Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
UPMC Pays $2.5M To Settle Overbilling Charges In Federal Whistleblower Lawsuit
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has paid $2.5 million to settle some claims in a federal whistleblower lawsuit accusing the hospital network of overbilling government insurance programs for neurosurgery. UPMC, Pennsylvania's largest private employer with 60,000 workers, didn't acknowledge wrongdoing in the settlement announced Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Pittsburgh. The nonprofit reported $12 billion in revenue last year. (7/27)
A state watchdog agency on Wednesday signaled its support for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center鈥檚 plan for closer ties with two hospitals, part of the health system鈥檚 effort to compete more aggressively against Partners HealthCare and other providers. Beth Israel Deaconess is seeking a clinical affiliation with MetroWest Medical Center, which would allow it to expand specialty medical services at MetroWest while gaining a new source of patient referrals from the Framingham-based hospital. It also wants to add MetroWest and New England Baptist Hospital to its affiliated network of health care providers that negotiates contracts with insurers. (McCluskey, 7/27)
Riddle Hospital, part of Main Line Health, said it will receive a $16 million gift, the largest since the Delaware County hospital opened in 1963 and the largest gift in the Main Line system in the last 10 years. The money is from a trust created by John Bancker Gribbel who died in 1947 after being a long-time patient of Charles H. Schoff, who founded Riddle's predecessor, Media Hospital, in 1909, Main Line said Wednesday. (Brubaker, 7/27)
Most of Steve Kenan was laid to rest in St. Petersburg after his unexpected death in 2013. But not his heart. That organ, preserved in formaldehyde, has traveled more than 1,000 miles to be studied by pathologists in three states. So far, they can鈥檛 agree on what killed him; was it his chronic heart condition or a medical mistake? It鈥檚 an important question to St. Anthony鈥檚 Hospital, where Kenan died three hours after undergoing a non-emergency procedure that drained liquid from his chest. (Gentry, 7/28)
