami physician who pleaded guilty in March to a $10 million Medicare scam, gave the same plea Thursday to a separate $19.5 million theft she carried out with four other doctors and the owner of an HIV infusion clinic.
By Carol Gentry
5/7/2009 Health News Florida
Controversial Floridian Richard L. Scott has been popping up on cable-news ads that claim President Obama wants to nationalize and ration health care. Now an independent fact-checking organization has labeled the ads “very misleading.”
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By Gary Fineout and Carol Gentry
5/6/2009 Health News Florida
Legislative budget negotiators could have provided health coverage for 75,000 uninsured children if they had been willing to give up their own free insurance premiums in the budget they'll be voting on this week. But they weren't. "It's an unbelievable great perk," said Sen. Michael Bennett, R-Bradenton, a millionaire.
By Carol Gentry
5/5/2009 Health News Florida
WellCare Health Plans Inc., Florida's largest Medicaid HMO contractor, was charged with felony health fraud Tuesday and has agreed to pay $80 million to defer prosecution, U.S. Attorney A. Brian Albritton announced. The Tampa company used a subsidiary to hide $40 million that should have been spent on the poor and uninsured, including children.
Fear of flu outpaces impact
5/5/2009 Multiple sources
The number of confirmed cases of swine flu statewide remains at five, Florida Department of Health officials said this morning. In Hillsborough County, which has five probable cases, none confirmed, school absentee rates are spiking, the Tampa Tribune reports. In Lee County, two confirmed cases and a third probable case all are linked to a Bonita Springs elementary school, the Fort Myers News-Press reports.
By Carol Gentry
5/4/2009 Health News Florida
WellCare Health Plans Inc., the only Florida-based health company in the Fortune 500, left analysts scratching their heads when it announced Monday that it will drop a profitable line of business, one that accounts for 110,000 Medicare customers.
4/28/2009 © Health News Florida
House Speaker Larry Cretul and Senate President Jeff Atwater announced Tuesday morning that budget conferees will begin meeting at 4 p.m. today to iron out differences in their spending plans and that the legislative session, which was supposed to end Friday, will be extended by a week.
4/16/2009 Staff and wire report
The Senate Judiciary Committee gutted a bill that imposes attorney fee caps in workers’ compensation cases Wednesday, to the delight of trial lawyers. But another committee thought to be friendlier to business interests is expected to restore it.
4/14/2009 From combined sources
A bill called “the most important mental health bill” in 30 years passed a House panel on Monday and will come before a key Senate committee on Wednesday. The bill would divert many of the state’s 70,000 mental patients from prisons to treatment. Its only opposition is the cash-strapped budget.
By David Gulliver
4/9/2009 © Health News Florida
Lake County Health Department figured out how to head off premature births, keep obstetricians from fleeing the county, and save taxpayers a million dollars a year. That's why they're one of the big winners of an innovation-in-government contest this year. (See the other big winners).
By David Gulliver
4/9/2009 © Health News Florida
When we set out to do a "good news" story about state workers winning awards for innovation, we thought they'd be pleased. A few phone calls, a quick story, and everybody's happy, right? Ha.
By Gary Fineout
4/8/2009 © Health News Florida
For the third time in two years, a controversial state-funded program meant to steer women away from abortion has become a flashpoint in the state budget.
The Senate version takes out the $2 million for “crisis counseling,” while the House’s keeps it intact.
By Christine Giordano
4/7/2009 © Health News Florida
How did Juan Asensio-Gonzalez, one of the most respected trauma surgeons in the country, leave a 13-inch clamp inside a patient? The man who literally wrote the book on trauma surgery apologizes.
4/7/2009 © Fort Myers News-Press
A rift over funding of health and welfare issues led Rep. Juan Zapata, R-Miami, to resign Monday as chair of House Human Services Appropriations. One of the issues causing the rift is the proposed privatization of the state's largest mental hospital.
By Christine Giordano
4/7/2009 © Health News Florida
Declaring they have “zero tolerance for fraud,” members of the Florida Board of Medicine revoked the license of a Winter Park doctor who had falsely advertised himself as an expert in pain management.
By Christine Giordano
4/6/2009 © Florida Health News
Fort Myers plastic surgeon Marc Schneider accepted a reprimand and $10,000 fine from the Board of Medicine on Friday as a “fair” end to state charges that he mishandled a breast-reduction to the point that the patient got gangrene.
By Carol Gentry
4/3/2009 © Health News Florida
Florida pays managed-care plans $2.5 billion a year to make sure Medicaid patients in the state get proper preventive care and treatment. New data from 2008 show Florida plans' performance fell far below the national average, and near the bottom in care for infants, pregnant women and the mentally ill.
By Gary Fineout
4/2/2009 © Health News Florida
Florida could miss out on millions in federal aid that would benefit children unless the Legislature makes changes now to the KidCare program, a new study shows. Time is running out.
By Carol Gentry
4/2/2009 © Health News Florida
Some patients travel to get a price break, but how many take their surgeons with them? Last month, Miami-area surgeon Arnon Krongrad flew to Trinidad with one of his prostate cancer patients so that the uninsured man could afford the procedure he wanted.
By Gary Fineout
4/1/2009 © Health News Florida
Today, at the midpoint of the 60-day legislative session, abortion opponents are frustrated, along with families who need KidCare and advocates for community mental health. Lawmakers are so focused on the $6-billion budget crisis there's time for little else.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/31/2009 © Health News Florida
Lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol have called for an end to Medicaid fraud. Today a House council considers a one-year ban on new home health agencies in South Florida. And the Senate debates giving state officials more power to bar abusers from the system.
3/30/2009 © Florida Health News
Medicaid Reform could branch off in a new direction under a proposal that could emerge from a House committee this week. It would set up "medical homes" for patients using community health centers, based on the famed Mayo Clinic model of having a whole team consulting on a patient's needs in one site.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/27/2009 © Florida Health News
A Senate budget proposal would cut Medicaid payments 3 percent to hospitals, nursing homes and HMOs and cripple the second phase of “Reform.” It would restore Medically Needy funding, a condition for receiving federal stimulus funds.
3/27/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Studies have found little benefit to the PSA blood test used to screen for prostate cancer, yet doctors still push it. Patients, too.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/25/2009 Florida Health News
Nearly 1,000 Floridians, most of them middle-aged women, have signed up for a new state-promoted insurance program that requires participating companies to take all comers.
By Carol Gentry
3/24/2009 © Florida Health News
Federal authorities have ordered private Medicare plans to stop paying hundreds of dollars in “referral fees” to sales agents who steer a beneficiary to a company for enrollment. The practice, which came to light in a Florida Health News article, was seen as an attempt to evade federal caps on sales commissions.
Feds indict #1 prescriber
3/24/2009 Florida Health News
A federal indictment unsealed today charges Dr. John Rew of Tampa, 83, with illegal prescribing of narcotic painkillers. Rew was identified in a St. Petersburg Times article a year ago as the top prescriber in Florida, but state health authorities never brought charges.
3/24/2009 From a news release
Today Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration drew down $363 million in federal stimulus funds to help with deficits in late 2008, Gov. Charlie Crist's office announced. Later today AHCA will request $412 million more for the current quarter.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/20/2009 © Florida Health News
Two state agencies worried about drugs getting into the water supply are pushing nursing homes to stop flushing them down the toilet. What they're suggesting instead involves a blender and, believe it or not, kitty litter.
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| Castor |
By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/19/2009 © Florida Health News
Florida had 5.8 million residents who went without health coverage at some point in 2007-08, nearly 3/4 of them for more than six months, according to a report released today by a patient advocates' group. U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor said it shows "Florida has a lot at stake in this health care reform debate."
3/19/2009 Florida Health News
Well, it's happened again: Florida scored worse than the national average, from a public-health standpoint, in all categories in a report on births for 2007: More teen mothers, more unmarried mothers and a lot more Caesarean births.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/18/2009 © Florida Health News
Two lawmakers have asked Gov. Charlie Crist to investigate a miscue by the Florida Board of Nursing, which met last month in violation of the Sunshine Law. Now the board will have to hold a do-over in April so that its actions will be official.
3/17/2009 © Florida Health News
Without elaborating, WellCare Health Plans signaled on Monday that it may have to pay more than it had hoped to settle a fraud investigation that became public knowledge when the company's Tampa headquarters were raided by FBI agents in October 2007.
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| Klasko |
3/16/2009 © Florida Health News
A lot of doctors say they can't afford to adopt electronic prescribing. Others need technical help. Today, USF's top doctor Stephen Klasko and Allscripts Inc. announced an end to both barriers with free software and 1-on-1 in-training in doctors' offices in up to 10 counties.
By Carol Gentry
3/12/2009 © Florida Health News
For 20 years, a Pinellas doctor has been getting into trouble with prescription painkillers; sometimes it’s from his own addiction, sometimes from prescriptions he writes for drugs leading to patient deaths. It's the kind of case that might be useful in the Legislature's consideration of a state database for prescriptions.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/12/2009 © Florida Health News
Gov. Charlie Crist’s proposed budget would remove a funding threat to five county health departments that was due to take effect in September as part of Medicaid Reform. Public health advocates are cheering, but will the Legislature go along?
By Christine Giordano
3/11/2009 © Florida Health News
Citrus Health Care, which reported big losses last year, may have been the victim of more than a bad business climate. Patricia Syling, described in court documents as former director of compliance – the one in charge of keeping the company honest -- is accused of stealing $1.3 million. The FBI is said to be investigating.
By Carol Gentry
3/10/2009 © Florida Health News
USF psychiatrist Michael Bengtson advises the Florida Medicaid program on which drugs need to be readily available. But even he can't always get the drugs his patients need, he says, because the process is "murky." Consumer groups agree; they've formed a coalition to keep drugs available at a time of budget cuts.
3/10/2009 © Florida Health News
How good are Medicare beneficiaries at shopping for the best deal in insurance coverage? Not very, according to a study that has significant implications for Florida because of the staggering number of choices here.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/6/2009 © Florida Health News
With consolidation on the minds of cash-strapped state officials, some are jumping on a new report by government auditors suggesting a joint effort on buying and packaging prescription drugs. Rep. Kevin Ambler, R-Tampa, estimates it could save $30 million a year.
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| Paul Metts |
3/5/2009 © Florida Health News
On Friday, Florida Health News published a report from a former state health official estimating that counties and hospitals will both take a big hit if Medicaid Reform expands. Many reacted in alarm, as the Florida Times Union reports. Today, Paul Metts tells how he arrived at his conclusions.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/4/2009 © Florida Health News
Last year, Senator Durell Peaden was Gov. Charlie Crist’s health-care point man. But he won’t be carrying the ball for the governor this year. Peaden has filed a "thwart bill" to kill Crist’s attempted merger of the Department of Health and the Agency for Health Care Administration.
3/4/2009 (c) Florida Health News
Physicians United Plan lost $4.4 million in Florida in the first nine months of 2008, a new state report on managed-care plans shows. But Universal Health Care, which had at one time been in distress, has turned things around.
By Gary Fineout
3/3/2009 © Florida Health News
Requiring women to get an ultrasound screening before they can have an abortion, an issue that roiled the past two legislative sessions, is back. This time, its odds of passage have improved.
By Carol Gentry
2/27/2009 © Florida Health News
A former state health official says if Florida’s Medicaid Reform plan is expanded statewide it will cost hospitals nearly $4 billion a year in uninsured emergency-room visits and make it difficult for patients to get immediate treatment.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
2/27/2009 © Florida Health News
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s Cover Florida plan got most of the attention in last year's legislative session, but it wasn’t the only health-insurance initiative that passed. The forgotten one, Florida Health Choices, is finally coming together.
2/26/2009 © Florida Health News
Even if you take Miami out of the mix, Florida cities still vary in medical spending for no obvious reason,a new report using 2006 Medicare data shows. For example, Panama City spent significantly more per person than Pensacola or Tallahassee. Why? Sarasota and Bradenton spent less than Tampa and St. Petersburg. Why?
By Christine Jordan Sexton
2/25/2009 © Florida Health News
Gov. Charlie Crist is reportedly preparing to recommend a merger of the two largest state health agencies into one, a proposal that would affect thousands of state employees. He also wants to keep Medicaid “Reform” unchanged and increase the fees doctors and HMOs get for treating the poor.
By Carol Gentry
2/25/2009 Florida Health News
Pres. Barack Obama told the nation Tuesday night that the nation must get control of health spending immediately: "Health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year." His supporters are urging Floridians to echo that call to their members of Congress.
By Carol Gentry
2/24/2009 © Florida Health News
WellCare drug-plan members left reeling from last week's federal crackdown on the Tampa company are not stuck in WellCare for the rest of 2009, after all. They have options. Medicare officials did not make that clear until Monday afternoon, after Florida Health News raised questions.
2/23/2009 © Miami Herald
Blackjack was made legal in Florida last year. Now helplines say they get nearly as many callers reporting addiction to blackjack as they do poker.
2/22/2009 © Miami Herald
About 300 new treatment beds for mentally ill jail inmates were added two years ago. Now Florida is again running out of bed space. What that means is more cases like Amy Kern, the woman who thought she was attacking Satan when she beat her grandmother to death.
2/21/2009 Miami Herald
Two children who conducted a hunger strike to protest their mother's deportation got help from a group of adults who should have known better, says columnist Myriam Marquez.
2/22/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Twenty years ago most drug trials were done in academic medical centers. Today, doctors in the community are getting paid to do the trials, giving patients access to the newest medications.
Crist: Help medically needy
2/20/2006 Florida Health News
Gov. Charlie Crist's budget includes $470 million for the Medically Needy program, providing coverage to 21,000 patients who have extremely high medical bills. Read his budget summary here.
By Carol Gentry
2/20/2009 © Florida Health News
Federal authorities suspended WellCare Health Plans from enrolling new Medicare customers as of March 7, saying the Tampa-based company has the worst complaint ratio of any major contractor in the country. But analysts say that, given the timing and WellCare's already-tarnished reputation, it won't hurt much either.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
2/19/2009 © Florida Health News
The battle to abolish an obscure Medicaid spending panel has taken on the trappings of a full-fledged political campaign with a mailout of 25,000 colorful fliers that demand: "Abolish the LIP Council!" But do voters have any notion what the LIP Council is?
By Christine Jordan Sexton
2/18/2009 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE—Despite spending hundreds of millions each year on Medicaid HMOs, state officials say it may be at least another year before they really know what they’re buying because the data that would provide the answer still need “cleaning up.”
By Carol Gentry
2/13/2009 © Florida Health News
Some Florida doctors now require patients to sign an agreement promising not to post Internet comments about them without permission. Some say it's "an attempt to steal the consumer's right to free speech," but doctors say it's a matter of fairness.
2/13/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
Cindy Conyers of Melbourne lost her insurance when she lost her job. So even though she has symptoms of appendicitis -- pain, fever, vomiting -- she's putting off a trip to the hospital. "I owe them thousands already," she says. At least 3.8 million Floridians are faced with the same tough choice when they're ill.
2/12/2009 © Florida Health News
A state report that rates health plans participating in Medicaid Reform on a wide range of performance measures has been quietly posted at a state Web site. The format makes it of little use, according to an analysis by a group critical of the Reform pilot.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
2/11/2009 © Florida Health News
A House spending panel today is looking at the Low Income Pool Council's blueprint on how to divvy up $948 million in Medicaid funds to Florida hospitals. Meanwhile, some business groups are running TV ads that accuse council members of conflicts of interest.
2/11/2009 Compiled from multiple sources
The U.S. Senate passed its version of the economic stimulus package Tuesday 61-37, cutting $5 billion in health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers and $2.8 billion for prevention but adding $10 billion for medical research. As for Florida, the Orlando Sentinel reports the House would send $3.5 billion compared with the Senate's $1.7 billion.
2/11/2009 St. Petersburg Times
Sharhonda Lindsay, 32, of Thonotosassa turned herself in on Tuesday on charges of practicing medicine without a license. Police say two women were hospitalized after Lindsay injected them with a silicone-like substance called Hydrogel.
By Carol Gentry
2/9/2009 © Florida Health News
Women have two openings below the belt, which don't look anything alike. What are the odds that a doctor would get them mixed up and do a procedure on the wrong one -- not just once, but twice?
By Carol Gentry
2/6/2009 © Florida Health News
Some Medicare health plans in Florida are paying insurance brokers $300 to $500 for every beneficiary they refer to the company for enrollment. Some brokers are troubled by the easy money and worry that Medicare authorities will make them pay it back.
By Carol Gentry
2/6/2009 © Florida Health News
The Florida Board of Medicine revoked the license of an abortion-clinic doctor on Friday, finding him guilty of medical malpractice in a 2006 case involving a fetus allegedly born alive and stuffed in a biohazard bag.
2/6/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Racist and sexist jokes aren't the only no-no's in company e-mails, a consultant to the medical-device industry told managers in Orlando on Thursday. They also shouldn't say things like "Stop the shredding!"
2/3/2009 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
The new Speaker of the Florida House shows no thirst for power. Rep. Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, said his grandsons are the only ones he wants to impress.
2/1/2009 © Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The economic stimulus bill throws a lifeline to laid-off workers by helping them keep their health insurance. Some Medicaid cuts will be reversed, and geek jobs in medicine will grow.
1/26/2009 © Reuters
Florida's cut in premium payments to Medicaid HMOs will result in a reduction of about $35 million in revenue to Tampa-based WellCare Health Plans this year, according to new SEC documents the company filed today. WellCare said its net income dropped significantly for 2008 because of costs associated with a federal and state fraud investigation that began in October 2007 and is still going on.
Good morning -- or is it good afternoon?
Some of the subscribers to our daily eAlerts have asked me why they come out later than they used to -- 11 or 12 instead of 9:30 or 10. The main reason is that we're running more original articles than we used to, and it takes time to write, edit and fact-check them.
Sometimes we can get that done the night before, but sometimes we can't tell what needs reporting until the morning, when we see what other publications in the state have reported. We try not to duplicate coverage; our mission is to fill gaps, to expand coverage of health issues.
This morning, for example, I saw The Miami Herald story on the Dartmouth Atlas report on health spending. Of course it emphasized that city's out-of-control spending. Since we have readers throughout the state who would be curious about spending in their hometowns, I took time to pull that information together into a chart.
If you want news earlier, check the site; we'll post the most important stories as soon as they're ready. -- Carol Gentry, Editor
4/17/2009 © Health News Florida
Thousands of Florida Medicaid patients who were being treated in specially-designed mental health plans were recently switched without warning or consent into HMOs that removed them from their treatment and support, according to the advocacy group Florida CHAIN.
5/1/2009 © Health News Florida
Florida's Secretary of Health, Dr. Ana Viamonte Ros, has declared a public health emergency following confirmation of the first two Florida cases of swine flu. The patients are an 11-year-old boy in Lee County and a 17-year-old high school student in Broward County.
5/3/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Florida has written plans for a flu pandemic. What it lacks is antiviral drugs. It turned down the chance to buy them cheap in 2007 when other states did. Until federal stockpile supplies began arriving, the state had only enough for every 150 people.
5/2/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
Radio host Shannon Burke is out on bail after being arrested for firing a gun inside his home. The bullet hit his dog and grazed his wife.
By Christine Jordan Sexton and Carol Gentry
5/1/2009 © Health News Florida
Children's advocates celebrated Friday afternoon after the House unearthed the KidCare bill, passed it unanimously and sent it to the governor for signature. A bit later, doctors and dentists defeated the state's largest insurer in a pay issue. And finally, as the Times/Herald bureau reports, the business lobby defeated lawyers on workers' compensation.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
5/1/2009 © Health News Florida
Attempts to expand the Medicaid reform pilot beyond five counties have been soundly defeated by the Legislature in the last two years. But there’s a price to pay for that: $300 million.
1/29/2009 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Columnist Ralph De La Cruz says that when he heard about Nina and Edgar Otto spending $155,000 to clone their dead pet -- a Labrador retriever, the most common breed there is -- he wanted to scream: What were you thinking?
5/1/2009 Miami Herald
In the wake of the suicide of troubled 7-year-old Gabriel Myers, DCF is reviewing records of 2,200 children in foster care who have been prescribed drugs similar to those that Gabriel was on.
4/30/2009 © Health News Florida
A bill that lays the groundwork for a "medical home" pilot for Medicaid patients and takes steps to fight health fraud in Miami-Dade is on its way to the governor after passing the House unanimously on Wednesday. The bill carries so many must-pass health measures it's called a "train."
4/30/2009 Staff and wire report
The health-care budget, expected to be finished this afternoon, will contain Medicaid spending cuts of 3 percent to nursing homes, 1.5 percent for hospital inpatient care, and $19 million to HMOs, News Service of Florida reports. Still to resolve: cuts in hospital outpatient care.
4/30/2009 © Miami Herald
Jackson Memorial Foundation is seeking private donations to defray the $479,000 cost of a liver transplant for a dying 5-year-old from the Bahamas, who is on life support at JMH. Public funds can't be used for non-U.S. residents.
4/30/2009 © Orlando Sentinel
Columnist Mike Thomas says he's decided not to panic over swine flu until there's a good reason. He's tired of "living in a movie theater filled with people shouting 'Fire!'"
By Gary Fineout
4/29/2009 © Health News Florida
Florida’s tentative budget deal will cut a lot of programs. But here’s one thing it won’t touch: the free health insurance offered to 26,000 state employees and their families -- including legislators themselves -- including more than 1,000 who are paid at least $100,000 a year. Loss to taxpayers: $44 million.
4/29/2009 © Times/Herald bureau
The Florida Senate has, after years of saying no, approved a stricter seat belt law in Florida, which the House has already adopted. The lure: $35.5 million in federal highway money.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/28/2009 © Health News Florida
A hospital corporation that donates heavily to Republicans accomplished what it wanted this session with an overhaul of the "LIP Council." State workers, meanwhile, worry about pay cuts. Tuesday morning, legislative leaders announced an extension of the session into next week to settle the budget.
4/28/2009 © Miami Herald
Columnist Fred Grimm says it's not quite right to call the death of Gabriel Myers, 7, a suicide. He was driven to it by abuse and neglect and malpractice.
4/25/2009 © Miami Herald
Health officials in South Florida have sent meningitis alerts to 7,000 doctors and 32 hospitals, seeking any new cases that could be linked to the outbreak of the rare, fast-acting strain W135. Meanwhile, debate has begun over the delay in sounding the alarm.
4/27/2009 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
Some people mean it when they say "for better or worse." Such is the story of Bill Cingolani, whose once-brilliant wife is now only a shell, her brain cells shrunk from Pick's disease.
4/26/2009 © Sun-Sentinel
Records released in the case of Gabriel Myers, who hanged himself at age 7, show he was a tortured soul who had apparently been abused in Ohio and who then preyed on other children.
By Gary Fineout
4/24/2009 © Health News Florida
University clinics would have to add billing centers and become part of HMO networks under a bill the House passed Thursday.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/24/2009 Health News Florida
Update: The health-care "train" carrying a plan to give Medicaid patients a "medical home" in publicly-supported clinics and address the doctor shortage at the same time passed the Senate unanimously on Friday.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/23/2009 © Health News Florida
Rep. Ed Homan, who dreams of providing “medical homes” for Medicaid patients at expanded physician-training programs, has improved the odds by hooking his bill onto two that have more oomph. A sympathetic senator says he'll help.
4/23/2009 © Palm Beach Post
A Davie law firm that has been handling complaints from homeowners about toxic Chinese drywall found it has the same problem in its own office building.
4/22/2009 © Health News Florida
A Congressional staff report raps Florida and seven other states for misuse of Medicaid stimulus funds that were supposed to create health-care jobs and help the uninsured. It's not clear, though, whether Congress will demand the money back.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/21/2009 © Health News Florida
At the eleventh hour, the Florida Association of Counties is scrambling to undo a budget provision that would cap salaries of future employees of local health departments. Counties say it would be impossible to attract doctors and dentists to serve the poor and uninsured.
1/21/2009 © A.M. Best Research
A newly released report on the financial health of the nation's HMOs shows the number that are financially impaired continues to shrink. The only trouble spot is -- guess where -- Florida. This state is home to four of the five named as impaired in the past two years. All were in the Medicare or Medicaid markets. Here is the report.
4/20/2009 © Health News Florida
More than two dozen Florida pediatricians have signed a statement opposing a Senate bill that would ban the use of certain vaccines and allow parents to set their own schedule for vaccinations. The doctors say the bill threatens federal vaccine funding for children in Medicaid and is "junk science."
4/20/2009 © Health News Florida
The state Medicaid program will "ensure a smooth transition" for thousands of mentally ill beneficiaries whose caregiver networks were bought by corporate HMOs, a statement from the Agency for Health Care Administration says. Last week, an advocacy group warned of "forced reassignments."
By Carol Gentry and David Gulliver
4/17/2009 © Health News Florida
An FDA order has triggered a nationwide shortage of opium-based painkillers that has forced some cancer patients to search frantically for pharmacies that have it in stock and forced doctors to prescribe alternatives. Now some of those substitutes – morphine, hydromorphone, and Dilaudid – are about to become scarce as well.
By Gary Fineout
4/16/2009 © Health News Florida
State lawmakers on Wednesday used the first round of federal stimulus money intended for Medicaid to plug a shortfall in overall spending in the current year’s budget through complex maneuvers that may violate Congressional intent.
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| Chiles |
1/11/2009 © Palm Beach Post
Shortly after Republican leaders in the Florida House and Senate decided to pull $700 million out of the trust fund named for the late Gov. Lawton Chiles, his son said they can expect a lawsuit. Bud Chiles blasted lawmakers for a "lack of courage" for raiding the trust fund instead of closing sales tax exemptions on services. The trust fund, built with proceeds from a state settlement with the tobacco industry, was intended for children's health.
1/10/2009 St. Petersburg Times
With high medical costs and low wages, Florida is one of the toughest states for unemployed workers to cover their own or their family's health care needs, according to a report by consumer group Families USA. In Florida, premiums for the average family under COBRA are actually higher than the monthly unemployment benefit.
1/14/2009 Sarasota Herald-Tribune
"Fit for Life" co-author Harvey Diamond and his son are being sued by investors who say the Diamonds ran a Ponzi scheme in Sarasota and bilked them of $35 million. Diamond, who promoted a controversial diet and supplement regimen, promised up to 60 percent annual returns on a foreign-exchange program, the suit says.
1/9/2009 © Florida Health News
Grantmakers from throughout the state will convene in Orlando later this month to brainstorm ways to bolster the philanthropic and non-profit sectors in the state, given the enormity of Florida’s problems.
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| Foy |
By Christine Jordan Sexton
1/8/2009 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Early miscues that bedeviled the Cover Florida kickoff this week were only to be expected in a new program of this magnitude, the governor’s health care point man said in an interview Wednesday. David Foy, policy director for Gov. Charlie Crist, promised a big push in coming weeks to let uninsured Floridians know about the plans and help them get signed up.
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| Fox |
1/8/2008 © Palm Beach Post
Dr. Claude Earl Fox, founding director of the Florida Public Health Institute in Lantana, is one of just 20 experts serving on the Obama administration transition team for Health and Human Services. Fox, 62, served in the Clinton administration but reportedly is not interested in moving back to Washington. Transition teams provide Cabinet-level appointees information to help them through the confirmation process and early days on the job. HHS Secretary-designate Tom Daschle began confirmation hearings on Thursday.
12/10/2008 Florida Health News
Not all the details are available yet, but if you're uninsured and eager to see what will be offered by the six companies contracting with the state for Cover Florida as of Jan. 5, there's a document posted that shows side-by-side comparisons.
By Carol Gentry
10/202008 © Florida Health News
Even as It proposes cuts to a number of programs, the Agency for Health Care Administration has recommended that the Legislature expand the Medicaid pilot project usually called "Reform" to 20 more counties, including Miami-Dade. The pilot, which now operates in five counties, requires beneficiaries to enroll in managed care, usually HMOs, that can change the benefits that are set out in federal law.
Insurer's changeover leads to questions
10/12/2008 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
The impending sale of the company that insures 10 percent of the area's residents -- the largest share of the local commercial insurance market -- will transform nonprofit Florida Health Care Plans into a for-profit. So Florida Health Care's insured have a lot of questions about how coverage will be affected when Halifax Health, a governmental organization and the area's largest health care provider, sells it to BlueCross BlueShield of Florida, the state's biggest private insurer. The $85 million sale is scheduled to go through by the end of this year.
4/11/2008 © Miami Herald
Broward health and social service agencies, in an effort to bring under control the disproportionate numbers of black babies who die each year in Broward County, will unveil some grim statistics today to business and civic leaders.Before their first birthday, black babies die at three times the rate of white babies
10/18/07 © The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 — Supporters of a bill to provide health insurance for 10 million children failed this afternoon, as expected, to muster enough support in the House to override President Bush’s veto.
10/23/2007 © NBC Channel 2 Lee County
LEE COUNTY: A high school football player has a staph infection so serious he can barely walk. He's anxiously awaiting new test results that will determine if his infection is life threatening. NBC2's Cara Sapida spoke with the student and found out what the school district is doing to keep kids safe. See also:
Naples News' articles describing how Lee County schools urge hygiene after uncomfirmed staph report and Collier student being treated for staph infection.
Miami Herald report on reported symptoms of a drug-resistant staph infection by three school employees and a student during the past week, Schools step up staph-infection precautions. .
For a primer on MRSA and steps to prevent it, see the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's article, Stopping the spread of MRSA.
09/13/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
ATLANTA (AP) - The number of deaths in the United States rose in 2005 after a sharp decline the year earlier, a disappointing reversal that suggests the 2004 numbers were a fluke. At the same time, the life expectancy for Americans is nearly 78 years, the longest in U.S. history, according to new government figures from 2005 released Thursday.
You can see the full report at the National Center for Health Statistics.
TAMPA - A pediatrics professor at the University of South Florida scored a $169 million grant to scour the globe and study the causes of Type 1 diabetes. USF President Judy Genshaft said Wednesday that it's the largest grant the university has ever received.
12/04/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
TAMPA - At the nation's busiest VA hospital, the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa, the most-troubled and vulnerable combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are often treated by the least-experienced psychologists, according to a complaint by a staff member.
Note to journalists
If you’re writing about the Coalition for Medicare Choices, here’s something you need to know. The Coalition for Medicare Choices describes itself as “a rapidly growing organization of Medicare beneficiaries (who) advocate quality healthcare and expanded health plan choices.” Recently a major Florida newspaper used that phrase without mentioning that the coalition was created by America's Health Insurance Plans. The industry group is fighting Congressional attempts to move funds from Medicare HMOs to cover uninsured children, and so far it has been successful. – Carol Gentry, editor, Florida Health News
By Carol Gentry
1/18/2008 © Florida Health News
UPDATED 6 p.m. -- Florida's Department of Health spent Friday tracking down vials of contaminated heparin following a report of an unusual cluster of cases in which patients went into shock after receiving the blood-thinner during open-heart surgery at a Lee County hospital on Wednesday and Thursday.
DOH Epidemiologist Roger Sanderson in Tampa said county health departments and infection control centers were spreading the word to hospitals and dialysis centers, places where multidose vials of concentrated heparin would be used. "They should hopefully be off the shelf by now," he said late Friday.
Baxter Healthcare Corp., the manufacturer, issued a voluntary recall and faxed the notices to health-care facilities nationwide, Sanderson said. "They'll be proactive," he said. "They see dollar signs going down the drain."
09/02/2007 ©Tampa Tribune
ST. PETERSBURG – The Byler sextuplets, born Saturday night at Bayfront Medical Center, were moved next door to the neonatal intensive care unit at All Children's Hospital shortly after their births. Five are in stable condition, while Ryan Patrick was experiencing breathing problems that All Children's doctors and staff are to stabilize.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/11/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE – What if the state created a Web site where consumers could shop for no-frills health insurance? The House Health Care Council, chaired by Rep. Aaron Bean, meets today to begin drafting such an electronic health insurance market.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/17/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE—House Health chief Aaron Bean said he will make changes to his insurance proposal after listening to concerns from Gov. Charlie Crist, state regulators and even members of his own party. One change: employers would no longer be able to require that workers buy health insurance as a condition of employment. Bean’s bill, CS/HB 7081, will be debated by the House today. Meanwhile, Crist continues a full-court press for his own plan, Cover Florida.
Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, wants to create a voluntary, virtual marketplace where employers who join could give their workers access to stripped-down health plans from insurance companies, HMOs or even providers such as dentists.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/24/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE---While Florida lawmakers debate how to make health insurance more affordable for Floridians, it's not something they have to worry about for themselves or their own families.
Nearly all of the state’s 160 lawmakers have helped themselves to a perk of the job: Free health insurance. All but six have signed up for it, according to the Office of Legislative Services, which oversees spending. Nearly 80 percent also enrolled their spouses and children at no charge, records show.
Legislative Round-up: House spares nursing homes
4/11/2008 -- The House on Thursday approved a $65.1 billion budget, but at the last minute backed off a proposal to reduce nursing home care, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports. The changes in the budget aren't enough to assuage the fears of Bob Butterworth, Secretary of the Department of Children and Families, who despairs over the impact of budget cuts, according to the Miami Herald. One cut that was easy: the decision to close an old TB hospital in Lantana and develop the $34-million site, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. Meanwhile, State Sen. Ronda Storms is battling a plan to merge the Byrd Alzheimer's Center with the University of South Florida; for more on that, read the Tampa Tribune. And with the 2008 legislative session drawing to a close Gov. Charlie Crist continues to stump for his Cover Florida Plan. The Fort Myers News-Press covered the governor's visit to a Southwest Florida hospital on Thursday.
Legislative Round-up: Shift of rail $ to health fails
4/10/2008 --Health programs for Florida's poor and elderly will be dramatically cut under the budget approved by the Senate, says the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Some Senators tried to yank millions of dollars from a commuter-rail project for Central Florida so that the money could be applied to health programs, but they failed, according to the Tampa Tribune. However, the House found a bit of money to raise pay for doctors and dentists who treat Medicaid patients, the Bradenton Herald reports.
By Susan Jaffe
4/7/2008 © Florida Health News
More definitely isn’t better when it comes to medical treatment, according to a groundbreaking study of Medicare patients released this morning. The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care 2008 says too much treatment not only wastes money, but can lead to worse results. In some parts of Florida, it says, there appears to be substantial overtreatment caused by excessive numbers of doctors and hospital beds. The Fort Lauderdale and Sarasota areas were listed as highest in the nation for spending on outpatient care.
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By Susan Jaffe
6/2/2008 © Florida Health News
WASHINGTON, D. C. - Medicare would no longer pay private health plans thousands of dollars more every year to cover Miami-Dade members than those in neighboring Broward and Palm Beach counties under legislation Rep. Robert Wexler will introduce this week. The extra cash enables companies to offer benefits to Miami-Dade members that their friends just across the county line can only dream about, such as free transportation to doctor's visits.
By Susan Jaffe
6/9/2008 © Florida Health News
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A group that wants to block Medicare pay cuts to medical equipment suppliers is sending out misleading cards to seniors featuring the photograph of a Florida man who died nine months ago.
One batch of cards arrived the last week of May at the massive Century Village complex in Deerfield Beach.
Adele Becker, who lives there, was astonished to see that the card prominently featured a photo of her late husband Morris, in the red sweater he always wore, sitting in his wheelchair at the Regents Park nursing home.
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7/15/2008 © Florida Health News
Today, President Bush vetoed the Medicare reform act that the Senate passed last week, the Associated Press reported shortly before 1 p.m. The veto triggered an immediate 10.6 percent pay cut for doctors who treat Medicare patients. "I'm appalled at President Bush, that he could carry out something like this," said Deborah H. Tracy, president-elect of the Hernando County Medical Society. UPDATE: By 7 p.m., both houses of Congress had overridden the veto.
By Carol Gentry
9/18/2008 © Florida Health News
ORLANDO – Gov. Charlie Crist welcomed 250 public and private-sector officials from around the country Thursday to a one-day conference aimed at repairing the health-care system, urging the crowd to stop using the issue as a political football and start working as a team. “When we keep our eye on that ball, everybody wins,” said Crist, who was a quarterback in high school.
By Carol Gentry
10/3/2008 © Florida Health News
It's not often that the Florida Board of Medicine considers wrongdoing at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. But that's on tap today when the board considers a complaint against surgeon Stephen L. Smith, a former Mayo faculty member accused of letting an untrained college student take part in operations on three breast-cancer patients. Also, an Ocala doctor will have to explain why he let his wife, who has no health-care license, do his patients' Pap smears.
By Christine Jordan Sexton and Carol Gentry
12/12/2008 © Florida Health News
If you sign up for a Cover Florida plan on Jan. 5, when does the coverage take effect? We offer answers to this and other questions the state forgot to put on the Web site.
By Carol Gentry
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5/5/2008 © Florida Health News
A white-coat crusader from Clearwater, pharmacist Larry Golbom, is scheduled to appear before an FDA advisory committee today in Gaithersburg, Md., to warn against allowing sale of a new form of the prescription painkiller OxyContin.
Purdue Pharma says its new pills are safer than the old ones, but Golbom predicts, “Somebody will figure out a way to inhale this product or extract the active ingredient.”
Update on Medicaid reform expansion
4/10/2008 © Florida Health News
Late Wednesday night, the House fended off an attempt to remove Miami-Dade from expansion -- scheduled for 2010 -- of the state's controversial Medicaid reform program to nine additional counties.
Budget pact rescues two Medicaid-extension programs
4/24/2008 -- About 40,000 of Florida's most seriously sick and poor people won't have their state-paid health coverage cut after state budget negotiators agreed Wednesday to siphon $300 million from a tobacco-settlement savings account, the
Miami Herald reports. Nor did they cut the state's 17 Juvenile Assessment Centers, the
Orlando Sentinel said. The Senate approved a mandate that large health insurance plans cover screening for and treatment of autism, according to the
Palm Beach Post. Also, as House Speaker Marco Rubio ends his stressful term, he's venting, writes the
St. Petersburg Times.
08/06/2007 © Stuart News
Delays in getting specialty medical care and diagnostic exams, a shortage of cardiologists and shortages of medications and supplies have been cited as reasons regulators recently took about 12,000 Medicare beneficiaries away from America's Health Choice. Details about why the Vero Beach-based HMO lost its government contract are in a letter from the director of Medicare's Center for Beneficiary Choices, alleging deficiencies at the company and several clinics of Medical Resources LLC, "a related entity."
06/29/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
DAYTONA BEACH -- Mental health counselors at "Our" Children First in Daytona Beach recommended intensive counseling for two children with emotional disturances but officials said Thursday that private managed-care companies serving Medicaid recipients approved less than half of the services requested.
Plight of Dade inmates with mental illness featured on CNN
07/13/07© CNN.com
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MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- The ninth floor of the Miami-Dade pretrial detention facility is dubbed the "forgotten floor." Here, inmates with the most severe mental illnesses are incarcerated until they're ready to appear in court.
Judge Steven Leifman says many are charged with "avoidable felonies," the result of confrontations with police that often cause people with mental illness to become more paranoid, delusional, and less likely to follow directions.
CNN's Soledad O"Brien toured the jail's ninth floor with Leifman and reported on what she saw as part of a special report airing Saturday and Sunday, 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET. To see a video clip of the show, see "
The mentally ill -- jailed and desperate for help."
07/18/07 © Stateline.org
FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Florida’s new, nationally acclaimed Medicaid pilot program is supposed to put patients like 60-year-old Marie Antoine in charge of their own health care to save money. Instead, she landed in the hospital.
07/10/2007 © Miami Herald
When Miami-Dade County searched for a new health insurance company in hopes of saving its employees thousands of dollars a year, it considered all kinds of factors: experience, drug coverage, even how many people would need to change doctors.
07/11/2007 © Miami Today News
Marvin O'Quinn spends his days on the front lines of the nation's health-care crisis, staring down the challenges of indigent care, the threat of state and federal funding cuts and the ever-shifting political and economic climate of health-care policy — all while keeping Jackson Memorial Hospital poised on the leading edge of world-class technological innovation.
By Brittany Rajchel
12/18/2007 © Florida Health News
More than 3 million Floridians are going through the annual ritual of selecting a Medicare plan that will cover their prescription drugs. But some beneficiaries need help fighting age-old habits, computer phobia and rising drug costs that are confusing and often lead to poor choices when it comes to their prescription drug coverage.
09/23/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
A Miami woman has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for filing millions of dollars in fake Medicare claims, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Gisela Valladares, 53, owner of PRN Home Health Care, submitted more than $3 million in bogus claims for unnecessary services, equipment and medication, authorities said. In return for a patient's Medicare card, Valladares would pay the patient cash.
08/21/2007 © Miami Herald
WASHINGTON -- Retail sales of five leading painkillers nearly doubled in the eight years leading up to 2005, reflecting a surge in use by patients in South Florida and nationwide, according to an analysis of federal drug prescription data. The analysis by The Associated Press reveals that oxycodone usage is migrating out of Appalachia to cities like Fort Lauderdale.
Also see Painkiller sales soar in Brevard in Florida Today.
09/20/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
Wal-Mart, long criticized for its health-care coverage, unveiled a broad plan that is intended to cut employee costs, expand coverage and offer workers thousands of cheap Prescription drugs. Starting Jan. 1, Wal-Mart's insurance will look a lot like that offered by many other American companies, but with some twists that even longtime critics described as innovative.
More Floridians have health insurance, but percentage is declining
10/31/2007 by Florida Health News
More Floridians are gaining access to health insurance, but 3.8 million residents still don't have coverage, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Florida Health Insurance Advisory Board (FHIAB).
Covering the period from 2001 to 2006, the report's findings were mixed.
Among the pluses were lower loss ratios for the health care industry and increased numbers of Floridians with health insurance. Florida’s small group health insurance market increased by 58,000 covered lives from 2005 to 2006, while the individual market increased by 111,000 covered lives.
But the report also expressed some concerns, including the overall increase in the percentage of uninsured Floridians. Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 25 percent of Floridians under the age of 65 are now without health insurance coverage.
A number of possible legislative remedies will be discussed by the advisory board on Friday, Nov. 2, when it meets in Orlando. The meeting will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the University of Central Florida Student Union, Key West CD Room.
Among the recommendations on the agenda are:
- Allowing children who are Florida residents or students but no longer dependents to remain covered under their parents’ health insurance policy until age 30.
- Expanding and enhancing current public insurance programs like Healthy Kids to maximize use of public dollars.
- Removing barriers that delay or discourage small businesses of 10 employees or less from obtaining health insurance— including differing contribution and participation requirements, agent commission structure and documentation requirements.
United: State has approved our Cover Florida plans
1/8/2009 © Florida Health News
Late Wednesday, United Healthcare of Florida sent word to Florida Health News that the state had approved its plans for sale through the Cover Florida program, which began on Monday. (Editor's note: More news on the rollout of the limited-benefit program coming later this morning).
By Carol Gentry
3/31/2008 © Florida Health News
Floridians give their hospitals scores that are 5 to 8 percentage points lower than the national average in all 10 categories on a patient-satisfaction survey now available at a federal Web site.
The key question -- Would you recommend the hospital to friends and family? – drew affirmative answers from 61 percent of Floridians compared with 67 percent nationwide. A similar gap pops up in questions on cleanliness, noise, pain control and how well nurses and doctors communicate with patients.
11/06/2007 © Florida Today
WASHINGTON (AP) - Don't assume your complicated medical bill is correct. Errors on bills for doctors, medical tests or hospitals can result in overcharges that run from a few dollars to tens of thousands of dollars.
10/31/2007 Orlando Sentinel
The National Council on Compensation Insurance has agreed to comply with a request by insurance regulators to implement the largest one-year decrease on record in Florida's workers' compensation insurance rates.
10/18/2007 © Bonita Daily News
Florida women are far from healthy, according to a national study released Wednesday. Some of the blame goes to the lack of health insurance, some blame goes to limited health screenings and prevention programs and some is attributable to economic circumstances.
10/23/07 © Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - With three gunshot wounds, William Notaro, 37, of Clearwater, boarded a US Airways flight at Tampa International Airport on Saturday, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said. Instead of going to a hospital, Notaro asked for a Band-Aid, hoping to continue his trip to Albany, N.Y., to visit family.
10/25/2007 © Florida Times-Union
Starting in December, a new Humana Health Maintenance Organization plan will allow members to see any doctor or specialist without referrals from a primary care physician. The health plan, called "Premier HMO," is open to Florida customers in group or employer plans and will be available Dec. 1.
09/20/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
TALLAHASSEE -- Any Florida hospital that wants to open a new open-heart surgery center has to get permission from the state, showing there's enough demand for such a service - except for St. Vincent's Medical Center in Jacksonville.
11/29/2007 © ABC Channel 7 Lee County
LEE COUNTY-- ABC7 uncovered insider information that could be the best medical advice you’ll ever get. We surveyed more than 2,000 local doctors to find out the real deal on what they think about your medical care. What we learned will have you asking your doctor all new questions about your health.
11/08/2007 © Bradenton Herald
Students played a game of flag football Wednesday on a grassy field where part of the old Bayshore High School building used to stand. About 100 yards away, five workers hired by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection were taking dirt samples to test for chemical contamination.
12/30/2007 © Ft. Myers News-Press
For uninsured immigrant families, treatment can be difficult on both ends — for them, finding doctors who will see them; for the American medical system, finding a way to manage the often uncompensated cost of their care. See related News-Press articles: Hospital social workers forced to scramble and Uninsured immigrants tax health centers.
07/10/2007 © Palm Beach Post
WEST PALM BEACH — St. Mary's Medical Center's recent decision to drop emergency hyperbaric services follows a growing - some argue dangerous - trend.
07/24/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
TAMPA - From the moment their son was born, Estrada knew he would suffer. Baby Aiden had webbed toes, a cleft palate, low-set ears, a small head and genitals so tiny doctors had a tough time determining his gender.
Governor signs Florida False Claims Act
06/29/07 by Florida Health News
Medicaid fraud, one industry in which Florida excels, has become a bit more risky with a bill signed by Governor Charlie Crist on Thursday.
The Florida False Claims Act allows the Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit to recover triple damages in civil lawsuits for alleged Medicaid
fraud. The law brings Florida into compliance with the federal False Claims Act.
07/26/2007 © Pensacola News Journal
Leonard Black, who died Monday in Escambia County Jail, was one of 170 inmates caught in an open-ended process of waiting for probation hearings. On Wednesday, judges, prosecutors, jailers and a defense attorney tried to explain how Black ended up in jail for eight months without a hearing.
08/28/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
In a city with a burgeoning gay population, it shouldn't be hard to find a gay or gay-friendly doctor in Orlando. That's what Torrence Mack thought. But when Mack asked his gay friends if they had a gay doctor they could recommend, the answer was no.
By Carol Gentry and Christine Jordan Sexton
1/7/2009 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- For weeks, Florida officials and a state-run Web site have said two companies are authorized to sell moderately-priced, limited-benefit health plans to the uninsured under the Cover Florida program, which began Monday. It turns out that isn't so.
9/19/2008 © Florida Health News
Consumer advocates say they’re expecting high turnout at Saturday’s hearing in Miami on the need to change the health-care system so that it addresses the needs of the community. Seven individuals who want to speak out on injustices will testify and answer questions from elected officials. "This is a movement of the people," said the chair of the event.
Opinion Round-up: Lawmakers tell vulnerable 'drop dead'
4/15/2008 -- If a state had its priorities straight, balancing a budget on the backs of the working poor, the elderly and the disabled would be its last option, writes the Palm Beach Post. The St. Petersburg Times approves Gov. Charlie Crist's "decent" effort on affordable health care. The Bradenton Herald urges passage of a bill that would help epileptic patients.
Hospitals cringe as legislators slash Medicaid
4/16/2008 -- Florida hospitals are bracing for the effects of proposed Medicaid cuts, predicting crowded ERs and higher prices to the privately insured, writes the St. Petersburg Times. Also worried: prison officials who stand to lose corrections officers and drug-abuse treatment, the Times says. The governor will most likely extinguish the $1 per-pack cigarette tax, says the Daytona Beach News-Journal, while the Senate has backed away from a bill that would have limited the number of patients per nurse under pressure from hospitals, writes the Bradenton Herald.
05/15/2007 © Naples Daily News
A Naples gastroenterologist who performed an endoscopy followed by a colonoscopy on a 59-year-old woman who later died took correct steps in his treatment to determine what was causing a blockage in her colon, two defense experts testified Monday.
05/24/2007 © Orlando-WFTV (ABC)
While U.S. soldiers and sailors worry about dodging bullets and bombs overseas, they also have to worry about their families' medical insurance. Eyewitness News has found the system that's supposed to take care of their loved ones is so broken, doctors often refuse to deal with it.
04/22/2007 © Lakeland Ledger
WASHINGTON - Federal health officials impose only minimal penalties on nursing homes repeatedly cited for mistreatment of patients, congressional investigators say in a new report.
As a result, they said, some nursing homes cycle in and out of compliance with federal standards and pose a continued threat to the health and safety of patients.
08/30/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
TAMPA - Hillsborough's school nurses are warning that student health is in jeopardy because of district personnel cuts. Over the past year, the district lost more than 66 of the 316 nurses and health assistants who oversee about 191,000 students.
06/28/2007 © Palm Beach Post
WEST PALM BEACH — Beginning Sunday, Palm Tran will no longer be providing door-to-door van service for Medicaid-eligible individuals, but in most instances users shouldn't be left stranded without a ride.
07/16/07 © Palm Beach Post
WEST PALM BEACH — She spent most summer days reading the Bible on the living-room floor at her apartment in a rotted public housing project. Dunbar Village was home for her and her 12-year-old son.
07/24/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
Nearly a dozen passengers aboard an outbound Orlando flight during the weekend received some unnerving news. A fellow traveler, who collapsed on a connecting flight and had to be pulled from the plane by paramedics, was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis, a highly contagious disease
07/10/2007 © Gainesville Sun
Health insurance may soon be as important as good grades and high SAT scores for potential college students in the state of Florida. The Florida Board of Governors is considering a law that would require all public university students to have health insurance.
12/29/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
There's a billion-dollar money machine in the Tampa Bay area revving up for another year, and it's called Medicare Advantage. These are the private insurance plans that offer the plus-65 age group enhanced health benefits made possible by generous federal reimbursements. For more Medicare news, see Computer, paperwork issues lead to bumpy start for Medicare drug coverage in Florida Today and Hudson Resident Appears In TV Ad, Speaks In D.C.in the Tampa Tribune.
11/28/2007 © Palm Beach Post
Opponents of the St. Lucie County School District's controversial sex education curriculum have a message for school board members: Vote "yes" and you can expect to see your picture alongside descriptions of sex acts posted all over town.
10/11/2007 © Jacksonville Business Journal
Federal regulators have given approval to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Inc.'s new Medicare product. The 2008 Medicare Advantage BlueMedicare includes a private fee for service (PFFS) product, expansion of preferred provider organization (PPO) and health maintenance organization (HMO) plans to additional counties and new Part D prescription drug plans.
09/23/97 © Miami Herald
FORT MYERS -- Heather Walsh-Haney bursts through the door and hurries past the long table where the skeleton of a man who was once a professor lies, past the rows of human skulls, the candles and the old leather-bound books until she stops and takes a breath.
08/16/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
TAMPA - For the second time in the past 30 days, an appeals court has overturned a 25-year prison sentence for someone convicted of possessing Vicodin even though the defendant insisted he had a prescription for the narcotic pain pills. On Wednesday, the 2nd District Court of Appeal said Darryl M. Smith, 37, deserves a new trial because a judge did not tell the jury that having a prescription for a drug was a valid defense.
09/13/2007 © Stuart News
Should there be a government-run database containing your medical records? Because of the increasing abuse of addictive painkillers and patients who "doctor shop" to support their habits, Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Port St. Lucie, has for five years tried to pass legislation that would, in effect, create such a database.
11/15/2007 © Orlando-WKMG (CBS)
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Central Florida woman claims surgery left her with an open wound oozing for months that went untreated because of an insurance dispute. Kelly Gares Gomez said she went to Winnie Palmer Hospital at Orlando Regional for surgery in February.
11/20/2007 © TheStreet.com
OKLAHOMA CITY-- Normally, fresh details about a massive government raid would hurt a company's stock. So would contract losses, like the prominent one reported by TheStreet.com on Friday. But WellCare's stock actually rose following both of those setbacks.
By Alan Snel
6/6/2008 (c) Florida Health News
TAMPA -- Jessica Reynolds, community outreach manager for Healthy Start Coalition of Hillsborough County, has $12,000 a year to sell the message: Don’t drink or smoke if you’re pregnant. She's found an unconventional yet effective way to reach women of child-bearing age in bars, restaurants and workout centers in a spot where they have little else to look at besides the wall in front of them.
11/20/2007 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
BRADENTON -- An elderly man is suing a nursing home company for allowing a cancerous lesion on his cheek to go untreated, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
10/18/2007 © WTVT Fox Tampa
WAUCHULA - Five Bay Area teens are recovering from staph infections, as nationwide attention is being focused on the increasingly dangerous disease. In Hardee County, five football players at Hardee High school came down with the infection.
Schools in other parts of Florida are concerned abut the threat of infection. See Palm Beach Post story, Martin High makes push to warn about nasty staph infection.
10/21/2007 © Miami Herald
In the early 1990s, the Florida Legislature gave Jackson Memorial Hospital millions of tax dollars to construct a state-of-the-art clinic in the heart of Liberty City. But Jackson never built the clinic, and now, the cash-strapped hospital is returning the unused $6.7 million -- possibly the first time in Florida that a public hospital gave back money appropriated by the Legislature.
08/21/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
Investigators say Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty used state resources for the political campaign of a friend, but they do not seek sanctions against him. Instead, Florida's top government watchdogs end a four-month inquiry of McCarty's involvement in a Leon County judicial campaign satisfied with his public apology and concluding there was no repeated wrongdoing.
09/23/2007 © Lehigh News Star
Christopher Gearhart served 13 years in the military. The Cape Coral man said he would have put in more time were it not for a hospitalization, a diagnosis and a discharge last year. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he said his discharge came soon after, and with it, he says the military washed its hands of him.
10/11/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
With health care emerging as a top 2008 issue and Democrats trying to make Republicans squirm over President Bush's veto of a children's health insurance program, U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., warned Wednesday against edging toward "a Cuban-style health care system in America."
12/05/2007 © University of Florida Health Science Center News
A UF study of 55,000 children taking stimulants for attention-deficit disorder found they were more likely than non-medicated kids to be taken to the doctor or emergency clinic for medical evaluation for rapid heartbeat and other symptoms. But the study, in the journal Pediatrics, reported no higher death or hospital admission rates.
06/28/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
A borderline diabetic with arthritic knees, 68-year-old Jack Culp joined SilverSneakers in 2006. Today Culp is 60 pounds lighter, has less pain in his knees and exercises five times a week.
"Being with a group my own age has helped me tremendously and I look forward to coming every day," the Fort Lauderdale resident said.
02/22/2007 © WCJB TV20 News
It depends who you talk to on whether nursing home care is getting better or worse. Nursing home spokesmen point to stats showing improved health-care statewide. But some attorneys say patients are still falling through the cracks. Attorney Mark Avera used to file about 20 cases a year for nur
03/18/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
Pfc. Trueman Muhrer-Irwin, a Florida State University student, lost part of his left foot when a bomb exploded in Iraq near his Humvee in 2003. His friend, Tallahasseean Spc. Robert Wise, died in the attack. Muhrer-Irwin was discharged from the Florida National Guard because of the injury and lost his tuition waiver. But he lobbied state legislators so troops decorated for their injuries would ...
05/24/2007 © Palm Beach Post
It's small but says it all. Medically speaking, that is. A sergeant with Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office today was the first in his department to be implanted with a microchip that will give emergency doctors access to his vital medical information.
Opinion roundup: Helmet laws save lives, money
4/11/2008 -- The Orlando Sentinel calls on the Legislature to revive motorcycle helmet laws because they save both lives and money; unpaid medical bills hit taxpayers and other patients in the form of higher insurance premiums. The Tallahassee Democrat says lawmakers must not cut coverage for the 19,500 "working poor" uninsured Floridians who have high drug and hospital bills.
FORT PIERCE — Educators, scientists and economic development leaders from throughout the Treasure Coast and Florida gathered Monday to strategize on what the life science industry needs with the hope of creating a better biotech-trained work force.
08/23/2007 © Naples Daily News
A defense attorney's motion to force a teenager to undergo a gynecological exam to bolster her mother's defense on child abuse charges was denied Wednesday, but the judge ordered that a recently disclosed expert's report detailing an earlier exam be turned over.
07/26/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
DAYTONA BEACH -- Resolution of the simmering controversy concerning county jail inmates denied their medicine was set back Wednesday when the jail psychiatrist walked out of a meeting of mental health providers.
07/16/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
A simple, five-second swab inside the cheek might make a life-or-death difference in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
07/17/2007 © Boca Raton News
From Gloria Drummond's realized dream, to the hard work, dedication, and professional excellence that carried it forward through it's first 40 years, a $75 million donation from the Schmidt Foundation will now help Boca Raton Community Hospital (BRCH) realize its long-term vision.
12/14/2007 © The Miami Herald
Owners of five Miami healthcare companies were sentenced to prison on Thursday for filing Medicare claims for $28.6 million for unnecessary durable medical equipment and infusion therapy.
11/28/2007 © Gainesville Sun
Dr. Robert Cade, who died Tuesday at the age of 80, will always be remembered as the father of Gatorade. But his friends and colleagues describe him as much more than that. Cade, a former professor of nephrology at the University of Florida's College of Medicine, was something of a Renaissance man.
10/09/2007 © Florida Today
MELBOURNE - Caught in a dispute between public housing officials and their landlord, about 70 senior and disabled residents are being forced to move from Ramshur Towers by next month.
09/25/07 Reported by Florida Health News
WASHINGTON, DC – A front page exposé by the New York Times this past Sunday on declining levels of care at nursing homes bought by large private equity firms “raises serious concerns for nursing home residents in Florida,” said the nation’s leading health care workers union. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is basing its concerns on the pending $6.3 billion buyout of HCR Manor Care by the Carlyle Group. Manor Care runs 29 nursing homes in Florida with 3,738 resident beds.
09/23/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
Tracy McHugh had told doctors at All Children's Hospital that her daughter had frequent diarrhea and severe vomiting. But the baby should have been dehydrated, and she wasn't, noted Dr. Yul Reinstein. The toddler's medical history didn't shed any light either -- but it was long.
08/21/2007 © Florida Today
The aptly named Deanna Miracle delivers babies. Miracle is a midwife, one of a handful of Brevard County women who practice the centuries-old profession. Still popular in many countries and in some parts of the United States, such as New York and California, midwifery is less prevalent in Brevard.
09/20/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
WASHINGTON - The competition was keen, including the scientist who won the 2006 Nobel Prize in physics for confirming the big-bang theory. But David Vesley, of Tampa's James A. Haley VA Medical Center, emerged Wednesday night as the winner of a prestigious public service career achievement award at a ritzy black-tie gala in Washington.
09/15/2007 © Ft. Myers News-Press
Sheriff's deputies shut down a popular Mexican restaurant Friday after seizing $1.8 million and a cornucopia of prescription drugs. Authorities said the restaurant was a pharmacy for illegal immigrants.
09/11/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Starting to diet seems to double the odds a teenage girl will begin smoking, a University of Florida study has found. UF researchers, who analyzed the dieting and smoking practices of 8,000 adolescents, did not find the same link in boys.
10/18/07 © Florida Today
WASHINGTON - The barrage of radio ads and automated phone calls describe him as a mouthpiece for the president. Critics say he doesn't care about health care for low-income children. But Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, remains unmoved.
5/13/2008 © Miami Herald
Baptist Health South Florida has agreed to pay the U.S. government $7,775,000 to settle claims it paid excessive compensation to an oncology group that was a source of patient referrals to two of Baptist's hospitals, the Department of Justice said Monday. Baptist discovered and voluntarily disclosed the overpayment to the government.
By Carol Gentry and Christine Jordan Sexton
8/28/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE – Today, as state officials considered how to cope with a massive HMO pull-out from Medicaid Reform counties on Dec. 1, they also had to consider the possibility that more plans might resign by Friday’s deadline. But one spokesman for the Medicaid program said other companies may be willing to step into the breach.
11/21/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
Doctors and patients in rural areas of the Big Bend will benefit from a new health-information system that will link hospitals through a fiber-optic network, officials said Tuesday. The $9.6 million project, approved by the Federal Communications Commission, will link nine hospitals in eight counties.
10/18/07 © The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio - A former Port Charlotte, FL man, who headed a now-defunct company that was once a leading lender to health care providers, was arrested Thursday and accused of witness tampering in his upcoming fraud trial, federal authorities said. Lance Poulsen, former president and chief executive of National Century Financial Enterprises, has been charged with witness tampering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
10/25/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
Adoptive parents faced with challenging children and limited support services often reach the heart-wrenching conclusion to give up custody of their kids. The state doesn't track the number of adoptions that fail, but experts say as many as 15 percent involving special needs children in foster care don't work out.
09/11/2007 © Miami Herald
When Miami cardiologist Dr. Harry Aldrich couldn't find a donor for a bone-marrow transplant to save his 9-year-old son's life, he turned to stem cells found in umbilical cords as a way of attacking the boy's leukemia.
See also the Herald's related story, Stem cells from cord blood could become the standard.
09/20/2007 © St. Petersburg Times TAMPA - A Wesley Chapel man will spend 18 months in federal prison for illegally injecting a 13-year-old boy with steroids, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. John Todd Miller, 39, who worked at the Pasco Medical Clinic and Physicians Wellness Institute, told U.S. District Judge James S. Moody that he never intended to harm the boy.
10/09/2007 © Miami Herald
PANAMA CITY -- (AP) -- Outsiders cannot understand the ''paramilitary'' environment required at a now-closed Florida boot camp where seven guards allegedly repeatedly hit a 14-year-old boy hours before his death, a defense attorney said Monday at their manslaughter trial.
12/04/2007 © Lakeland Ledger
BARTOW-- Mark William Kuzara, the former South Lakeland YMCA camp counselor who has been charged with stabbing a 15-year-old girl to death, has been mutilating himself and trying to kill himself in grotesque ways, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office.
07/24/2007 © St. Petersburg: WTSP (Ch. 10)
St. Pete Beach, Florida – It's the time of year when people flock to the beach and it seems like everyone has a healthy respect -- if not, a fear -- of sharks. But there's another danger lurking in Florida waters. Each year it kills more people in Gulf Coast states than sharks do around the world.
07/17/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
DAYTONA BEACH -- Remember when you were a kid, and you could gobble up a few cookies without worrying whether the trans fats were going to clog your little arteries or if the wheat was tainted with a poison that could annihilate your kidneys?
07/29/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
More and more, parents at wit's end are begging doctors to help them calm their aggressive children or control their kids with ADHD. More and more, doctors are prescribing powerful antipsychotic drugs. In the past seven years, the number of Florida children prescribed such drugs has increased some 250 percent. Last year alone, more than 18,000 state kids on Medicaid were given prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs.
8/5/2007 © Sun-Sentinel
A young football player falls to the ground, gasping for air. Is it asthma or heat exhaustion? Or, a player limps off the field, rubbing his knee. Is he done for the game, or is he headed for the emergency room? After spending a day listening to doctors analyze scenarios, more than 800 South Florida football and cheerleading coaches have a better chance of deciding correctly.
07/29/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
The Walt Disney Co. is trying to kick the cinematic smoking habit. In the most explicit announcement by a Hollywood studio, Disney Chief Executive Robert A. Iger said last week the studio would snuff out depictions of smoking in Disney-label films.
08/07/07 ©Tallahassee Democrat
WASHINGTON - Beaches across the country - including several in Florida's Big Bend - closed or posted warnings to swimmers a record number of times in 2006 because of harmful bacteria, reports a national environmental group. Three beaches in Taylor County ranked high among those closed most often, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and its annual "Testing the Waters" guide.
08/23/2007 © Lakeland Ledger
A man with multiple sclerosis will get an expedited chance to appeal for clemency on his drug trafficking conviction for having a large stash of prescription drugs he said were for pain.
06/01/07 Reported by Florida Health News
Florida’s drug control czar will be taking on another job today.
Bill Janes, director of the Office of Drug Control, will begin work as Assistant Secretary for Substance Abuse and Mental Health at the Department of Children and Families.
06/02/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
FORT LAUDERDALE - A Tamarac woman who used to be a clinic director has been convicted of being involved in a long-running scheme that siphoned $10 million from Medicare, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Friday. The conviction is among the latest in a wave of Medicare fraud cases hitting South Florida federal courts this year.
05/08/2007 © Orlando-WFTV (ABC)
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- Veterinarians have been implanting microchips into pets for years but there's a recent push to put them in humans. Now, Central Florida hospitals are putting in the technology that would allow them to scan your arm and pull up your medical records.
03/21/2008 © Naples Daily News
A cascade of events, including the whereabouts of a sign-in sheet describing the patient's chief medical complaints, are at issue in the civil lawsuit brought by the family of Richard Hughes, 45, who died in 2003 after being admitted to the Clinic Naples Hospital. In addition to the hospital, others named in the lawsuit are the emergency-room physician, Dr. Christopher Hamann, and his medical practice, Naples Emergency Physicians.
04/26/2007 © Stuart News
STUART — His former colleague might be a free man, but Gregory Dale Blackman has two years of prison ahead of him.
Blackman already was on probation for practicing medicine without a license when detectives arrested him and another ex-chiropractor, Tom Albert Edwards, for practicing medicine without a license during a sting operation involving Stuart chiropractic clinics.
04/30/2007 © Bonita Daily News
Life is about to get harder for the people in the health-care industry, already fraught with confusion and constant change.
Hospitals, doctors and other medical professionals are required to convert May 23 to one identification code for submitting electronic medical claims to health insurers, a rule that was handed down by the federal government in 2004 as part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HIPAA, of 1996.
05/17/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
DAVIE- More police and increased awareness of treatment available for the mentally ill highlighted the suggestions offered Wednesday to a state task force charged with reviewing security measures on Florida's college and university campuses.
08/28/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
The patient was in her early 40s, the mother of four children. She appeared to be the picture of health. But her day-long gym workouts led health sciences expert Susan Hewlings to suspect something was wrong.
08/23/2007 © Palm Beach Post
PORT ST. LUCIE — An animal control officer whose supervisor searched her work truck and purse, finding prescription medicine that was mentioned later in a public memo, was counseled for failing to follow the city's substance abuse policy. Karen Leonard said she's dissatisfied with the outcome and is filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging discrimination because she's on anti-anxiety medicine. She also alleges violation of federal medical privacy rules.
08/24/07 Reported by Florida Health News
Miami is one of eight U.S. cities participating in a Hispanic healthcare pilot.
06/28/2007 © WPLG Channel 10 Miami
MIAMI -- A lot has happened since last year, when a Coral Springs woman thought she was suffering from stomach flu. But it wasn't a bug Cherlow was battling, but rather a medical condition caused from a mix of her body's own bacteria and the overuse of antibiotics.
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07/10/2007 © Florida Times-Union
ORANGE PARK - After her infant daughter lost her hearing to meningitis, Suzette Maners considered the power of faith.
Prayer might help her child, but maybe science could, too, reasoned the pastor at Canvas Church in Orange Park, which she and her husband and fellow pastor, Aaron Maners, recently founded.
07/24/2007 © Jacksonville-WTLV (NBC)
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- A young mother of three, Natasha Meeks, says she never counted on her life being like this. "I can't get half the stuff done without somebody helping." Bound to a wheelchair, Meeks says her life has changed forever. She says she wants other pregnant women to know her story so they don't end up like her.
2/5/2008 © Tallahassee Democrat
Reducing patients' waiting for care in emergency rooms for non-acute situations has been a collaborative effort between local hospitals and HMOs, said Freda Lyon, a service administrator at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Also read the Florida Times-Union's "Express Care fights ER crowding."
10/11/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
Have you ever felt you were the victim of a scam, or that an unscrupulous business took advantage of you? Seniors can be even more vulnerable, because unethical people often think of them as easy targets.
10/09/2007 © Miami Herald
Betrayed since birth by deformed legs that can't support her, Ukrainian Nataliya Nikolenko gets around on her belly, pushing herself with her hands on something that resembles a mechanic's wheeled board used to get under cars.
10/02/2007 © Jupiter Courier
STUART — A medical clinic that gives free care to lower-income, uninsured Martin County residents has temporarily halted taking new patients until it can reduce its backlog.
09/25/2007 © Ocala Star Banner
OCALA - James E. Martin, who died Sunday night a day after he was hit by a van near his elementary school, may have been only 11 years old, but his mother says he was "an old soul." Catherine Martin said Monday that James would have wanted his heart to go to somebody. "He was a giver," she said. "I wanted that part of him to live on."
09/20/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
NEW PORT RICHEY - The city council has signed off on preliminary site plans for a $39 million expansion of Morton Plant North Bay Hospital 's 120-bed Madison Street campus.
09/13/2007 © Florida Today
CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA e-mails released Wednesday indicate the space agency was looking for ways to prevent astronaut meltdowns three months before one-time shuttle flier Lisa Nowak was arrested in a scandalous love triangle.
By Carol Gentry
12/5/2008 © Florida Health News
A bizarre 2006 incident in which a fetus was allegedly born alive at an abortion clinic but was stuffed in a biohazard bag and later found dead was tabled on Friday until the Florida Board of Medicine meets in February. Board members said they needed a translator to help them understand the doctor who has been charged with malpractice and falsifying records, North Miami Beach gynecologist Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
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4/10/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- A move by a South Florida legislator on Wednesday to remove Miami-Dade County from the state's Medicaid reform expansion -- scheduled for two years from now -- was soundly defeated Wednesday on a largely party-line vote. The House had already agreed to delay the addition of nine counties to the state's Medicaid managed-care experiment until 2010; Rep. Dan Gelber, House minority leader and member of the Miami-Dade delegation, tried unsuccessfully to carve the county out altogether.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
7/24/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE - A key component of Florida’s Medicaid pilot project -- awarding points toward free products to patients who display healthy behaviors -- has not been used by most of the people it was intended to help, an analysis released Thursday says. Only 10 percent of credits earned in the first 18 months were used, according to the report, and administrative costs were $1.1 million.
10/20/2007 © Palm Beach Post
WEST PALM BEACH — A doctor wept after a jury Friday cleared him of wrongdoing and sent a stunned father home to raise a young son whose birth triggered his mother's death. After roughly three hours of deliberation, a jury of four women and two men agreed that neither anesthesiologist Dr. Ivo Baux or West Boca Medical Center were responsible for the 2003 death of a 38-year-old Boca Raton woman who went into cardiac arrest during childbirth.
09/20/2007 © Miami Herald
A local heart surgeon who has been the subject of various investigations into his work has agreed to retire as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors. As part of the agreement, Alex Zakharia, 69, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor contempt of court charge in a Michigan case that questioned his testimony as an expert witness.
09/20/2007 © WTVT Fox Tampa
SPRING HILL - A Bay Area woman is accused of pretending to be a nurse to work at an elementary school. The Florida Department of Health says Jean Sciacovelli used another nurse's documents, and altered the name. She worked at Deltona Elementary School in Spring Hill as a nurse for more than a year.
Public can call in to State Health Insurance Advisory Board meeting
08/16/07 by Florida Health News
The Florida Health Insurance Advisory Board meets in Miami on Monday to take public testimony and hear updates from Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty. The meeting, slated to begin at 10 a.m. will be at the Airport Marriott, 1201 NW LeJeune Road.
08/21/2007 © Florida Today
Valet parking, concierge services, gourmet meals, live music and aromatherapy are amenities expected from a big-city hotel. But you don't have to travel that far. These feel-good services -- and more -- are available at a hospital near you.
2/5/2008 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
TALLAHASSEE -- Going to a topless bar or paying for a personal escort service could help nursing home residents afford haircuts or movie tickets if lawmakers agree to an unusual new sales tax. A proposed law, House Bill 751, would create a sales tax on "adult entertainment services" to provide nursing home residents and others more spending cash.
By Susan Jaffe
3/5/2008 © Florida Health News
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WASHINGTON – AARP wants Congress to trim overly generous federal payments to private Medicare Advantage plans, even though the seniors' advocacy group allows one of those plans to carry its brand. Orlando physician Byron Thames, an AARP board member, cited a report from a Medicare advisory commission that said Medicare Advantage plans are paid a lot more than it costs to treat beneficiaries in traditional Medicare. AARP and United Health Group have a seven-year licensing agreement that allows United to use the AARP brand on its SecureHorizons Medicare Advantage plan and prescription drug products, according to a United spokesman.
07/24/2007 © Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - Since January, four people in the Tampa Bay area have been hit by lightning, three of them on Friday. The victims survived, although one was critically injured. Most strikes here happen in June and July, when thunderstorms can crop up daily.
06/28/07 Tallahassee Democrat
Leon County commissioners today voted unanimously to put about $1.1 million back in their budget for uninsured health care, rejecting a staff proposal to cut it from the budget.
07/26/2007 © Jacksonville-WTLV (NBC)
HASTINGS, FL -- Healthcare for many people in St. Johns County will change. The St. Johns County Commission voted Tuesday to not fund indigent care in the county and let the state health department handle it. This means two clinics will not receive county funding.
08/02/2007 by Florida Health News
A Tampa podiatrist's license was suspended Thursday because of accusations he used patient information without consent and billed Medicaid from a provider that never treated patients.
08/10/2007 © Palm Beach Post
A 6-year-old girl drowned at a Lakewood Park residence and a 1-year-old girl is in critical condition after falling into a pool in Port St. Lucie, law enforcement officials said Thursday.
08/08/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
If all goes as hoped, she'll have four more weeks to come up with four more names for the six babies yet to be born.
Karoline Byler, 30, checked into Bayfront Medical Center Monday night after a weekly prenatal visit to her obstetrician to be monitored for the rest of her pregnancy.
08/23/2007 © DeSoto Sun Herald
An emergency room physician was arrested Wednesday following an investigation into the alleged sexual battery of an underage girl. Dr. Richard Gilbert Spindler, 70, of Sebring, was charged with eight sex crime counts, including sexual battery, lewd or lascivious battery and lewd or lascivious conduct . He was booked into the Highlands County jail without bond.
04/21/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
KISSIMMEE - Records of customers who bought steroids and other performance-enhancers from an Orlando pharmacy under criminal investigation will remain sealed.
Osceola Circuit Court Judge John Marshall Kest on Friday sided with lawyers for Signature Compounding Pharmacy and denied a state request that he reverse an earlier ruling.
04/14/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
TAMPA - If former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich is right, this is what will happen in the not-so-distant-future of health care:
Your doctor will implant in you a wireless pacemaker that continuously monitors your heart waves.
05/12/2007 © Miami Herald
Florida healthcare regulators have shut down a Central Florida children's psychiatric hospital amid charges the Bradenton center was in ''significant disrepair,'' employed caregivers with criminal records and failed to protect suicidal children.
6/13/2008 (c) St. Petersburg Times
Florida fared poorly in a 50-state review of regulatory oversight of the individual health insurance market, according to a study by Families USA, a Washington, D.C., consumer group. The survey found that fewer employers are offering health insurance, and that Florida is not one of only five states that bans insurers from cherry-picking the healthiest consumers.
By Susan Jaffe
6/19/2008 © Florida Health News
WASHINGTON, D. C. – Frail, elderly people entering a nursing home shouldn’t be forced or tricked into signing away their legal right to sue if they are later mistreated, Sen. Mel Martinez said Wednesday at a hearing on a bill that would ensure their access to the courts. When his father entered a nursing home, Martinez said, “I remember signing a lot of stuff...did I sign an arbitration agreement? I don’t know.”
04/07/2008 © Tallahassee Democrat
The fear of not being able to get good health care was overwhelming for Gail Black. Black, 46, was laid off from her job after working most of her life. The health insurance — which helped in getting good medical care for her high-blood pressure and glaucoma — was gone.
03/21/2008 © Tampa Tribune
One year ago, Brandie Renee Voss refused to give a blood sample to a Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy and walked out of the hospital following a 13-car pileup that killed a woman and injured others in Valrico. The husband of the woman killed in the crash says the sheriff's office should have detained Voss and that criminal charges should have been filed.
05/07/2007 © Palm Beach Post
Signs of life at the complex next to the Martin Correctional Institution north of Indiantown emerged in early February, as caravans of private prison officials literally cleared cobwebs from the unused multimillion-dollar facility to make room for mentally ill jail inmates at the center of a state crisis.
04/21/2007 © Miami Herald
Marcelo de Jesus Serrano, a laboratory owner who previously pleaded guilty in connection with a $2.5 million Medicare billing fraud scheme, was sentenced to four years, nine months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Marcia G. Cooke.
04/05/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
TAMPA - Pentagon and state health officials Wednesday announced a pilot program to share the military's huge medical database with health care providers in the Tampa Bay area, a project defense officials hope one day will catch on across Florida and the nation.
08/28/2007 © Florida Today
Rushed to the emergency room after taking a bad spill, Mary Roberts did not see a physician immediately. Instead, the 94-year-old Titusville resident received a quick medical evaluation from a physician assistant, Kenda Luker, who took her blood pressure, listened to her lungs and then ordered an X-ray exam.
02/22/2008 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
DELAND -- Mayor Bob Apgar and his wife weighed in Thursday, kicking off the nine-month weight-loss challenge the mayor is issuing to city employees and residents
1/28/2008 © Tampa Bay News 9
A family's joy over twin baby boys has turned to concern after one of the twins was sent home with another woman's breast milk. The babies had been in intensive care at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg after their premature birth on December 30.
12/04/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
What do suffering a traumatic brain injury and using club drugs have in common? University of Florida researchers say both may trigger a similar chemical chain reaction in the brain, leading to cell death, memory loss and potentially irreversible brain damage.
10/02/2007 © Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - Driving to Burns Middle School in the middle of the day Friday to put calamine lotion on his 11-year-old daughter's elbow rash didn't make sense to Lee Phelps. 'In another time and another place, a nurse would have put a little calamine lotion on it and she would go on her way,' Phelps said.
09/20/2007 © Palm Beach Post
It sounds too good to be true, the idea that you can brainwash yourself into a bikini. But can a two-hour hypnosis seminar with a take-home cassette tape really lead to long-term weight loss?
10/18/2007 © Palm Beach Post
Dr. Susan Love, a world-famous breast surgeon, coined the phrase "cut, poison and burn" to describe the typical cancer treatments of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Most of us who have experienced chemotherapy firsthand think of it as a rite of passage in the cancer world.
11/21/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
Wesley chapel Charlie Craig Byler, the last sextuplet at All Children's Hospital, is scheduled to be released today, just in time for Thanksgiving.
11/20/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
A young Florida boy found beaten and emaciated during the summer in the closet of a Wisconsin home was in such dire shape that a doctor likened his condition to a "concentration camp survivor."
03/17/2008 © St. Petersburg Times
Four-year-old Jenifer Moshier is dying from Alpers' disease, a degenerative genetic disease that eats away at the brain. Jenifer requires frequent trips to physicians from Spring Hill to Pasco County to Tampa, said her mother, Susan Moshier, 23, a Hernando County native. But in an extended family of six people spanning three generations living in a double-wide mobile home, there is one vehicle.
03/21/2008 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
BUNNELL -- The executive director of a youth program aimed at reducing substance abuse was not guilty of possessing marijuana, a jury decided Thursday night. But the jury could not reach a decision on whether Elana Lee ran a drug house. And that count will be retried.
Legislative Round-up: Crist’s plan faces hurdles
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4/13/2008 -- Gov. Charlie Crist is campaigning hard around the state for his health-insurance plan, but his fellow Republicans in the Legislature are intent on budget cuts that industry officials say will add tens of thousands of people to the uninsured rolls, according to the Orlando Sentinel. According to the Ft. Myers News-Press, Rep. Lorraine Ausley changed the funding levels for five children's health and social services issues by $1 each so that they would have to be brought back up when the House and Senate budget negotiations start this week. The abortion issue has also electrified the state House and Senate this month with bills that would require ultrasounds before first-trimester abortions. And The Palm Beach Post writes that the debate is only about one thing: cash.
4/25/2008 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Marissa Amora is forever marked by the cruelty she suffered as a 2-year-old living in Lake Worth. She had catastrophic brain injuries because of physical abuse that state child-welfare investigators suspected but didn't stop.
By Whitney Sessa
5/14/2008 © Florida Health News
First it was children’s jewelry, then pet toys. Now lead from China has been found in a patient’s dental work in Ohio. To make such an event less likely here, the Legislature on its final day in session May 2 made Florida the first state to require dental laboratories to tell their dentists and their patients where a product originated and the materials it contains.
By Carol Gentry
4/30/2008 © Florida Health News
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TAMPA – Sen. John McCain praised Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s “Cover Florida” plan on Tuesday and said that as President he would encourage development of similar cost-cutting maneuvers. The Crist plan, currently stuck in the House, would let Floridians buy scaled-down health policies for as little as $150 a month. In a 27-minute speech to an invited audience at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, McCain debuted the major themes of a health-insurance program that could hardly be more different from those of either Democratic opponent.
It would not attempt to cover the 47 million uninsured through any government program, but instead enable more people to buy policies for themselves through tax credits and by making coverage less expensive. Meanwhile, House Speaker Marco Rubio is holding up passage of Crist's bill, insisting that his own ideas for a health-plan "marketplace" be included, the
Miami Herald reports.
By Carol Gentry
6/12/2008 © Florida Health News
It still isn’t clear who’s behind the “People for Choice Health Care Coalition,” an anonymous group sending out scary cards to fight reform of the Medicare payment system for medical equipment. But one mystery surrounding the group's mail-out to elderly voters around West Palm Beach has been solved: The poster child for the campaign -- a white-haired man in a wheelchair -- is Richard Harley, 85, a retired real estate broker in Bartow. He said he has never heard of the People for Choice Health Care Coalition.
By Susan Jaffe
7/2/2008 © Florida Health News
WASHINGTON, D. C. — Doctors who treat Medicare patients were scheduled for a 10.6 percent cut in their fees beginning Tuesday, but now their bills won’t be processed at all – until at least July 15. The U. S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is putting a temporary freeze on processing claims to avoid having to cut payments.
Florida doctors warned members of Congress last spring that they could be forced to turn away Medicare patients if their payments are cut when the cost of maintaining a practice is rising.
11/21/2007 © Orlando Business Journal
A Winter Park health care staffing firm has beefed up its efforts to recruit foreign nurses for hospitals dealing with the national nursing shortage -- but critics say that move could cause more problems globally in the long run.
11/15/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
A monster lives inside Jeffrey Hamilton's body. Through the years, it has slowly taken away his memory and has made his legs feel like rubber. "It can take my legs," said Hamilton, 46, of St. Cloud. "It can take my eyesight."
10/12/2007 © Lakeland Ledger
Say goodbye to that greasy pizza pie. The Polk County School Board has new nutrition standards for pizza sold by the slice in school cafeterias. Low-fat cheese and veggies are in; pepperoni and sausage are out.
08/21/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
"I'm one of the few in my office that smoke," said Bray, 52, as he exited an auto recycling center on Reed Canal Road where he was a customer. Because of his employer's policy, Bray has to go outside the office when he wants to indulge. But in recent years a growing number of firms nationwide have decided that allowing employees to smoke only outdoors is not enough.
11/08/2007 © Palm Beach Post
BOCA RATON — On the eve of its shareholder vote on the sale of its biologics division and move to Maryland, Nabi Biopharmaceuticals Inc. announced promising results Wednesday from a yearlong study of NicVAX, its anti-smoking drug.
12/14/2007 © Jupiter Courier
FORT PIERCE — Dressed in blue inmate garb, Jon Ford says he's spent 20 years behind bars "because of my addiction," but credits a program at the St. Lucie County jail for helping turn his life around. Ford, 38, spoke about his experiences during a news conference Thursday about programs that local officials say have helped relieve jail overcrowding.
By Carol Gentry and Christine Jordan Sexton
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2/29/2008 © Florida Health News
MIAMI -- House Speaker Marco Rubio’s announcement this week that he wants to expand Medicaid Reform to Miami-Dade cast a pall over more than 100 doctors and patient advocates who met Thursday to call for changes in the project.
Former directors of Medicaid and the Agency for Health Care Administration called for a "do-over" so that managed care isn't just about profits but improves access to care. Former AHCA chief Doug Cook said that while there are caring individuals in Medicaid HMOs, “the corporate mindset is to make money. As much as they can as soon as they can.”
02/22/2008 © Palm Beach Post
DELRAY BEACH — A 20-year-old man held a doctor at gunpoint after the physician refused to prescribe him more pain medication Wednesday, police said. Barron Stephen Pritt of Boca Raton was arrested after visiting the clinic several times in an effort to get pain medication.
07/10/2007 © Palm Beach Post
WEST PALM BEACH — Faced with millions of dollars of debt and no programs to offer, the Center for Child Development may be headed for bankruptcy court and ultimate closure.
07/19/2007 © Naples Daily News
A medical malpractice lawsuit in its fourth day of a jury trial in Collier Circuit Court has been dismissed after the plaintiff dropped his lawsuit against two local doctors.
Feds grant Escambia clinic $1.8 million
08/28/2007 © Pensacola News Journal
An Escambia medical clinic that treats the poor and uninsured will receive a $1.8 million federal grant and will convert to a federally qualified community health center. Escambia Community Clinics is one of five Florida health clinics to receive the grants, which are part of President Bush's Health Care Initiative, launched in 2002.
09/03/2007 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
BRADENTON -- Along with families of 30 other Bayshore high school alumni, the family of Terri Lumsden Jewell, who died of a rare form of leukemia, blames disel fuel tanks buried near the high school. They suspect contamination from the site is responsible for dozens of rare cancers that have struck young and seemingly healthy Bayshore alumni.
08/30/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
A federal jury convicted the former president of a Florida pharmaceutical company, Crystal Coast Inc., Wednesday of reselling drugs purchased at a fraction of its price by nonprofit African Christian Relief. Sheldon Kresler, 65, was found guilty of conspiring to commit wire fraud, prescription drug diversion and money laundering.
04/20/2007 © Florida Times-Union A nationwide workers compensation fraud scheme discovered in Jacksonville led to charges Thursday against five men accused of stealing as much as $100 million from thousands of people, including the families of three people who died in Florida, federal officials said.
The scheme involved the use of sham companies to collect premiums for workers compensation insurance without paying any of the claims.
03/08/07 Reported by Florida Health Services
Human Services veteran David Fairbanks has been named Acting Assistant Secretary of Department Programs, it was announced today by Department of Children and Families Secretary Bob Butterworth. Fairbanks, of Tallahassee, will oversee the department’s program offices, including Family Safety, Refugee Services, Homelessness, Child Care, Adult Protective Services, and the Department’s economic self-sufficiency program, ACCESS Florida.
06/02/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Delray Beach Coral Springs dentist Craig Meskin wants to give teeth back to the toothless. He said Friday he would repair, for free, the wrong allegedly done to a handful of individuals who were left without dentures when their denture maker -- Roger Bean, who lives west of West Palm Beach -- was charged April 24 with practicing dentistry without a license, a felony.
04/30/2007 © Miami Herald
Florida's outpatient commitment law allows a judge to order someone deemed dangerous to himself or others to get treatment, and even to take medication, without confining that person to a psychiatric hospital.
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10/17/2008 © Lakeland Ledger
United Healthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida were among six insurers picked by the state Thursday to provide no-frills health insurance plans for nearly 4 million Floridians now without coverage. The insurance products will become available for purchase in early 2009. The program was a top priority for Gov. Charlie Crist, who signed the bill into law in May allowing insurance companies to offer the scaled-back health plans for as little as $150 a month.
By Christine Giordano and Carol Gentry
10/3/2008 © Florida Health News
ORLANDO -- A surgeon who let an untrained college student play a hands-on role in three breast-cancer operations at the Mayo Clinic last year was cleared of wrongdoing Friday by the Florida Board of Medicine. Stephen L. Smith, who now is chief of general surgery at Scripps Clinic in LaJolla, Calif., said he didn't know the observers program barred students from direct participation. The board was less forgiving of an Ocala doctor who let his wife -- who lacks a health license -- perform Pap smears.
By Carol Gentry
8/1/2008 © Florida Health News
Florida’s two largest Medicaid HMOs kept 50 percent of the state money they received last year for mental health care, even though they were supposed to spend at least 80 percent on patients, new state records show. Both are subsidiaries of WellCare Health Plans Inc., which has been under investigation for suspected Medicaid fraud since October. See chart that compares spending.
7/02/2008 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
More than a year after ConAgra Foods recalled Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter from grocery shelves following a nationwide salmonella outbreak, 19 product liability and negligence lawsuits have been in Palm Beach courts against the company. All but two of the plaintiffs are from Palm Beach County, with one from Orlando and another from Melbourne.
Hospital cuts would be deepest among those that treat poor
4/14/2008 © Florida Health News
Medicaid funding cuts for hospitals under the Senate proposal take away $637 million in state money plus $281 million in federal matching funds, according to calculations by the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida. House cuts are slightly less. But the greatest blow will fall on the hospitals that take a disproportionate share of the poor and uninsured, the calculations show. To see how much the drop in funding would be by hospital and by county, go to the Alliance's Web site.
3/16/2008 © Miami Herald
Without help, a Jackson Memorial Hospital cancer patient will be sent home to Haiti, where she is unlikely to receive treatment. Doctors say they can't do anything else for Chaumala Laurent, brought to the emergency room with late-stage head and neck cancer by a Haitian pastor.
05/31/07 © Ocala Star Banner
Editor’s Note: Florida ranks high in the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, now the subject of Congressional belt-tightening efforts.
WASHINGTON (AP) – When Doug Morris joined Medicare last spring, the retired college professor went right to work reading the handbook that explained his benefits, expenses and rights. All 107 excruciating pages.
Using the analytical approach from his academic career, he chose a private insurance plan over traditional Medicare.
04/15/2007 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Geriatric care management services have been around for more than 25 years. But demand is rising, and so are the ranks of providers -- a growth curve that is expected to sharpen as the nation's 65-and-over population doubles over the next 20 years.
09/08/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
Hey there, college freshman. Could I have a minute of your time? This is your mother speaking. There's something you need to know as you settle in and acclimate to college life: Not everybody is doing it - drinking to get drunk.
09/03/2007 © Florida Times-Union
With miles of walls and thousands of meals served daily - not to mention countless cupcake parties - schools have always been a battleground for pest control. But in recent years, schools have faced calls to reduce their use of pesticides, particularly in light of environmental reports that say small children are vulnerable with the poisonous ingredients that kill bugs.
08/28/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
SPRING HILL - The skills he learned while serving in Iraq enabled Jonathan Jaquez to stay calm under pressure when the 25-year-old Army veteran helped save the life of a stranger who collapsed at a restaurant Sunday night.
07/25/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
A Longwood doctor - who will be a key witness in a national online steroid ring case -- told investigators she sold her signature on prescriptions for $50 a pop.
06/21/07 © Tampa Tribune
As a lawyer for one of the former Outlaw leaders argues in court today that he should be allowed to seek a new trial, investigators say the biker gang - one of the largest in the country and the predominant motorcycle gang in Florida - continues to violently protect its turf and engage in drug trafficking, extortion and murder.
07/17/2007 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
In 2006, Sarasota Memorial was heralded as being among the nation's top 50 hospitals in six different specialties, including high-profile programs like heart surgery and orthopedics. This year's rankings, though, have hospital officials quietly poring over the numbers.
07/24/2007 © Miami Herald
IBM and the University of Florida are collaborating on a project to enable software and hardware to talk to each other in the same computer language, and feed that data to a third party. One possible benefit of the Stepstone project, promoters say, would be to enable a blood pressure monitoring device to communicate with a home's computer and a doctor's office.
1/17/2008 © Gainesville Sun
Shands AGH is one of a handful of hospitals across the country taking part in a Duke University heart study in which cardiologists are attempting to reach heart attack victims with artery-opening treatments more quickly. The more time it takes for a patient to receive treatment, the more heart muscle is lost. That translates into a loss in quality of life, and sometimes into loss of life itself.
1/28/2008 © Lakeland Ledger
A Polk City man was arrested Thursday and charged with child neglect after detectives found he had failed to keep follow-up medical appointments for his daughter after she was injured in a traffic accident.
12/29/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
NEW PORT RICHEY - A suicide attempt held Community Hospital in a partial lockdown mode for almost 10 hours overnight Thursday.
11/28/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
Dental care usually isn't cheap, but a new network of a dozen or so local dentists wants to give poor adults quality dental care for just a few dollars. They aim to provide affordable care in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties through a new nonprofit program called Gulf Coast Dental Outreach.
See also Making kids smile at dentist takes more than a little magic in the Palm Beach Post.
10/09/2007 © Florida Today
Lorraine Holcombe said her corneas are football-shaped, not round, as they are supposed to be, giving her an increasingly fuzzy view of the world -- even after successful cataract surgery five years ago. So the 75-year-old Palm Bay resident recently opted for a new type of corneal transplant, in which doctors replace the diseased innermost layer of cells, rather than the entire cornea.
10/02/2007 © Florida Today
Mark Alvarez isn't proud of it, but he has fallen asleep at work. The owner of Melbourne Magic, he has from time to time sat in front of the computer and dozed. "I hate to admit it, but it does happen," he said.
09/11/2007 © Palm Beach Post
For $10 million, you can have the new Glades hospital named after you. For $5 million, you can have the hospital's surgery unit named in your honor.
10/25/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
This column is by Dr. Ana Viamonte Rose, Florida's Surgeon General
Fortunately, lead poisoning is completely preventable. I urge parents to remain alert to potential lead hazards where their children live, visit and play, including grandma's house or day care facilities.
11/21/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
The attack of the mini-clinics finally is upon us. After gearing up for three years, neighborhood clinics staffed by nurse practitioners who treat minor illnesses are being deployed quickly across the Tampa Bay area.
11/06/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
A veteran advocate and former head of the Florida Independent Living Council will shape the state's disaster response for the state's 3 million people with disabilities, officials announced Monday. He is 57-year-old Chip Wilson of Jacksonville, the new statewide disability coordinator for emergency management.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/9/2008 © Florida Health News
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Adamses talk to
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TALLAHASSEE – A Marianna couple, Stephanie Wise Adams and Jeff Adams, say they tried over and over to buy health insurance, but were turned away because of health risks. Now they're trying to pay off a $30,000 hospital bill. Gov. Charlie Crist told them his "Cover Florida" plan is designed to help people like them. But when the House Healthcare Council passed Crist's plan Tuesday, it combined it with one by Rep. Aaron Bean that would not help people like the Adamses.
Also read about Tuesday's House action on the governor's bill in the
Tampa Tribune, as well as a description of how Crist is traveling the state to get citizens' backing for his health proposal in the
Miami Herald.
Opinion Round-up
4/14/2008 -- Florida legislators need to drop the idea of expanding Medicaid reform, write the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Miami Herald. As legislators slash funds for indigent medical care, Florida's citizens need to be ready to feel the crunch, writes the News-Journal. Florida Today writes that the Legislature should replace cuts to the poor, sick and elderly with more sensible ways to boost state revenue.
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4/13/2008 © CBS News
Sanibel cancer patient John Kanzius invented a machine in his garage that uses radio waves and nanoparticles to treat cancer without pain or side effects. It seems to work for rats, but it's still unclear whether it will work in humans -- or whether he'll live long enough to find out.
The machine built by the former businessman and radio technician has some cancer researchers so enthusiastic about its potential they're pouring money and effort into testing it out
By Susan Jaffe
4/18/2008 © Florida Health News
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Last fall, Bob Schulbaum saw newspaper ads from private Medicare health plans offering great deals: $3,000 worth of over-the-counter drugs, and payment of members' Medicare outpatient premiums of as much as $1,100. But reading the fine print, Schulbaum discovered he was out of luck because he lives in Delray Beach; the benefits were not available in Palm Beach County.
Health insurers have explained that because the government pays health plans thousands of dollars more to take care of a Medicare patient in Miami-Dade County than in its neighboring counties, the plans can afford to give extra benefits in Miami but not in Delray Beach.
And next year the disparity in payments is growing even larger. Plans in every other Florida county are getting a 3 or 4 percent raise, but they’ll get a bonanza in Miami-Dade.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/21/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE—Gov. Charlie Crist questions the Legislature’s move to cut $1 billion from the health care programs that serve the poor, elderly and disabled, urging lawmakers to borrow money from the state’s landmark settlement against big tobacco. In a tight year that has brought a $5 billion reduction in revenue, top Republican legislators agreed to spend $7.12 billion in general revenue on health and human services. Sen. Durell Peaden, R-Crestview, and Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, will lead the conferees.
By Carol Gentry
4/30/2008 © Florida Health News
It’s been observed that only the health care industry expects customers to make major purchases without first knowing the price, or even getting a ballpark estimate. Now a bill on its way to Gov. Charlie Crist would do something about that. Read more in the Palm Beach Post.
05/16/2008 © Ft. Myers News-Press
Lee Memorial is one of the busiest joint replacement centers in the country, but it pays a higher than average price for the implants. But when it set out to rectify the situation, everything got worse.
9/8/2008 © St. Petersburg Times
Legions of doctors are getting into the weight-loss business as their wallets have gotten lighter and their patients have gotten heavier. "It's amazing, the number of clinics that have opened up," says Tampa psychiatrist William Dudney, who has focused on weight loss for 15 years. Some clinics offer controversial treatments, such as hormone shots and supplements. But they're a hit with patients.
8/29/2008 © Florida Health News
The Agency for Health Care Administration has notified the managed-care plans active in the "Medicaid Reform" counties that their rate cuts on Sept. 1 will average just 3 percent, not 5 percent as previously estimated. That was enough to persuade AMERIGROUP to reverse an earlier decision to leave the pilot program, and both of the other companies threatening a pullout were leaning in the same direction as of 5 p.m. Friday.
11/01/2007 © Palm Beach Post
PORT ST. LUCIE — Liberty Medical Supply, the diabetes mail-order company that opened in 1989 with a handful of phone lines at a Treasure Coast storefront, is now part of the country's largest pharmacy benefits firm, Medco Health Solutions Inc. Shareholders of Liberty parent PolyMedica Corp. voted Wednesday morning to approve Franklin Lakes, N.J.-based Medco's offer to buy PolyMedica for $1.5 billion cash.
10/16/2007 © Gainesville Sun
A man allegedly hit his 81-year-old father in the head with a hammer because he wanted him to live in a nursing home, authorities said Monday. Jayantibhai Patel, 57, which lived with his father in Foster City, attacked the elderly man on the erroneous belief that he needed to be hospitalized.
08/21/2007 © Florida Today
This commentary is by Veronica Valentine, chair of the Florida Council for Behavioral Healthcare and CEO of the Child Guidance Center in Jacksonville
When it comes to our children, rhetoric and sound bites come easy. Children are our future. They are the leaders of tomorrow. We are working to make sure none are left behind. The truth, however, is that children are being left behind, especially if they have a mental illness.
Tampa Tribune © 09/23/2007
SEBRING — As far as doctors go, Dr. Raymond Veras does not get out much. He spends his work hours mostly inside Florida Hospital, checking on the more ill children and infants, some of them hospital-bound. Like him. The pediatric hospitalist is a new breed of doctor in the area. He is the first pediatrician to not only visit Florida Hospital or to refer the sick children there, he also stays there, he says.
See also: Physicians' Assistants Popular In Rural Areas, describing how these "extra hands" are helping doctors reach their patients in Highlands County.
0/02/2007 © Florida Today
The morning of May 16 had started as an ordinary commute to work for Wuesthoff Health System radiographer Don Washabaugh. But, in a moment, things turned extraordinary.
0/09/2007 © Bonita Daily News
Florida Gulf Coast University's newly hired School of Nursing director is part of an action plan initiated after the school was put on temporary probation by state officials because its graduates were underperforming on certification tests. “In the history of the program, this will be a bleep on the screen,” said Marianne Rodgers, as she discussed curriculum changes to improve graduates' test scores.
10/11/2007 © St. Petersburg: WTSP (Ch. 10)
Lakeland, FL -- It was March 6, 2006 when a Lakeland Police detective first opened an investigation into allegations two children were the victims of a rare disease by their mother 's abuse. Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a form of child abuse where the parent induces real or apparent symptoms of a disease in a child according to the National Institutes of Health website.
2/5/2008 © Orlando Sentinel
President Bush put $120 million in his proposed budget Monday for the long-awaited Orlando VA hospital, but area veterans said they were disappointed that more of the nearly $600 million needed will not come right away.
1/28/2008 © Lakeland Ledger
Polk County school officials are using a $75,000 federal grant to help teachers and other personnel battle high blood pressure and other health problems.
Naples Daily News © 02/22/2008
For the past 18 years, pediatrician Melanio Villarosa has been committed to helping families in the small farming community 40 miles northeast of Naples. He doesn’t charge patients who don’t have insurance or charges very low fees. Of Villarosa’s 1,000 patients, about 90 percent are on Medicaid.
08/30/2007 © Pensacola News Journal
Northwest Florida patients should receive better medical care thanks to a new technology system that allows physicians to remotely view a patient's bile ducts and pancreas. The $60,000 Spyglass System was unveiled Wednesday at West Florida Hospital in Pensacola, one of six medical facilities in the Southeast to employ the new technique.
WASHINGTON - Two-year-old children have more sophisticated social learning skills than chimpanzees, say researchers who compared the species. But, when it came to simple math, the apes seemed to know more than the youngsters, apparently "adding" how many tasty raisins researchers had hidden.
04/12/07 by Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE –Florida State University professor Michelle Bourgeois believes people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia don’t necessarily lose their memories, just the pathways to retrieve them. Her research furthers the premise that “memory books” and other aids, such as daily planners for patients in the earlier stages of the disease, can help unlock the way to lost memories.
04/08/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Oasis Longevity & Rejuvenation topped its Internet pages with a photo of a well-muscled man to help sell its human growth hormone shots. The Boca Raton clinic is now shut down, its principals charged last month with selling the drugs illegally. But the business of selling hormones claiming they build hard muscle, burn flab and reverse the effects of aging has been a lucrative -- and...
04/25/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
Note: The author is the retired director of the Pasco Health Department.
Mental health treatment represents one of the largest holes in our health care system. Health coverage eludes 47-million U.S. residents, but millions more have inadequate mental health coverage.
03/10/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
As the Baby Boomers age, many experts are concerned about skyrocketing health-care costs and a lack of nurses and other personnel to ensure adequate patient care. A host of new technology products and services may help reduce medical costs for individuals, employers and health insurance companies by making it easier for people to remain independent in their homes longer, reducing the need for
05 /22/2007 © Palm Beach Post
WASHINGTON — Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in group health plans in Florida could lose nearly $1 billion in extra benefits during the next five years if Congress cuts payment rates, Medicare officials warned Monday. Nationally, the reductions would total roughly $38.2 billion and affect about 8.3 million enrollees.
By Gary Fineout
12/19/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida’s health-care industry funneled nearly $6 million into legislative campaign accounts during the 2008 campaign season, accounting for nearly $1 out of every $7 contributed, an analysis for Florida Health News shows. Senate President Jeff Atwater alone got $728,000 from health interests. Common Cause's Ben Wilcox predicts they will expect a return on the investment.
By KUMARI KELLY
9/17/2008 (c) Florida Health News
ORLANDO -- Floridians undergo medical scans, including CAT scans and magnetic resonance imaging, far more often than most Americans, exposing them to radiation and driving costs up, a researcher told journalists Tuesday. It's partly a result of physicians using scanning as a moneymaker, he said, and partly patients' belief -- sometimes mistaken -- that high-tech care is the best care.
By Carol Gentry
8/29/2008 © Florida Health News
State health officials have notified Medicaid HMOs that they may no longer be allowed to market their plans directly to potential enrollees after Jan. 1, a policy change that could put thousands of telephone and outside sales personnel out of work but free up more money for services to patients.
By Carol Gentry
8/22/2008 © Florida Health News
A report that Medicare equipment fraud is running billions of dollars a year, far more than federal health officials have claimed, drew a regretful I-told-you-so Friday from Republican Sen. Mel Martinez, who has been speaking out on this issue for months. Democrat Bill Nelson expressed outrage at the news that administration officials deliberately looked the other way and misled Congress.
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6/19/2008 (c) Florida Health News
In a joint investigation with state health authorities, Miami-Dade Police have charged a Miami man with the unlicensed practice of a health care profession for injecting liquid silicone into women's buttocks at "pumping parties." Florida Department of Health said Anthony Donnell Solomon was arrested Wednesday in a sting operation.
4/22/2008 © Tampa Tribune
House Speaker Marco Rubio may agree to drilling into state trust funds to blunt the devastating budget cuts lawmakers are poised to make to health care for dying Medicaid patients, organ transplant recipients and other fragile Florida residents. Check out the budget conferees for cuts to health care programs.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/16/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved the "Cover Florida" program, Gov. Charlie Crist's top legislative priority, after groups representing business interests gave it a push. The Senate also passed a modified version of the governor's certificate of need bill, which would make the process of getting state permission to build a hospital quicker and less costly.
4/1/2008 © Bradenton Herald
Becky Carmichael is one lucky lady - at 47 she is alive and well, but it almost didn't work out that way. For more than a year she battled scary, but puzzling symptoms - shortness of breath, pain between her shoulder blades and extreme fatigue - which baffled her doctors when all the standard tests came back OK. Two months ago, she underwent a new test called a heart scan that found life-threatening blockages the other tests had missed.
4/8/2008 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Someday, Micah Woodrow Hayes Stillwagner might say something nice about Lakewood Ranch Medical Center. For now, his mother is doing the talking. Debra Stillwagner, who has four sons, says Micah's April 2 birth "was my best experience in labor and delivery of all four" -- important, since father Jeremy Sr. is serving with the Army in Iraq.
05/17/2007 © Tampa Tribune
Two powerful U.S. senators vowed to rev up regulation of private Medicare plans Wednesday after delivering a public tongue-lashing to executives from WellCare Health Plans and two other contractors. The companies failed to properly supervise contract sales agents who used illegal or unethical tactics to enroll beneficiaries in Medicare Advantage plans, said Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Herb Kohl, D-Wis.
05/24/2007 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Jason Norman would have been in his element at Lemon Bay High's Project Graduation party. The popular senior's efforts to make people laugh and have a good time would have fit right in with the annual overnight celebration of the end of high school.
04/07/2007 © Miami Herald
For more than five years, Siomara Senises welcomed women into her abortion clinics in Miramar and Hialeah. Sometimes, she even helped perform abortions, investigators say. Yet no one at either shuttered facility was licensed to perform medical services, according to police affidavits.
04/10/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
A grandmotherly June Seibert and a corporate-dressed Donna Eller were on a mission -- checking on five full-time residents inside an assisted living facility. As a state-certified, long-term care ombudsman, Seibert, 72, and her 60-year-old trainee,
08/28/2007 © Stuart News
Recent tax-cutting mandates out of Tallahassee came home to roost Monday, when trustees of the Treasure Coast's only health-care taxing district had to scale back spending on the Vero Beach hospital and end evening and weekend hours at a local Health Department clinic.
8/11/07 © Miami Herald
A Tennessee company stepped into the world of clinicas and cafecitos on Friday, its chief executive donning an earpiece at a West Dade press conference to hear a translation of how he had just spent $400 million to purchase Leon Medical Centers Health Plans.
08/06/2007 © Gainesville Sun
Alachua County school officials are struggling to find ways to fit in 150 minutes of physical education now required by the state. But a University of Florida College expert in childhood obesity says it's worth the struggle amd that schools shouldn't be graded on academics alone.
Meeting the new law is no problem in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, where most schools already meet the new requirement because the school districts count recess as physical education. Read the Pensacola News Journal's Let's Get Physical for more details.
07/29/2007 © Palm Beach Post
A 3-year-old in state care died early Saturday from severe head injuries that investigators say were inflicted by a 14-year-old baby sitter. Jamiya DeLoach died at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach just after midnight.
07/16/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- The only noise is the gurgle of the oxygen machine and a gentle voice. Hovering at the bedside, Bob Betts checks the flow of life-giving air and the drip flowing from the intravenous bag and informs his unconscious patient of each step with a whisper.
07/17/2007 © Florida Today
A Health First-sponsored exhibition at the Brevard Art Museum depicts how scars can define a person, physically and emotionally.
07/19/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
TAMPA -- Mark O'Hara swore he had a legal prescription when Tampa airport police found 58 Vicodin pills inside his bread truck. A doctor and pharmacist backed his story at trial.
1/28/2008 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
The death of 26-year-old national tennis champion Jennifer Hiller, of Port Orange, just hours after giving birth puts her among a growing number of U.S. mothers classified as dying within 42 days of delivering new life.
11/08/2007 © Palm Beach Daily News
The Medical Care Commission will host a forum this season to expand awareness of the medical malpractice insurance crisis in South Florida. Commissioners said Wednesday that area residents do not fully understand, and the media has failed to adequately report, the depth of the crisis and its impact on health care in the region.
10/11/2007 © Stuart News
Airliner crashes, terror attacks, killer storms, large-scale industrial accidents, flu pandemics — imagine the worst. Dr. Nancy Baker of Vero Beach doesn't need to imagine. She saw catastrophe firsthand when she joined Dr. Joshua Shipley and about two dozen more local volunteer physicians and nurses delivering medical care to victims of Hurricane Katrina in Gulfport, Miss., in 2005.
10/09/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
LAND - O' LAKES - University Community Hospital has received preliminary approval for a 50-bed, long-term, acute-care facility at a planned medical park in the Connerton community of central Pasco County.
08/16/2007 © Ft. Myers News-Press
This commentary is by Robert Schwartz, M.D., head of the AIDS Treatment Center in Lee County.
Without getting into the arguments about "who knew what?" and "when they knew it?", the bottom line is that we and our patients have paid money that should have been provided by the Lee County Health Department. As we sit in a clinic with a broken air conditioner and staffed by a physician taking no salary for his services, what I am sure of is that the money should be refunded to us.
10/25/2007 © Central Florida News 13
South Lake Hospital in Clermont is gearing up for some big changes. Over the next few years, the hospital plans to triple its bed capacity to accommodate the area's rapid development.
10/30/2007 © Miami Herald
After a nine-month search, M. Narendra Kini, a physician-administrator from Michigan, has been appointed chief executive of Miami Children's Hospital. He will start Jan. 2. Kini is an executive vice president with Trinity Health, a system based in Novi, Mich. He replaces Thomas M. Rozek, who announced almost a year ago that he planned to retire when a replacement could be found.
10 /16/2007 © NBC6.NET South Florida
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A woman was arrested and charged with murder, drug possession and sexual battery on Monday after a 2-year-old was found dead on Sunday of an apparent skull fracture.
11/16/2007 © The New York Times
DELRAY BEACH — Delray Beach, a funky outpost of sobriety between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, is the epicenter of the country’s largest and most vibrant recovery community, with scores of halfway houses, more than 5,000 people at 12-step meetings each week, recovery radio shows, a recovery motorcycle club and a coffeehouse that boasts its own therapy group.
11/13/2007 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
SARASOTA COUNTY -- A jail nurse faces a felony drug charge after replacing an inmate's oxycodone pills with Tylenol and taking the prescription medicine home with her, the Sheriff's Office said. The arrest comes less than two months after Armor Correctional Medical Services, the nurse's employer, started its contract to provide health care to Sarasota County inmates.
11/06/2007 © Tampa Tribune
SEBRING — A growing number of adolescents are starting to turn to over-the-counter and prescription drugs for a high. "Prescription drug abuse has become an epidemic across the country," said Sgt. Monica Sauls, of the Highlands County Sheriff's Office. "While the use of popular gateway drugs has decreased, the number of teens abusing medication has steadily increased."
4/6/2008 © Naples Daily News
Nonprofit Collier Health Services has decided to stop delivering babies and is closing a North Naples women’s clinic due to financial losses blamed on the slumping economy.
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By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/29/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida's experiment with Medicaid managed care won't be expanded into Miami-Dade, Hillsborough or seven other counties anytime soon.
Rep. Aaron Bean, chair of the House Healthcare Council, told Florida Health News on Monday that during budget negotiations the Senate refused to accept the House's proposal to expand reform into nine additional counties by 2010.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
4/30/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida lawmakers in recent years have touted HMOs as a way to hold down costs in the state’s Medicaid program. But few choose HMOs for their own coverage. Only 15 percent of legislators, who receive free health insurance for themselves and their families, have enrolled in HMOs, according to the Office of Legislative Services.
Instead, the vast majority are enrolled in the state’s self-insured plan, a looser type of managed care that lets members go outside the network if they’re willing to make a larger co-payment. “My colleagues clearly are not treating everyday Floridians as well as they treat themselves,’’ said House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber.
05/16/2008 © Bradford County Telegraph
The Rural Health Partnership of North Central Florida recently received a three-year grant of $180,000 per year from the Health Resources and Services Administration. Grant funds will be used to improve and expand the partnership's infrastructure, services and activities, and implement a pilot project for Medicaid patients.
06/28/2008 © Bradenton Herald
Florida Senate Mel Martinez says he’s optimistic Congress will come up with a compromise plan to reverse the 10.6 percent cut in Medicare physician rates that took effect today. Manatee County medical society representatives say patient access to care will be reduced.
7/02/2008 © St. Petersburg Times
Armed with magic markers, grieving children are writing and drawing on the Plexiglas walls of a new “Grief Cave” at a Tampa hospice to pour out their emotions in a way counselors say they might not otherwise be able to do.
7/17/2008 © Florida Health News
A majority of Florida's 27-member Congressional delegation are Republicans who tend to side with President Bush on most things. But when it came down to the wire on the Medicare bill to fix a steep cut in pay to doctors, almost all of them skedaddled. Only two stuck with Bush on the veto override: Republican Reps. Dave Weldon from Melbourne and John Mica of Winter Park.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
7/25/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- The state Agency for Health Care Administration has inflated the savings from Medicaid's pilot project in order to get a groundswell of support to expand it statewide, according to a report released Friday by an advocacy group. Florida CHAIN claims the money saved in the five-county pilot is about 4 percent per person, not 20 percent. See also our report from Thursday on a separate critique of the pilot project.
By Tim Collie
8/28/2008 © Florida Health News
BOCA RATON -- Juan Bernal, arrested in June for practicing dentistry without a license in a stifling storage shed, says his problems began when a boy with a rotting tooth who couldn't pay was turned away from the dentist's office where Bernal worked as a lab technician. Word spread, and soon Bernal, who had been a dentist in his native Colombia, was a foot-soldier in the growing army of unlicensed heath practitioners in Florida.
9/17/2008 © Bradenton Herald
The parents of a teenage girl have been charged with child abuse and false imprisonment after they bound her with duct tape and placed her in the car trunk to keep her from running away, police say. She crawled out of the trunk while the car was moving and suffered a skull fracture, according to authorities. In other news about questionable parenting skills, the Palm Beach Post reports that an 11-year-old who was getting a driving lesson from his father ran into four cars and hit a man.
11/13/2007 © Lakeland Ledger
After spending two years seeking advice from everyone from Bill Clinton to executives at Starbucks, Wal-Mart is overhauling its health plans. The company, according to data available for the first time, is offering better coverage to a greater number of workers.
10/16/2007 © Ft. Myers-WBBH (NBC)
NAPLES -- A Naples baby who was born with a rare disease is getting help from the community. A fundraiser is planned for six-month-old Adam Saada who was diagnosed with "Bubble Boy Syndrome" at just three months old.
10/25/2007 © Ft. Myers-WBBH (NBC)
BONITA SPRINGS-- A Bonita Springs nurse accused of calling in bogus prescriptions, is now facing felony charges and is looking for work. Deputies say the doctor at her clinic turned her in after he noticed the signatures on the prescriptions for Vicodin were not his.
09/20/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
This commentary is by Dr. Charles Mahan, dean emeritus of the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida and former Florida state health chief.
Helping people to quit smoking is an essential step to saving lives and reducing health-care costs, and prevention is always less expensive than acute care. To aid this effort, we must better educate our doctors in the proven techniques that help smokers kick the habit, especially in our medical schools and continuing education programs.
10/02/2007 © Stuart News
Could a decade's worth of good work by one social service agency be undone by Florida's funding problems? Sylvie Kramer thinks it could. Kramer is the chief executive officer of Kids Connected by Design, which provides pre- and post-natal care to women in St. Lucie County.
10/09/2007 © WJXT Channel 4 Duval County
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A 30-year-old graduate of University Christian High School, went away to college, met his fiancé, then came home to work for a long-time friend. Now Derek Carpenter spends most of his time in hospitals battling a rare and potentially deadly cancer.
10/11/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
A Tallahassee woman was bitten by a rattlesnake Wednesday at Maclay Gardens and taken to the hospital for treatment, the Tallahassee Police Department said. Lelani Morgan, 27, was walking outside a small walled garden in the park when she stepped on the snake.
12/21/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Aimee Lee Weiss, the Tamarac woman charged in 2001 with stuffing her newborn baby in a backpack that she then tossed into a canal, was among three people at a chiropractic clinic charged Thursday with health insurance fraud.
By Michael Peltier
2/8/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE--They may have been invisible, but the hands of Adam Smith were unmistakable Thursday as Florida House members convened to discuss private market fixes to the state’s health care system. For scores of House Republicans and a handful of Democrats, the Scottish economist’s 18th-century ideas served as the template for suggestions to improve health-care access and quality in Florida. And some of those suggestions may show up as legislation in the coming session.
1/27/2008 © Palm Beach Post
A former University of Florida veterinary school professor known for his mild-mannered, soft-spoken ways, is now smack in the middle of a controversy over the safety of eating cloned livestock. That's because Stephen Sundlof recently took on the top job at the federal Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
By Susan Jaffe
2/26/2008 © Florida Health News
WASHINGTON -- Simple reminders aren’t enough to persuade some people to take care of themselves. So Humana Inc., Florida’s most popular Medicare health plan, is trying something different – a reward for being good. 
How about a gift card for Macy’s, CVS, Lowe’s or Borders?
Humana’s “Healthy Returns” rewards program, which the company launched as an experiment last month, is a bet that providing incentives for members to prevent health problems will pay off for all concerned.
Since Medicare offers health plans the same monthly premium for similar members in the same region, regardless of whether they get sick, plans stand to profit if they persuade slackers to fly right. And gift cards may help.
07/24/2007 © Gainesville Sun
Three times in his lifetime, Dr. Bruce Kone has found himself drawn to Gainesville and the University of Florida. He first came as a young medical student, graduating in 1983. He returned in 1991 for a four-year stint
09/04/2007 © Tampa Tribune
BRANDON - Bruce Waterman, immediate past president of the Hillsborough County Dental Association and the first dentist in Hillsborough County to offer laser dentistry, is forging another new path, organizing dental care for underserved patients once a month on "Smile Fridays."
04/23/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
Mental health treatment represents one of the largest holes in our health care system. Health coverage eludes 47 million U.S. residents, but millions more have inadequate or non-existent mental health coverage.
04/04/2007 © Miami Herald
Attempting to clamp down on South Florida's two major areas of healthcare fraud, federal prosecutors accused 10 people Tuesday of bilking Medicare out of more than $5 million for fraudulent claims for durable medical equipment and expensive infusion therapies intended for AIDS and HIV patients. The alleged leaders, Armando Arias and Raul Rodriguez, 30, of Miramar, were accused of committing fraud
05/17/2007 © St. Petersburg: WTSP (Ch. 10)
Treasure Island, Florida - Drug trends among teenagers are constantly changing. Next time your kids head to a party, marijuana and cocaine may not be the concern but legal prescription drugs. At these so called 'pharm parties' which is short for pharmaceutical parties teens will blindly try different drugs.
05/10/2007 © Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - Prompted by massive confusion and reports of enrollment abuses, federal authorities are cracking down on private fee-for-service plans, the fastest-growing product in Medicare Advantage.
When enrollment for 2008 begins in November, CMS will require private fee-for-service plans to call new enrollees and make certain they understand PFFS rules and limitations.
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8/29/2008 © New York Times
TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Charlie Crist, who will have the opportunity to reshape the Florida Supreme Court with four appointments, began on Thursday by selecting a staunch opponent of abortion, Charles T. Canady, 54. The move drew praise from Dennis Baxley, president of the Christian Coalition of Florida: It "sends an important signal to the conservative base."
By Tim Collie
8/8/2008 © Florida Health News
(Second in an occasional series)
Because of Florida’s peculiar geography, with its state Capitol located hundreds of miles from its major metro areas, a relative handful of reporters have to cover an enormous bureaucracy and a multibillion-dollar budget. it’s about to get a whole lot harder, as bodies and experience disappear from newspapers' capital bureaus. Coverage of state health issues and agencies, never abundant, is likely to shrink along with the size of the press corps.
7/2/2008 © Miami Herald
Since her great-grandson J'Mari Jeremiah Johnson, 2, drowned in her unfenced pool, Shirley Harold is trying to turn her despair into something meaningful, launching a grass-roots drowning-prevention campaign and foundation to save other children and, maybe, heal her family.
Fires roast bone-dry state; ozone reaches record levels
5/15/2008 © Florida Health News
Fires were burning throughout Florida on Thursday, from West Palm Beach to Panama City, as ozone levels reached record levels in west-central Florida when the winds turned easterly and sea breezes off the Gulf fell off. But firefighters began to conquer the wildfires along Florida's Atlantic Coast, and school officials in Brevard County said schools would reopen today. To see where fires are burning, check the online map at the Orlando Sentinel; latest news on the fires is at the Sentinel's breaking-news blog.
OPINION: How to save more black babies
05/16/2008 © Palm Beach Post Delivering a baby is "like having one foot in the grave." The teenage girls had heard this from older women - their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, neighbors. So, naturally, they were afraid of the pain they would feel when the time came for them to deliver. They were less concerned that their babies might be premature, underweight or more likely to die before their first birthdays
Vote on controversial ultrasound bill looks tight
4/25/08 -- The fate of a hot-button abortion bill appears to hang on three or four "squishy" votes in the state Senate, which will debate today whether to require ultrasounds before an abortion takes place, says the
Tampa Tribune. A bill that would give patients the right to see hospital prices up-front for common non-emergency procedures is stalled in the House under pressure from the hospital lobby, the
Miami Herald reports. The Florida House Thursday unanimously agreed to give $18.2 million to a former Lake Worth girl who was brutally brain-damaged as a baby after state workers released her back to an abusive home, the
Palm Beach Post reports. State senators have approved a bill creating statewide standards for the training and certification of 911 operators following the murder of a Charlotte County woman whose call for help was not relayed to police, writes the
Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Broward health department gets new director
4/15/2008 © Florida Health News
Broward County Health Department’s new director will be Paula Thaqi, the Florida Department of Health announced Tuesday.
Dr. Thaqi, a pediatrician who also holds a master’s in public health, has been director of the Highlands County Health Department for the past seven years.
04/06/2008 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
Even when 17-year-old "Ashley" was not with her boyfriend, he was still abusing her. With nonstop calls on her cell phone, constant text messaging and control of her e-mail account, the 18-year-old man may as well have been slapping Ashley around -- which he did a handful of times.
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By Christine Jordan Sexton
3/20/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE---The GOP-controlled Legislature continues to be divided over the future of Florida’s Medicaid program, setting the stage for a confrontation over the next few weeks.
While the House of Representatives aims to expand Florida’s experiment with Medicaid managed care, a state Senate panel on Wednesday approved a
bill that would exempt from the reform experiment for at least one year developmentally disabled people as well as children with persistent mental illness.
05/08/2007 © Lakeland Ledger
Polk County residents enrolled in Universal Health Cares Medicare Advantage plans cant expect any extra help from the federal government as they deal with a dwindling number of local physicians who accept the Universal plans.
05/13/2007 © Florida Today
Before Wal-Mart and Target decided to sell hundreds of generic prescription drugs for a flat $4 fee in September, Ann Maynard couldn't afford to take the medications her doctor prescribed. "I went, 'Whoa!' " she said, describing her reaction when she realized what the new policy would mean to her life.
05/12/2007 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Kevin Lewis, who oversees a 25-bed detox center in Fort Myers, recently witnessed an unprecedented shift in his clientele. Those addicted to prescription opiates such as OxyContin, once a fraction of patients, overtook those being admitted for heroin abuse.
04/19/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
Federal privacy and antidiscrimination laws restrict how universities can deal with students who have mental health problems. For the most part, universities cannot tell parents about their children's problems without the student's consent. They cannot release information in a student's medical record without consent. Nor can they put students on involuntary medical leave ...
03/30/2007 © Miami Herald
Almost half of the medical equipment companies in South Florida do not meet the federal government's minimum standards for operation, a report being released today concludes. Such companies have long been notorious as sources of Medicare fraud, which the FBI estimates amounts to $1 billion a year in South Florida alone.
Deciding to crack down, federal agents in late 2006 made unannounced visits to 1,581 suppliers in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
They found that 31 percent -- 491 suppliers -- did not maintain physical facilities or were not open and staffed when agents visited. Another 14 percent did not meet other required standards.
08/08/07 by Florida Health News
Potential presenters at February’s International Conference on Aging, Disability and Independence have until September 1 to submit their proposals. In addition, 20 student scholarships are being awarded to graduate students in non-professional degree programs who will be presenting at the conference. The deadline for applying is September 15. For more information on conference presentations and the student scholarships, see www.icadi.phhp.ufl.edu .
07/26/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
With gentle breezes to pat her sail, Maja Kazazic, 30, took off on a windsurfing board. It was only her fourth lesson, but she made it look easy. Never mind that she is a below-the-knee amputee, the victim of a 1993 bombing during the Bosnian war.
06/20/07 by Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE—Pembroke Pines osteopathic physician Arthur Henson, II, D.O., has been suspended from practicing under an emergency order issued today by Florida Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Ana M. Viamonte Ros.
Henson was already prohibited from prescribing, dispensing or administering narcotic pain relievers to patients under terms of an emergency restriction order issued in March, 2006. He violated the order by prescribing the narcotic pain reliever, Vicodin, to patients, according to today’s emergency suspension order.
07/13/07 © Jacksonville Times Union
Stephen Levkoff, owner of a local imaging center, wanted to know whether physicians preferred a noninvasive diagnostic procedure over an invasive one for patients with chest pains, so that he could better market his services.
07/24/2007 © Florida Today
When giving blood, most people roll up a sleeve, perhaps wince a little as the needle goes in, and that's it. But for Florida's Blood Centers, once blood is donated, a complex process to ensure its safety begins.
The organization is also offering a gas-card initiative to entice another 20,000 new donors by month's end, according to this related Florida Today story.
11/08/2007 © Ft. Myers News-Press
Cape Coral resident Alessia Leathers, who is from Peru, writes about how words in Spanish and English can often be misinterpreted.
When my daughter fractured her pinky three weeks ago, instead of a cast, she almost ended up with needles all over her body while being hypnotized by a personal life coach. I am glad my husband took good care of her while I was at work. As an American, he knew she needed an orthopedist to follow the treatment after spending half a day in the emergency room.
10/11/2007 © Ft. Myers News-Press
Ouida Francis gets to wear a beautiful pink gown and go to the ball. It's the fairy-tale ending of a horror story.
10/09/2007 © Bonita Daily News
The Florida Board of Medicine approved a limited license reinstatement of a former family physician in Collier County whose license was suspended indefinitely in 2000 for sexual misconduct with patients. Dr. William Charles Leach, 56, had petitioned the medical board for reinstatement in order to participate in a two-year fellowship with the University of Florida in addiction medicine.
09/23/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
For the past five years, Michael P. Smith of the Florida Center for Prevention Research at Florida State University has been involved in researching the effects of social pressure to drink among students, especially pressure to "binge drink." The center has found that over the five years, since efforts have been stepped up to reduce high-risk drinking among students at FSU, high-risk drinking is down.
10/21/2007 © Palm Beach Daily News
I'm not a fan of stereotypes. Some, though, can hold a certain amount of truth.
Men hate doctors. Call it white coat (or rubber glove) syndrome, men often ignore potential signs of disease. They tell themselves that a persistent cough or general feeling of deep fatigue is nothing to worry about. It will pass.
10/18/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
At 86, Anita Bloom Ornoff has lived 65 years of her life as a paraplegic -- paralyzed from the waist down. She has also served in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, survived a near-fatal spinal infection, fought the government for veterans benefits, went to college, married three times and raised two daughters. Most of it, she did from her wheelchair.
11/15/2007 © Stuart News
STUART — Carolyn Perfetti has lived with lung cancer for 12 years. She lost half of one lung in 1995, the rest of it in 2006, and then underwent more surgery to correct a related heart problem. A nurse at Martin Memorial is now there to help patients like Perfetti as the hospital's new lung cancer navigator.
11/17/2008 Florida Today
A paraplegic using a motorized wheelchair robbed a Merritt Island bank, telling the staff he had an explosive device. Police caught up with him a block later and found the money stuffed in his prosthetic leg.
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3/16/2008 © Miami Herald
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida lawmakers will start to tackle the steepest budget cuts in state history on Monday. Among the likely losers: hospitals, nursing-home providers and anyone who treats the 2.3 million on Medicaid, along with courts and schools. Possible winners: Road builders, rail-line companies, and private prison operators. Senate budget chief Lisa Carlton says cuts amount to $2.59 billion, including $700 million from health programs.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
5/13/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Some health care providers and advocates are mobilizing to warn mentally and physically disabled Medicaid clients about a new state requirement that could force them into HMOs. Those who work with severely disabled patients say a sudden shift of caregivers or drugs could be harmful. “It’s just not the way to treat these folks,” said Bob Sharpe, president and CEO of the Florida Council for Community Mental Health.
5/10/2008 South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Don't expect miracles from Gov. Charlie Crist's new plan to cover the uninsured. Insurance experts said the Cover Florida program passed by the Legislature will offer low-cost, bare-bones medical policies, but the plans will not be out until next year and even then may be of limited value. (Editor's note: We missed this story last weekend but it's too good not to share with you now.)
Nursing homes to take a hit; layoffs forecast
5/1/2008 -- A legislative decision pending Friday will most likely make Florida nursing homes one of the biggest losers in the state budget, says the
Palm Beach Post. On Wednesday, the Senate passed bills protecting victims of dating violence, says the
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and the safety of Florida government workers, says the
Daytona Beach News-Journal. But lawmakers don't have a plan to protect children from budget cuts as they "age out" of the foster care system, says the
Tampa Tribune. Yet, the Legislature did find $8 million for a Florida Gulf Coast University building for medical-related programs, says the
Ft. Myers News-Press.
05/16/2008 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
A man who helped broker the sale of $9 million in adulterated medicines for AIDS and cancer was sentenced by a Broward County circuit judge to 20 years in prison Wednesday, state prosecutors said. Joel De la Osa, 39, had pleaded guilty to being part of a Weston-based counterfeiting ring that illegally bought costly injectable medicines from Medicaid patients for pennies on the dollar,
By Kara Murrhee
6/5/2008 (c) Florida Health News
GAINESVILLE – Dosing middle-aged mice with a key ingredient found in red wine seems to slow the aging of the heart significantly, according to a study published Wednesday by scientists from several research centers, including Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, chief of the Division of Biology of Aging at UF’s Institute on Aging. The institute hopes to start human trials this summer. In other research news, a South Florida foundation is offering $7.5 million for aging programs.
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By Carol Gentry
7/7/2008 © Florida Health News
When Congress reconvened Monday after a week off, Florida Sen. Mel Martinez was under heavy pressure from Florida AARP and the state medical association to drop his opposition to a bill that would shield doctors from a steep Medicare pay cut. As the New York Times reported today, Republicans nationwide are feeling the heat. The Florida alliance of AARP and FMA is a case of strange bedfellows, since they're often on opposite sides of political issues.
07/02/2008 © Palm Beach Post
Even after finding evidence of abuse at Victory Forge Military Academy, state officials concluded it was not severe enough to permanently remove cadets from the school. That's what was announced Wednesday as the agency released back-up material on the agency's investigation into the school, where police in April found that a 16-year-old boy had run away wearing leg shackles.
07/02/2008 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Some 100 babies have been safely surrendered by their mothers under a Florida law that allows women to drop their newborns off at any hospital or fire station — no questions asked — within three days of birth. Now, as the law begins its ninth year, it is being expanded to give mothers a seven-day grace period.
Foul odor leads to discovery of potentially explosive meth lab
07/02/2008 © Ft. Myers News Press
A routine traffic stop and an unbearable odor that forced the evacuation of a Pine Island neighborhood led law enforcement Tuesday to discovery of the area’s first methamphetamine-producing lab and the arrest of two people. The Florida Office of Drug Control said the bulk of the potentially explosive meth labs in the state are discovered in north or central Florida.
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By Christine Jordan Sexton
8/12/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE – It took Linda Keen only six months to go from an “indispensable part” of the leadership team at the Agency for Health Care Administration to being out of work. The only thing that changed was the arrival of AHCA Secretary Holly Benson, a believer in Medicaid Reform -- the project that Keen criticized last year. Keen's admirers predict her ouster will have a chilling effect on other inspectors general.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
9/4/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Lawyers, insurance company executives, doctors and injured workers are anxiously awaiting a ruling from the Florida Supreme Court on what has been called "the most important case for Florida workers" in years. The court must decide the constitutionality of a 2003 change in the workers' compensation law that caps attorneys' fees at $150 an hour; injured workers say it's been hard to find decent representation ever since.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
10/1/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Where is Cover Florida, the state's ambitious program of pared-back coverage for the uninsured that was to have been unveiled today? Where is the extended coverage for adults in their late 20s, which was supposed to go into effect today? And where is the Florida Health Choices Program, the virtual marketplace employers can shop for new coverage products? Delayed, delayed and delayed. Meanwhile, the number of uninsured Floridians continues to grow.
10/6/2008 © Florida Health News
Cardinal Health’s pharmaceutical-distribution center in Lakeland, which lost the legal right to dispense controlled drugs ten months ago following a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation, will get its DEA license restored as part of a $34 million settlement by the company. Almost half the money will be available for DEA use in Florida's middle district.
11/21/2007 © Ocala Star Banner
OCALA --Healthy Ocala members met on Monday night to select members for its executive committee. Healthy Ocala is the name of Marion County's Regional Health Information System (RHIO).
10/16/2007 © Jacksonville-WTLV (NBC)
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Sailors and Marines returned to Mayport after being on a four-month humanitarian deployment to 12 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The "Comfort" mission crew was made up of the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Army, Public Health Service, Canadian Forces, and non-government organizations (NGOs) Project Hope and Operation Smile.
10/21/2007 © Palm Beach Post
John Todd Miller once was one of the most popular figures in professional wrestling. Now, the owner of the now-defunct Pasco Medical Clinic in Tampa and described by one drug investigator as "the Victor Conte of professional wrestling," referring to the czar of the BALCO steroid scandal, is about to begin a new life in a federal prison.
09/23/07 © St. Petersburg Times
That's the question raised by the pending demise of PIP, or Personal Injury Protection, which every Florida driver is now required to have. Right now PIP pays up to $10,000 for injuries. Insurance policies written after Oct. 1 will not include PIP, although the Legislature could decide to revive it.
09/27/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
Florida Health News reported earlier this month that Medicaid officials were considering cutting the budget for elective C-sections as part of the state's budget tightening efforts. This commentary, by health care author Jennifer Block, discusses the nationwide increase in the procedure.
American maternity wards are fast becoming surgical suites. We've become dangerously cavalier about it, but the caesarean rate should be a major public health concern. Nearly one-third of women have major abdominal surgery to give birth. And compared with other industrialized countries, the United States ranks second-to-last in infant survival.
10/08/07 © Tampa Tribune
Large private investment groups wouldn't be buying up nursing home chains if there wasn't big money to be made. And there is nothing wrong with that. But it unconscionable that to maximize profits some firms neglect the needs of the frail and elderly in their care.
10/11/2007 © Bradenton Herald
Motorcycles are more popular than ever among baby boomers seeking pastimes to take into retirement. Unfortunately, along with an increase in the number of bikers, there is an increase in motorcycle accidents with injuries and deaths. The most shocking rise in fatalities is the 40-plus age group. In 2005, 47 percent of deaths were riders 40 years old and older.
11/29/2007 © DeSoto Sun Herald
SARASOTA -- The Sarasota County Commission voted Wednesday to discontinue its Medicaid Non-Emergency Transportation provider agreement next year. The reason: a proposed $111,000 reduction in state funding for the service.
12/15/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
SUN CITY CENTER - Despite the protests of retired residents against the move of their hospital, the state ruled Friday that South Bay Hospital can relocate about 8 miles up the road in Riverview, east of Interstate 75. In granting preliminary approval for the HCA-owned hospital to rebuild its 112-bed facility, the state denied a competing request by St. Joseph's Hospital to build a facility in the same area.
12/26/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Florida still pays a heavy price for pain-medication abuse. "Doctor shopping," the illegal amassing of pain medication for either sale or abuse, has been a longtime South Florida problem. The good news is that the region can devise its own model solution, with a little help from an unlikely source.
12/29/2007 © Gainesville Sun
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida drivers will have personal injury protection coverage added to their policies Jan. 1 as the state returns to a no-fault system after a three month break. Most people won't have to do anything to comply with the new law.
1/28/2008 © Gainesville Sun
Robotripping -- one of the nicknames for consuming large enough quantities of cough or cold drugs to create an out-of-body experience --is being noticed around North Florida, especially among drug-store-trusting teenagers.
07/24/2007 © St. Petersburg: WTSP (Ch. 10)
Lakeland, Florida — Usually the men and woman working at fire station one in Lakeland head out on calls for help. But Monday, the call for help came to them, when an unidentified woman walked up by herself and asked to turn over her newborn baby girl.
07/18/2007 © U.S. News & World Report
Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami was voted No. 1 in ophthalmology in the annual list of top hospitals from U.S. News & World Report, released Tuesday. Tampa General, Moffitt Cancer Center, Jackson Memorial and Shands also won kudos in multiple specialties.
07/19/2007 © Naples Daily News
If you’ve been taking Aricept, and maybe even if you haven’t, you’ll recall that earlier this summer researchers began testing to see if sharks in Southwest Florida ingest prescription drugs flushed into the Gulf of Mexico with human waste. Preliminary results are in and — you may want to take a Xanax — it appears they do.
07/17/2007 © Ft. Myers News-Press
Last Friday, 82-year-old Elnora Laurent called her usual transportation service, Good Wheels, to schedule a ride to her July 30 doctor visit. But the nonprofit busing company was booked already.
07/29/2007 © Naples Daily News
Florida’s public health agency is getting a bigger slice of federal funding this year for preparedness and emergency response plans for addressing pandemic flu, terrorism, and other public health emergencies.
WINTER HAVEN - Responding to the ardent pleas and sobering statistics of a powerful group of church congregations, four Polk County commissioners pledged Monday to work with them in substantially expanding local substance-abuse treatment.
04/10/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
One of the nation's largest psychiatric facilities is in South Florida -- and it's not a hospital. It's the Miami-Dade County Jail. Florida law-enforcement agencies arrest more than 70,000 mentally ill people each year, and house most in jails and prisons. The cost of housing them is significant -- upwards of $300 a day per inmate by one estimate.
04/13/2007 © Fernandina Beach News Leader
A recent survey indicates a possible sudden increase in the prevalence of local middle school students using legal, household items known as inhalants to get high.
According to Marie Rogers, coordinator for the Nassau Alcohol Crime and Drug Abatement Coali-tion (NACDAC), the increase in students who reported using inhalants in 2006 comes after years of decreasing use of the drugs.
04/04/2007 © Florida Times-Union
Getting old is an expensive proposition - and one that many Americans seem financially unprepared for. One year in a Florida nursing home costs more than the $42,433 the average Florida family earns annually, according to a survey released by Genworth Financial on Tuesday. A private room in a nursing home in the Jacksonville area averages nearly $69,500.
05/13/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
NEW PORT RICHEY - An alleged pharmacy mix-up that sent a 5-month-old to the emergency room and on to intensive care has prompted a negligence lawsuit against Walgreens and one of its pharmacists.
06/17/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
When Florida voters went to the polls three years ago and passed Amendment 7 - the Patient's Right-to-Know initiative - they chose patients' rights over physicians' confidentiality
05/07/07 © The New York Times
Patients enrolling in a new type of Medicare plan called private fee-for-service often find their co-payments are high and they have difficulty finding a doctor, the New York Times reported Sunday.
The St. Petersburg-based Any, Any, Any plan, offered by Universal Healthcare, and Florida-based WellCare, were among those plans cited as causing concern by state or federal officials.
By Christine Giordano
10/1/2008 © Florida Health News
Even as MD Medicare Choice was collapsing this week, another Tampa-based Medicare plan stopped writing new business. Citrus Health Care, which has 41,000 members in Tampa Bay and the Orlando areas, stopped marketing under pressure from regulatory authorities, an attorney for the company said. But Citrus will quickly resolve its issues and be "full-steam-ahead very shortly," he said.
9/2/2008 © Florida Health News
The Agency for Health Care Administration said Tuesday afternoon that it has received notification from HealthEase and Staywell -- subsidies of WellCare Health Plans Inc. -- that that they will continue to participate in the state's Medicaid privatization pilot program, after all.
6/12/2008 (c) Florida Health News Doctors have been protesting the expense of switching to electronic health records, given that those clamoring for the change -- politicians, payers and patients -- aren't the ones footing the bill. Now, federal authorities say they will offer financial incentives for small group practices to adopt electronic records in 12 communities, including Jacksonville.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
5/23/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida’s health care agency quietly told HMOs last year that they could spend less money on health care services for the mentally ill than Florida law requires in counties that are part of the state’s Medicaid reform pilot project. AHCA took that action even though five months earlier, Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a bill that would have lifted the requirement for all HMOs across the state – a bill the industry had lobbied hard for. See comments from patients and providers in South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
By Brittany Rajchel
5/6/2008 © Florida Health News
GAINESVILLE -- The University of Florida will cut its health sciences programs more than $14 million by eliminating some faculty and staff positions, clinical programs and research funding, according to the budget released Monday. In accordance with the new state budget, which eliminates $50 million in UF’s state funding, University President Bernie Machen ordered all colleges to cut spending by 6 percent. That includes the Office of Health Affairs and the colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Health Professions, Veterinary Medicine and Dentistry.
05/01/2008 © St. Petersburg Times
TALLAHASSEE — Women seeking a first-trimester abortion in Florida will not be required to have an ultrasound. The measure was defeated Wednesday in a rare 20-20 tie vote in the Florida Senate, with seven Republicans joining Democrats.
By Whitney Sessa
5/8/2008 © Florida Health News
GAINESVILLE -- When Erica Lipner-Bernstein paid $500 for her Gardasil vaccine, she couldn’t help but think of its “one less” commercials, which urge women to take the shots so they’ll be “one less” possible victim of cervical cancer. She also couldn’t help but wish it were “one less” bill she had to pay. Her family’s health insurer would cover treatment if she caught the cancer-causing human papillomavirus, but it doesn't pay to prevent transmission. Thousands of other Florida college students are in the same boat, and school health centers are beginning to act.
04/04/08 © Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - When police told relatives of Gregorio Velazquez that the 52-year-old man had died Thursday from a gunshot wound, word spread quickly through the family. Phone calls were made to relatives in Puerto Rico, New Jersey and Orlando, said nephew Javier Velazquez. Then about an hour later, detectives with the Tampa Police Department called again to tell them Gregorio Velazquez actually was on life support at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa.
04/06/2008 © St. Petersburg Times
Not every patient can call her family doctor at home, at 3 a.m. But this patient had paid a premium for unlimited access to New Port Richey physician Dr. Amir Shirmohammad under a "concierge" care program. Think old-time country doctor — with a cell phone.
Suspending staffing rules in nursing homes is 'real mistake'
3/31/2008 © Florida Health News
ARLINGTON, Va. – One of the nation’s leading authorities on nursing home care says it would be “a real mistake” for Florida to suspend staffing rules for two years as proposed by House Republicans as a cost-saving measure. Currently Florida has the best staffing rules in nursing homes of any state in the nation, Charlene Harrington, professor of sociology and nursing at University of California - San Francisco, told reporters attending a weekend conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists. Harrington said the higher standards paid off with fewer patient-safety issues and reduced lawsuits. Also read “Staffing cuts weighed for nursing homes” in the Miami Herald.
05/08/2007 © Stuart News
TALLAHASSEE — It didn't get a lot of attention, but a significant bill passed last week in Tallahassee will cut down on prescription drug abuse and deaths. It also provides safeguards for people who are prescribed multiple medications from different doctors and who might be taking medications that counteract or react badly with each other.
05/05/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
In addition to soaring property taxes, there are skyrocketing property insurance premiums in Florida, some so high homeowners are being forced to forfeit parts of their coverage, as well as exorbitant hikes in Medicare premiums, healthcare costs, energy costs and prescription drugs. This is a recipe for a Category 5 disaster for seniors. And they know it.
03/20/2007 © South Florida Business Journal
A judge has sentenced a medical equipment company owner to four years in prison for defrauding Medicare of $2.2 million in payments for medical equipment never provided to Medicare patients. The government said U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages also sentenced Rene Rodriguez to three years of supervised release once he is released from prison.
04/08/2007 © Naples Daily News
As the 2007 legislative session begins in Tallahassee, unanticipated revenue shortfalls have already cast a shadow on the budgeting process. A clear message has been sent that money is tight, and legislators will be looking for ways to refine their lists of priorities to a manageable size.
04/20/07 © Naples News
Student athletes came one step closer to drug testing Thursday evening, as the Collier County School Board heard the district’s plans for random student drug testing. ...The district will begin random drug testing at the start of the 2007-08 school year.
09/04/2007 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune
As they look for ways to cover a projected $1.1 billion budget gap, the eyes of Florida lawmakers are turning for help -- reflexively, it seems -- to some of the state's neediest residents.
07/29/2007 © Tampa Tribune
ODESSA - While most of us celebrate Independence Day on July 4, Kassie Newman's independence day from five years of domestic violence came on July 6, 2004, when she sneaked away in a cab with her four children.
07/16/07© Miami Herald
Two years after being voted ''Most Likely to Succeed'' as a Coral Gables High School senior, Sandra Wells was jobless and roaming the streets of Coconut Grove.
07/17/2007 © Hernando Today
The station is dark when the fire engine roars into the bay. The firefighter shucks his heavy coat, steps out of his boots and falls into bed. The dull throb in his arms from extricating a patient from a car wreck is only a promise of the ache coming tomorrow.
07/19/2007 © Boca Raton News
Joy Blight appears to be a typical nurse bearing a smile and warmth for patients at Boca Raton Community Hospital. Beneath that smile, however, and what many would otherwise not know, is that Blight has had two knee replacements after a bout with rheumatoid arthritis.
07/24/07 © Tampa Tribune
America's Health Choice, a Vero Beach company that lost federal funding on Friday because of delays by patients in getting access to care, was still listed Monday afternoon at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services website as having two plans available. A spokeman for CMS said the error would be corrected.
2/3/2008 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
A 62-year-old grandmother arrested Friday after a raid on her Oakland Park house had received several warnings from officials and knew of the drug operation, authorities said Sunday.
1/28/2008 © Palm Beach Post
Mental health courts in Martin and St. Lucie counties will receive more than $300,000 this week in planning and operation grants from the Florida Department of Children and Families. Also read the Tallahassee Democrat's "Leon County gets court grant."
10/11/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
ST. PETERSBURG - A Pinellas County circuit judge on Wednesday gave the mother of John Graziano temporary guardianship of her young Marine son, critically injured in a car crash while wrestler Hulk Hogan's son was at the wheel.
10/08/07 Palm Beach Post
A month before she died Sept. 24 of bacterial meningitis, 19-year-old Rachel Futterman chose not to get an immunization that would have protected her against the infection. Because of her death, in January the University of South Florida no longer will allow students living on campus to opt out. USF should not be the only Florida public university requiring the vaccine of all students living in campus housing.
10/04/2007 © Gainesville Sun
After spending a few days in the hospital in August, Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell said she's now feeling back up to full strength. But she says she does have a new respect for life, and a newfound cautiousness when it comes to over-the-counter medications.
10/30/2007 © Bradenton Herald
LAKEWOOD RANCH -- When he teaches, "Medical Issues For The Elderly," Dr. Samuel Gross opens his wallet and takes out a laminated list of his prescriptions. The card is in the event of a medical emergency.
10/18/2007 © Tampa Tribune
TALLAHASSEE - Federal authorities reached a temporary truce Wednesday with college students threatening a march on the Capitol next week to protest the acquittal of seven boot camp guards and a nurse in the death of a teenage boy under their supervision.
10/16/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
TAMPA--Suspected scam artist Jordan Gann, arrested at a bar Sunday night, often impressed single women with medical jargon and would persuade them to open up joint accounts with him, police said. He'd then clean out the accounts and move on to other victims.
11/20/2007 © Jupiter Courier
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Prescription drug users without insurance in Indian River County could save hundreds of thousands of dollars next year in a discount program kicking off in January.
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4/23/2008 © Florida Health News
Most Florida Medicaid patients who will be affected by proposed cuts in their health coverage are either too young, too old, too sick or too poor to make a personal appeal to lawmakers in Tallahassee. So others are speaking out on their behalf.
One is Tampa speech therapist Enid Gildar, who worries that many of the children she treats will lose their Medicaid coverage.
Others are executives from hospitals that treat the lion’s share of Medicaid patients. (Here is a list of lawmakers making budget decisions.)
7/17/2008 © Palm Beach Post
County health officials say the FDA is trying to track down the supplier of fish -- thought to be black grouper -- that caused at least two outbreaks of ciguatera, which plays havoc with sensory nerves as well as the digestive tract and can linger for weeks. Among those stricken are a family of four in Palm Beach Gardens and 12 people at Amelia Island, near Jacksonville.
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By Carol Gentry
7/31/2008 © Florida Health News
Medical Savings Insurance Co., which has been battling the hospital industry, state regulators and its own customers for years, is bowing out of Florida. Hospital officials are celebrating the departure of the company created by the controversial J. Patrick Rooney. But some customers have been left in the lurch, unable to find affordable replacement coverage. The company offered no explanation, but clues lie in court records and a report at the Office of Insurance Regulation.
7/22/2008 © USA TODAY
A health insurer that sells mainly to the self-employed who can't get group coverage agreed Monday to pay $20 million — one of the largest fines of its type — to settle violations found by regulators in a 36-state investigation. HealthMarkets sells its products in Florida through subsidiaries Mega-Life and Health Insurance and Mid-West National Life Insurance. The charges are summarized here.
11/06/2007 © Tampa Tribune
LITHIA - She was consistently first in line with a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand or a hot meal whenever someone was in need. Rhonda Wills of Lithia simply wasn't used to being on the receiving end.
11/21/2007 © Palm Beach Post
Erzsebeth "Betty" Napholcz decided at a young age that she would make it her life's goal to help others by working as a pediatric nurse.
10/18/2007 © Palm Beach Post
FORT PIERCE — Irmanie Eliacin, a third-year medical student at Florida State University, delivered seven babies in six weeks while working one-on-one with an veteran doctor in Fort Pierce. The experience, although "wonderful," helped her realize that the field of obstetrics and gynecology wasn't really for her.
10/24/2007 by Florida Health News
Physicians, pharmacists, health plan staff, network managers and others will have a chance to get updated on the latest developments in electronic prescribing at ePrescribeFlorida’s fall summit Nov. 30 - Dec. 1, at the Hilton Disney Downtown Resort in Lake Buena Vista, FL. Continuing education credits will be available for physicians and certain other health care professionals.
10/02/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
A joint Florida State University-community program designed to offer youth an alternative to drugs and crime in Jefferson County is getting attention statewide.
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2/5/2008 © Tallahassee Democrat
The head of the Department of Children and Families, "horrified and shocked" by the arrest of his agency spokesman on child-pornography charges, Monday ordered a review of personnel records for all DCF employees.
DCF Secretary Bob Butterworth and Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey briefed reporters at DCF headquarters about the arrest of Al Zimmerman on eight counts of soliciting two boys for sexual purposes.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
2/28/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE – Legislators, who passed a law last year intended to make it easier to get flu shots, are steamed at the Florida Department of Health because it didn't get the law implemented in time for the current flu season.
The law, which was opposed by the state's doctors, allows pharmacists to administer the shots within certain safeguards. But the state medical boards, which were supposed to collaborate on the educational requirements, dragged their feet, according to the state pharmacy association. Also read the New York Times' "Panel advises flu shots for children up to age 18."
07/16/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Twice a week, 16-year-old Taylor Tuerk visits the Boca Raton Life Time Fitness center for a two-hour session with his personal trainer, Ryan Byars.
Notice: The Florida Health News website quickly recovered from a hacker attack on its server last Thursday and the site is virus-free. If you visited our site last Thursday, please read the details in the following report.
08/30/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
SEFFNER - The day her 9-month-old son was found unconscious floating in a bathtub, Katrina Brooks told deputies she had left him unattended for just a few minutes. But authorities said Wednesday that young Gene Vincent Kent sat in an overflowing tub for more than 25 minutes while his mother tried to buy marijuana. He died days later after he was taken off life support.
04/07/2007 © Palm Beach Gardens-WPBF (ABC)
PALM SPRINGS, Fla. -- A Palm Springs man is picketing a local pharmacy for what he said was a medication mix-up. "Someone's got to make them accountable. Someone's got to tell the public what's going on," Leslie Kozlow said.
04/06/2007 © Stuart News
When the decision was made decades ago to close most state mental health hospitals and to return the mentally ill home if their illnesses could be controlled by medication, motives were humane and practical. Some of the institutionalized got lost in the system and remained there indefinitely. The state had to pay less in a community health system than in a hospital.
06/07/2007 © Miami Herald
For a quarter-century, F.J. Davis has lived with the terror of the AIDS virus, watching friends die as he coped with myriad drugs and doctors. But now, because of a change in a state contract that pays for his care, the 47-year-old Miami man says he has something new to fear: the loss of his longtime nurse, who's more ``like my guardian angel.''
04/28/2007 © Tampa Bay Online
TAMPA - Health policy analyst Bob Berenson has a hard time believing that Florida officials have labeled the Any, Any, Any plan "financially impaired" and have tried to take it over. It's a Medicare private fee-for-service plan, a fast-growing insurance model that resembles traditional Medicare but costs 19 percent more, with the extra money going to private insurers.
12/24/2008 © Florida Health News
Aetna announced Wednesday that it had reached agreement on a multi-year contract with BayCare Health System, the dominant hospital-and-physician network in Tampa Bay. The looming end of the old contract next week had thrown the health care of 400,000 people on Florida's Gulf Coast in limbo.
By Carol Gentry
0/20/2008 © Florida Health News
The Agency for Health Care Administration says its legislative budget request for expansion of the 'Medicaid Reform' pilot project into 20 more counties next year isn't what it appears to be. The request is merely a "placeholder" for future action, a spokesman said.
By Carol Gentry
5/6/2008 © Florida Health News
In the belief that one person can make a difference, Clearwater pharmacist Larry Golbom paid his own way to appear before an FDA advisory panel in Maryland on Monday to warn against approval of a new form of OxyContin.
By the time he got home late Monday night, he had reason to hope he’d had an impact.
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5/8/2008 © Washington Post
With the presidential candidates fighting over how best to rein in soaring health care costs and cover the uninsured, a veteran of the last major U.S. health care reform battle urged lawmakers on Tuesday to build broad public support before embarking on any reform.
Donna Shalala, who served as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton, told the Senate Finance Committee that public support for Clinton's health reform effort in the early 1990s diminished as people with health insurance began to worry about what it would mean for their coverage.
The 1990s proposal also faced staunch opposition from the health care industry, which launched a series of television ads that helped doom the plan.
Medical records bill passes House, minus funds
4/20/2008 -- Read the
Miami Herald's "
Medical records bill passes House, minus funds," the
DeSoto Sun-Herald's "
911 bill will likely bear Lee's name," the
Lakeland Ledger's "
Sink: Jail insurance agents who prey upon the elderly," the
Bradenton Herald's "
Bill requires insurance policies cover mental illness," and
the Palm Beach Post's "
Abortion bills about rights, not religion, backers say."
Legislative round-up: You'd be cranky, too
04/07/2008 © Florida Health News
Lawmakers and their aides are tired and on edge, as budget pressures force them to make difficult decisions and lobbyists get shrill, says a New York Times Regional Media Group report published in the Lakeland Ledger. One of those pressures concerns how difficult it is to get dental care for poor children, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. Budget woes mean that Gov. Charlie Crist’s initiatives are taking a hit, the St. Petersburg Times reports. The Orlando Sentinel points out that every dollar the Legislature cuts from health programs costs the state even more in matching federal funds.
By Carol Gentry
3/14/2008 © Florida Health News
A nurse accused of infecting 15 patients with Hepatitis C at an army hospital in Texas in 2004 was able to keep working and move on to other states – including Florida -- because the Texas agency that licenses nurses in that state did not file charges against him, according to state health officials there. Records at the Texas Board of Nursing show that no disciplinary action was ever taken against the nurse anesthetist who was found to have infected the patients. Bruce Holter, spokesman for the nursing board, said he will try to find out what happened but angrily rejected the suggestion that the board dropped the ball. "I can promise you that is not the case," he said. Late Friday, the Miami Herald reported that Jones was working at the University of Miami Hospital in the weeks before his arrest.
04/26/2007 © Palm Beach Post
TALLAHASSEE — Unregulated insurance companies could sell Medicare supplemental coverage in Florida under legislation being questioned by Gov. Charlie Crist.
The bill (HB 97) would allow out-of-state businesses to offer Medigap insurance policies to their retirees who have relocated to Florida through insurance companies that are not regulated by the state.
05/22/2007 © Miami Herald
The imbalance goes up when Medicare and Medicaid are factored in: Immigrants get $3,256 in health benefits on average, compared to nonimmigrants, who average $3,873.42, according to this Florida International University study reported in today's Miami Herald.
04/06/2007 © Miami Herald
It has become the overriding medical legacy of the Iraq War and the top mission of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: mental health care. Of the more than 3,300 veterans returning home to South Florida from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past four years, 40 percent are seeking counseling and other psychiatric treatment.
04/05/2007 © Englewood Sun Herald
A bill that would allow pharmacists to give flu shots passed the House Healthcare Council 9-7 Wednesday. Advocates argued that the new law will improve access to immunizations, particularly for seniors. Opponents, including the Florida Medical Association, are concerned whether the bill provides enough safeguards.
04/04/2007 © Ft. Myers News-Press
Lee County officials voted unanimously Tuesday to award $2 million to the region's only publicly funded detox center. The $2 million from Lee commissioners to Southwest Florida Addiction Services is the largest amount of money received to date, said Kevin Lewis, CEO of the organization.
09/04/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
With new proposals circulating in both the Florida House and Senate, lawmakers have no excuse to let the no-fault automobile insurance law expire and chaos ensue. If lawmakers have any doubt about their obligations, they need only look at the growing confusion and alarm among motorists in the state.
07/26/2007 © Jacksonville-WTLV (NBC)
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- How many women feel beautiful while they're fighting cancer? How many men feel good about their looks during a battle with cancer? Some do. Most probably don't. But professional photographer Marie Moran says the journey through cancer is worth
06/29/2007 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
The following is by Cynthia B. Nash, executive director, and Larry Hobbs, president of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians
"The sky won't fall if lawmakers let PIP sunset," left you with a sense that all will be well if PIP sunsets, please take a minute to reconsider. Ask yourself what the one thing is you want most if you or a loved one has a medical emergency. For most of us, the answer is well-trained medical personnel available to provide care.
06/29/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
TALLAHASSEE - Florida's tax collections are down and may lead to a $1.2-billion shortfall. The deepening slump in revenue will force the state to welcome a new fiscal year this weekend with cost-cutting steps such as reducing travel and leaving vacant jobs unfilled, Gov. Charlie Crist said Thursday.
07/24/2007 © DeSoto Sun Herald
BARTOW -- Bartow city commissioners added their voice Monday night to a chorus of Bartowans urging Bartow Regional Medical Center to reconsider its decision to terminate obstetrics services on Saturday.
Their vote followed a protest earlier in the day at the hospital. See related Lakeland Ledger story.
02/22/2008 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Florida's child welfare workers soon will be carrying hand-held GPS devices, similar to ones carried by UPS employees to track packages, to electronically update case information during home visits. The touch-screen devices will track the length of time caseworkers spend with each family, and provide a photographic record of children in state care, officials said Thursday.
2/28/2008 © Gainesville Sun
Lingering drought has made headlines as Southeastern cities grapple with looming water shortages. But speakers at a University of Florida water symposium Wednesday said drought is just the most visible of emerging water-related problems that include the increasing intensity of red tide, water-borne diseases contaminating food, and pollutants in our lakes and springs that harm reproductive function.
2/5/2008 © St. Petersburg Times
Tampa Bay area doctors have a new tool to save brain cells and more of patients' ability to walk, talk and live independently after a stroke. Called the Penumbra System, the device sucks stroke-causing blood clots out of the brain. It's designed to restore blood flow, minimizing permanent damage.
2/4/2008 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
A godless minority will gather Saturday to celebrate the birthday of Charles Darwin and promote unconstrained scientific inquiry. More than 200 atheists are expected at Fern Forest Nature Preserve in Coconut Creek for Darwin Day, an international festival that celebrates the importance of scientific inquiry and the accomplishments of Darwin, who in 1838 brainstormed the theory of evolution by natural selection.
12 /24/2007 © Naples Daily News
The NCH Healthcare System and the largest cancer practice in Southwest Florida are putting aside differences to move forward with a more collaborative relationship that should result in a more streamlined approach toward patient care.
10/11/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
When it comes to stark white skeletons and bare bones, there might not be much to say. But the "Our Body: The Universe Within" exhibit at the Orlando Science Center is far from skeletal, and volunteer tour guide Dr. Darrell Shea, a retired orthopedic surgeon, uses his experience to flesh out the experience for visitors.
10/04/2007 © Palm Beach Post
It's almost that time again - open enrollment season. If you're fortunate enough to work for an employer who provides a benefits package, you've got some decisions to make soon. Do you change your medical plan?
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12/18/2008 © Florida Health News
Paul Duncan and his crew from University of Florida have put together a report on Florida's Medicaid Reform experiment that will leave practically everyone unsatisfied, he said. Most categories in the satisfaction survey show no meaningful differences post-Reform, he said, while those that do are contradictory. And the big question -- does it really save money? -- remains an enigma.
3/15/2008 © Central Florida News 13
Two people are hospitalized, and an Orlando hotel is closed as a precaution, following an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. Also read "Link to Orlando hotel suspected in two cases of Legionnaire's Disease" in the St. Petersburg Times.
4/8/2008 © Florida Health News
Personal information on thousands of Georgia Medicaid patients was accessible on the Internet for at least a week in late March because of a goof by a Web site developer, Tampa-based WellCare Health Plans acknowledged Monday.
4/17/08 © South Florida Business Journal
U.S. Rep. Ron Klein said Medicare should put the brakes on its durable medical equipment (DME) competitive bidding program before it devastates many South Florida DME suppliers and restricts access for seniors. The program is scheduled to start on July 1, when Medicare will only cover suppliers who accept the 262 contracts it offered across 10 DME categories.
Five days left to reconcile health plans for uninsured
4/28/2008 -- Gov. Charlie Crist and House Speaker Marco Rubio of West Miami have only five days left to reconcile differences in their health plans for coverage of 3.8 million uninsured Floridians; Rubio is preparing to scuttle the governor's plan if his isn't part of mix, the Miami Herald reports.
But that's only one of many contentious issues; today the Senate is expected to launch into a hot debate over whether a woman who wants an abortion should be forced to undergo an ultrasound -- and pay for it, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.
By Christine Jordan Sexton
5/1/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE—Florida lawmakers are using the budget to quietly move thousands of additional Medicaid patients into HMOs, marking the second straight year in which the Legislature has used the end-of-session budget frenzy to make changes that could benefit WellCare Health Plans and other corporate HMOs. Tucked deep inside the 2008 budget is a requirement to shift patients out of MediPass unless they specifically ask to be in it.
By Susan Jaffe
6/10/2008 © Florida Health News
WASHINGTON, D. C. – Ruth Kleiner of Delray Beach, who has emphysema, got a letter the other day from the company that delivers her portable oxygen tanks. She read it three times, but still
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wasn’t sure what to make of it.
She couldn't get through to Medicare, perhaps because 4 million other Medicare beneficiaries are also trying to figure out the payment system for medical equipment that will take effect in 10 metro areas -- including South Florida and metro Orlando -- July 1. Medicare officials say the point is simple: Stop over-paying. Save money.
Medicare price breaks in Orlando, So. FL, may not happen
6/18/2008 (c) Florida Health News
Medicare and its beneficiaries in South Florida and the Orlando area are supposed to begin receiving price breaks of 30 percent or more for wheelchairs, oxygen tanks and other durable medical equipment as of July 1. However, there's a really good chance that it won't happen, according to an FDA news bulletin. See our June 10 story on what taxpayers and beneficiaries could gain if it does happen.
06/27/2008 © Pensacola News Journal
Baptist Health Care announced a major change in the health care landscape in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties Thursday with its pending $245 million purchase of West Florida Hospital
The plan essentially moves Baptist Hospital and all of its acute care, inpatient and emergency room services to West Florida’s newer facilities, which would also be home to a new cancer center.
07/01/2008 © Miami Herald
Federal officials say a new program to stop fraud in medical equipment sales should result in an average savings of 30 percent to Medicare beneficiaries for oxygen, power wheelchairs and other items. The program, which launches Tuesday in South Florida and other areas nationwide, will drastically reduce the number of suppliers and the types of equipment Medicare will buy.
As reported recently by Florida Health News , the savings in the Miami-Dade and Orlando areas could be as much as 42 percent for diabetic supplies and 35 percent for an oxygen concentrator. More details on what's covered are in Medicare's new Durable Equipment and Supplies brochure.
11/06/2007 © Tampa Tribune
When the last state administration rolled out a Medicaid reform plan in 2005, proponents painted a bright picture of choice, quality and cost containment. As the Tribune noted ("Weakness in Medicaid Reform Portends No Expansion," Our Opinion, Oct. 28), the bright claims now ring hollow.
11/20/2007 © Tampa Tribune
Some of our jails are little more than psychiatric warehouses offering unhappy doses of human misery. But that should change if the Legislature approves a smart and ambitious plan to help current inmates re-enter society and help other mentally sick people avoid ever darkening the prison doorway.
See also Tallahassee Democrat editorial, Mental health court worth pursuing.
11/13/2007 © Gainesville Sun
Children born today are 33 percent more likely to be premature than their parents were, and this year more than 500,000 babies will become part of the epidemic, according to Lynda Knight, executive director of the March of Dimes North Central Florida division. Not all babies will survive, and of the ones who do, 25 percent will have lifelong complications, she said.
10/18/2007 © Pensacola News Journal
The drug-resistant infection plaguing the Escambia County Jail is a serious problem. As we reported Wednesday, health experts say nationwide deaths from the "superbug" could exceed the toll from AIDS.
10/30/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
Although some parents worry about strangers or poisoned candy, the biggest cause of injury and death to children on Halloween is traffic crashes, according to the Leon County Sheriff's Office. To minimize the risk of getting hit by a car, children should wear reflective tape and carry a flashlight.
10/25/2007 © Florida Times-Union
PSS World Medical Inc.'s profits for its fiscal second quarter rose about 13 percent, buoyed by robust sales. The Jacksonville-based medical distribution firm reported quarterly earnings of $14.5 million, or 22 cents a share, for the quarter that ended Sept. 28, up from $12.8 million, or 18 cents a share, in the same period a year ago.
09/22/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
This commentary is by Mark Fontaine, executive director of the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association.
While research clearly shows that substance abuse treatment saves medical and emergency room costs, the insurance industry continues to oppose parity legislation so that substance abuse is not treated as all other chronic medical conditions, making recovery a difficult and costly proposition for those who seek treatment.
07/19/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
If you have school-age children, it's time to start thinking about scheduling an appointment for shots. All Florida school students, public and private, must have up-to-date immunizations.
07/17/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
Millions more American children without health insurance could get coverage under a fiscally responsible plan from a bipartisan group of senators. Congress shouldn't let it be snuffed out by a veto threat from President George W. Bush.
08/23/2007 © Florida Times-Union
Instead of reducing rates paid to providers, such as hospitals, physicians and nursing homes, this writer suggests a more effective cost-reduction approach would be to make sure Medicaid benefits, in particular nursing home benefits, are paid for the benefit of the poorest of the poor, not just anyone who qualifies.
08/30/2007 © Clewiston News
PAHOKEE -- Hoping to provide some relief from the closing of Pahokee’s Everglades Hospital in the 1990s, Florida Community Health Centers Inc. has opened a new community health center for local residents. The facility was made possible through funding provided by the Health Care District of Palm Beach County.
08/30/2007 © Jacksonville Business Journal
Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink has set up a "Life Without No-Fault" link on her office's Web site, myfloridacfo.com. The site contains answers to frequently asked questions and definitions of common insurance terms. "The best advice we can give to consumers is to purchase enough auto insurance coverage to provide proper medical treatment for themselves and their families," Sink said.
04/06/2007 © Daytona Beach News-Journal
While the state has managed to increase reimbursement in recent years to hospitals, nursing homes, physicians, developmental disability providers, privatized child welfare agencies, juvenile justice providers and others, community mental health agencies like Act have been left behind and have not had substantial cost of living adjustments since the 1980s.
04/01/2007 © Palm Beach Post
Dr. Robert G. Carlson is a bold cardiac surgeon given to operating on still-beating hearts; a fitness-focused Eagle Scout and a two-time Ironman. His birth certificate says 50, but his good looks shout 35. He has all the trappings of a successful surgical practice - a $2.6 million mansion and a stable for the horses prized by wife No. 3. Yet today, it's all at risk. Carlson is accused of lending his license and his good name to....
03/29/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
CLEARWATER - At exactly 3 p.m. Wednesday, the city put a padlock on Papa Steve's dream. Citing a list of fire and building code violations - including padlocked exit doors, exposed wiring and a malfunctioning fire alarm system - officials shut down the dilapidated halfway house Steve Kautz's nonprofit organization runs to help men overcome drug and alcohol addictions.
05/17/2007 © Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - When they passed Amendment 7 in November 2004, Florida voters made one thing abundantly clear: They wanted access to hospital reports about serious mistakes. Yet 2 ½ years after passage of the "Patients' Right to Know," the reports remain secret.
By Carol Gentry
1/4/2009 © Florida Health News
Medicare officials have ordered Citrus Health Care to stop marketing and enrolling new members because of a “pattern of widespread deficiencies in its administration and operations” brought on, in part, by financial problems. One no-no that Citrus committed: dropping some of the sicker, higher-cost "special needs" members from its plans. The Tampa-based company has brought back its former CEO in hopes of a quick fix.
By Carol Gentry
10/31/2008 © Florida Health News
Independent sales agents for Medicare plans, already miffed over strict new federal rules that won’t permit them to call beneficiaries, give them a free lunch or use other marketing methods of the past, are in high-fret mode at the prospect that their 2009 commissions will be slashed – maybe today. Just a few weeks ago they were being offered as much as $2,500 or $3,000 over five or six years for enrolling a beneficiary in a plan; now they think it will be less than half that much.
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9/5/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Worried about a pending ruling from Florida’s high court, the state’s top business association is readying a campaign to change how injured workers receive their health care benefits. Barney Bishop, president of Associated Industries of Florida, said he expects the cap on attorneys' fees to be overturned, which means his team of lobbyists will seek help from the Legislature.
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7/16/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- In a move to get more of their unpaid bills covered by Medicaid, dozens of Florida hospitals have agreed to subsidize the salaries of temporary state workers who have authority to determine patients’ eligibility. The Legislative Budget Commission approved the unusual addition to the state's ACCESS program, directed by Jennifer Lange, because of the growing backlog of applications for assistance. Also, St. Petersburg Times reports on reason for delays in disability hearings.
07/01/2008 © Tallahassee-WCTV (CBS)
TALLAHASSEE, FL – The state has won a final judgment for $8.5 million against two owners of a company that was selling policies for personal care services to senior Floridians, but failed to pay most claims. Homeward Bound Services of North America, Inc. stopped writing business in Florida after the lawsuit was filed by Attorney General Bill McCollum.
By Carol Gentry
6/17/2008 © Florida Health News
In a federal crackdown Tuesday on what it called “online cancer fraud,” the Food and Drug Administration released the names of suspected violators who have received warning letters, including two in Florida: Karyl Sellinger of Herb Time in St. Augustine and Mark Rosenberg of the Institute for Healthy Aging in Delray Beach.
Drug plan prices up an average 16%; some rise over 50%
6/5/2008 (c) Florida Health News
A study out today finds seniors in the 10 largest drug plans are paying an average of 16 percent more than last year. Some went up more than 50 percent, including plans offered by AARP and UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Tampa-based WellCare. The study is by Avalere Health; see Los Angeles Times coverage.
Budget deal takes almost $1 billion from health programs
4/28/2008 -- On Sunday afternoon, after a weekend behind closed doors, negotiators reached a deal on a budget of around $65 million that includes nearly $1 billion in cuts to hospitals, health maintenance organizations and nursing homes that treat the poor and elderly. Republicans refused to boost funding for adoption of children in foster care but kept the anti-abortion hotline going, the Miami Herald reported. Legislators restored funding for the old A.G. Holley Hospital in Lantana, the nation's last tuberculosis hospital, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
3/10/2008 © Tallahassee Democrat
Tallahassee's spray field is harming the health of Wakulla Springs, but it also prevents pharmaceutical products in wastewater from getting into the region's water supply, scientists say. The city’s water quality manager commented after AP reported that the water supplies of 24 major cities had been contaminated with antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals.
03/14/2008 © Lakeland Ledger
Polk County's health-care programs for the uninsured must take some hard hits to avoid going $10.3 million in the red, the volunteer Citizens Oversight Committee voted unanimously Thursday.
05/17/2007 © Bradenton Herald
BRADENTON -- After being briefed today on Manatee County's uncompensated health care crisis, state Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, said he is willing to sponsor legislation to give county commissioners the authority to adopt a half-cent health care tax without taking the proposal to voters.
03/29/2007 © Gainesville Sun
A former manager of a Florida-based business admitted selling illicit prescription drugs Wednesday and agreed to help prosecutors in upstate New York pursue a multistate investigation into the illegal sale of steroids. Aaron J. Peterson, 30, of Delray Beach, Fla., pleaded guilty to criminal diversion of prescription medication. Under a plea agreement, he will be sentenced May 16 to five years' probation, and pay...
04/15/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
It doesn't take Audrey Nazworth long to explain why she decided on a private Medicare plan: It costs her far less than government Medicare, and it gives her more in the way of health benefits.
04/05/2007 © Bradenton Herald
TALLAHASSEE - The chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court has appointed a Miami-Dade County judge to serve as a special adviser on how to keep mentally ill people out of the criminal justice system and ensure those who are incarcerated are treated properly.
Judge Steve Leifman's goal will be to find ways to prevent repeat criminals, find appropriate treatment for mentally ill offenders while in custody and to help...
03/25/2007 © Palm Beach Post
He had a Florida medical license, a drug-prescribing number and a résumé that showed all the right degrees. With his fabricated papers in order, the undercover cop from New York penetrated a steroid enterprise whose Internet-pumped arms may have reached from Boca Raton to Albany, pulling in teenagers, middle-aged people who wanted to feel like teenagers and pro athletes.
08/30/2007 © WMBB ABC 13 Panama City
Panama City, FL-- $333,000 will help Gulf Coast and Bay Medical Centers train and hire new and existing employees. The Gulf Coast Workforce Board presented the check to CEOs from both medical centers Wednesday.
07/29/2007 © Miami Herald
Baptist Hospital has dropped out of contention to be affiliated with FIU's new medical school, throwing wide open what could become a major battle among Miami-Dade hospitals.
07/19/2007 © Tampa Tribune
Here's the most important thing to remember about the sad plight of Robert Burrell, who spent a year in jail although charges against him were long, long, long ago dropped. Everybody feels simply terrible about what happened. There's even some room for being appalled.
Tenet announces pending sale of North Ridge Medical Center
2/1/2008 © Modern HealthCare
Tenet Healthcare Corp. announced Friday that a company subsidiary signed a definitive agreement to sell North Ridge Medical Center to Holy Cross Hospital. Both hospitals are in Fort Lauderdale.
12/26/2007 © Florida Times-Union
TALLAHASSEE - State and federal officials have a belated Christmas gift for Northeast Florida veterans this year: An end to the torturous, two-year-long saga of a veterans nursing home in St. Johns County.
09/23/2007© St. Petersburg Times
An oversight by the Hernando County School District personnel office jeopardized the health of more than 900 children at Deltona Elementary School during the 2006-07 school year. The lapse was unacceptable and avoidable, and the district needs to take immediate steps to prevent a recurrence.
10/30/2007 © Stuart News
VERO BEACH — A doctor told Gwen Gillespie in July 2004 that she had six months to live. Gillespie raised cash by selling an R.A. McLendon painting back to the famous Highwayman artist and hit the road in a motor home she’d bought on time.
10/30/2007 © St. Petersburg Times
This commentary is by Peter Nehr, a state representative from Tarpon Springs.
I believe in a business' right to make a profit. But nursing homes should not be just another investment opportunity; they should be a safe haven for our loved ones. Buying Manor Care nursing homes means taking on the responsibility of caring for our mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers.
10/21/2007 © Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - In July 2002, a new Florida law made lying about visiting children in state care a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. In the five years since, only seven people have been convicted.
10/20/2007 © Palm Beach Post
A husband and wife charged with kidnapping and financially exploiting a 93-year-old neighbor and leaving her in Poland were allowed to walk out of the county jail on Friday, each freed on $160,000 bond.
11/06/2007 © Ft. Myers News-Press
This commentary is by Glee Duff, chairman of the board of Good Wheels Inc.
Transportation for those needing life-sustaining health services is in serious jeopardy in our county due to pending Medicaid cuts. I'm sure you've all seen the familiar, well-maintained blue-and-white Good Wheels vehicles driving throughout our county. But are you aware of exactly who the passengers are and who makes their transportation possible?
Opinion Round-up
3/11/2008 © Florida Health News
The Miami Herald says the Legislature should take care not to hurt the elderly and poor in budget cuts. The Tampa Tribune reminds legislators to keep the promises they made on nursing-home staffing levels. The Palm Beach Post questions whether taxpayers’ massive investment in The Scripps Research Institute will pay off. And in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, a trial lawyer says the insurance industry, not the legal system, is what’s hurting doctors.
3/31/2008 © Palm Beach Post
Governments can make good policy decisions for the wrong reasons. A decision by the Legislature to increase the state cigarette tax by $1 a pack would be a case in point.
Opinion Round-up
3/24/2008 © Florida Health News
The Tampa Tribune said that hospital budget cuts will destroy health care, and the Orlando Sentinel said child abuse and neglect are consequences of a slow economy. Also, the Daytona Beach News-Journal said that when Florida emergency rooms denied rape victims emergency contraception, they were being victimized further by politics.
Hospital profits sag under weight of uninsured
5/7/2008 -- Florida hospitals, which have to treat patients who can't pay, find themselves in a predicament. Privately insured patients pay more than $3,000 extra per stay to cover costs of the uninsured, a report issued by the Florida Hospital Association says. The Palm Beach Post reports on lower first-quarter earnings for the state’s major for-profit chains. And Naples Daily News reports that Health Management Associates faces a fight over board membership because of “abysmal shareholder returns.”
06/28/2008 © Miami Herald
TALLAHASSEE -- Beach closures like the ones announced in Miami-Dade this week will continue throughout Florida as long as state and local governments continue to use the state's coastal waters as a toilet, according to a two-year study of wastewater treatment facilities by the Clean Water Network.
07/01/2008 © Miramar WTVJ NBC (CH 6)
MIAMI – Four Miami women who developed potentially life-threatening blood clots while taking so-called “third-generation” birth control bills want to make women and their doctors more aware of the risks involved with the medication.
7/29/2008 © Florida Today
At 43, Tallahassee homemaker Gena Grant is unemployed and raising two young children on her own. But because of Florida's KidCare program, she can get medical care for her 6-year-old daughter, Dreamer, and her 8-year-old son, Timothy. Grant attended a Capitol press conference Monday with her kids to help bolster awareness of the state-federal program that provides no-cost or low-cost insurance to thousands of needy children. Lawmakers added 38,000 slots to the program this spring. Yet, many families aren't taking advantage of the program and in Volusia County, enrollment in KidCare has dropped, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
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By Carol Gentry
8/21/2008 © Florida Health News
Florida's Healthy Kids Corp. is cutting back its business with WellCare Health Plans Inc. in the contract year that begins Oct. 1, offering the company's HMOs in 11 fewer counties and reducing enrollment by 22,000 from the current 78,000, said Rich Robleto, executive director of Healthy Kids. It's just a coincidence that the recontracting is happening at the same time that WellCare has admitted holding back millions of dollars that should have been repaid to both Florida Medicaid and Healthy Kids, he said. All seven companies that contract with Healthy Kids will face stiffer penalties if they under-spend on patient care in the new contracts, Robleto said.
By Carol Gentry
8/22/2008 © Florida Health News
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Some of the heaviest hitters in Washington are scheduled to convene in Orlando in mid-September to engage in "high-level dialogue" with private-sector
powerbrokers on the crisis in health-care access, cost and quality. "It will not only make news -- it will make a difference," organizers say. Maybe. For sure, it will make for good politics. Both Presidential campaigns are sending representatives, and there may even be an appearance by the candidates themselves.
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9/11/2008 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Rep. Bill Galvano, who has played a leading role on health issues in the House for the past two years, will run the powerful Rules and Calendar Committee for the upcoming legislative session. He had been considered a frontrunner to chair the health and human services appropriations committee, but the Rules appointment makes that less likely.
New FL rule bars 'unfair' treatment of small companies
10/29/2008 Florida Health News
Florida's Financial Services Commission -- the Governor and Cabinet wearing different hats -- adopted a change in state insurance rules on Tuesday that requires health insurers to treat all companies with 2 to 50 employees, the "small group" market, the same in filling out forms and setting rates. (See Florida Health News' August story on this issue.)
10/21/2007 © Florida Times-Union
The death of a gifted artist and Jacksonville University professor Brad Silverstein leaves his widow with lingering questions about the medical treatment of depression, including the popular medication he was taking for his chronic depression.
09/22/2007 © Florida Keys Keynoter
Every so often, I read or hear about a policy debate that seems so removed from reality that it stops me short in my tracks. That happened this week when I watched President Bush vow to veto funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which is known as SCHIP.
10/04/2007 © Orlando Sentinel
President Bush's veto of a plan to spend more on a vital health-insurance program for children was unfortunate. But it could quickly become tragic if the White House and Congress can't put election-year politics aside and reach a compromise.
07/23/2007 © Ft. Myers-WBBH (NBC)
NAPLES -- Overworked and unhappy. Naples Community Hospital nurses say that enough is enough and it is time for a change. Some of the nurses at the hospital feel that they are not being heard and that unionizing may be the answer to a more fair workplace.
06/28/2007 © Jacksonville-WJXT (CBS)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Aetna medical insurance announced on Tuesday that it has reached a new multiyear agreement with the Baptist Health System. The current agreement was scheduled to expire Saturday.
09/03/2007 © Tallahassee Democrat
As the 42nd president of the Florida Academy of Family Physicians, Dr, Cyneetha Strong will battle some of the major issues weighing down Florida's health-care industry -- thanks to her new job.
03/27/2007 © Leesburg Daily Commercial
THE VILLAGES - Glenn Boyles, pharmacy manager at The Villages Regional Hospital, sees big advantages with new equipment slated for the pharmacy. The hospital is upgrading technology so its pharmacists can help patients as TVRH continues to grow in the coming year, hospital officials said. POMS, or the pharmacy order management system, provides improved order tracking, storing and retrieval.
04/12/07 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Like thousands of other Medicare recipients in South Florida, Sunrise widow Janet Skurnick i
