Â鶹ŮÓÅ

The two federal prosecutors were skeptical. They weren't sure what to believe when they first saw whistle-blowers' allegations that 1,300 hospitals across the country had submitted false claims to Medicare for inappropriately implanting heart devices. ... The pair didn't know then that the case over implantable cardioverter defibrillators would consume the next eight years of their lives with them consistently working 80-hour weeks and crisscrossing the country leading a team that pored through more than 10,000 patient charts. Ultimately, more than 500 hospitals settled with the government for more than $280 million. (Schencker, 5/28)

After the first for-profit hospital chain began operating in Nashville in the late 1960s, not-for-profit hospital leaders feared companies such as Hospital Corporation of America and other for-profit upstarts were coming to take over their world. Today, those fears are a distant memory. (Meyer, 5/28)

Two federal agencies have reached an accord to maintain a key federal funding source for a government hospital found to be in "immediate jeopardy" this week. An Indian Health Service spokeswoman said Saturday morning that the agency had submitted a plan of correction for the Rapid City - Sioux San IHS hospital which was approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Friday. (Ferguson, 5/28)

Services for the elderly and people with disabilities are just about the only things that are fully funded in the latest version of the Louisiana state budget. Hospitals set up for the poor and uninsured, the TOPS scholarship program, prisons, public schools, public universities, medical schools, child welfare services and several other government services are still short money in the latest state financing plan. (O'Donoghue, 5/30)

On the heels of a report warning that more than a third of the nation’s critical access hospitals are in danger of closure comes some encouraging news. A new study indicates certain procedures are being performed in these small hospitals more safely and at a lower cost than in larger institutions. (Sisk, 5/27)

When leaders of Nashville General Hospital told city leaders they needed millions of dollars more than initially anticipated, many in the public seemed to choke at the idea of throwing more money at the already heavily subsidized hospital. But that request, and especially the angry reaction to it, is emblematic of a lack of attention paid, both by lawmakers and the community at large, to North Nashville, said Metro Councilwoman Erica Gilmore and her mother, state Rep. Brenda Gilmore. (Boucher, 5/30)

When a surgical technician named Rocky Elbert Allen was accused in February of stealing drugs from a Denver-area hospital, it was the sort of news that ended up in a police blotter. But as investigators began combing through the 28-year-old former Navy operating-room tech’s past, they say, what emerged was a startling, five-year trail of inside drug thefts at hospitals across the West, the story of a man who was fired repeatedly yet was somehow able to talk his way back into employment – and, authorities say, more drugs. (Anderson, 5/29)