National Headlines
Upcoming Events
Sixth Annual Caribbean Health Summit
Sept. 6, 8 a.m. – 2 p.m., Orlando
Central Florida Fairgrounds & Exposition Park
For details,call (407)648-9440, extension 10, 14 or 16, or visit website
Tobacco Education and Use Prevention Advisory Council Meeting
Sept. 8, 9 a.m.- 4 p.m. Tallahassee
Department of Health
For details, visit the Council website
Board of Medicine Probable Cause Panel- South
September 12, 2 p.m.
Conference Call: (888) 808-6959
Code: 2454131
Contact: Trisha L. Grubbs at (850) 245-4640, ext. 8145 or by e-mail.
100 Ideas Foundation Statewide Policy Discussion on Autism & Developmental Disabilities
September 15-16, Orlando
Portofino Bay Hotel
For details, visit the web site
Division of Medical Quality Assurance Public Meeting
Sept. 17, 8:30 a.m. – 12 Noon, Tallahassee
Betty Easley Conf. Center, Rm. 152
Contact: Cassandra Pasley, (850) 245-4224
Underwriting Association (FJMMUA) Board meeting
Sept. 16-17, 4 p.m., Tampa
Saddlebrook Resort
America’s Health Care at Risk: Finding a Cure
Sept. 17-18, Orlando
Orlando International Airport Hyatt Regency
For details, visit the web site
National Psychoneuroimmunology Conference
Sept. 18-21, Tampa
Saddlebrook Resort
Contact Susanna Martinez by email or at (813) 974-2776
Low Income Pool (LIP) Council Meeting
Sept. 19, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., Tampa
Tampa International Airport
Conference Call: 888-808-6959, Code: 4138067
Contact Edwin Stevens by email or at (850)414-2759 or visit the LIP web site
Dialogue on Health Across Cultures: A Workshop on Cultural Competency in Cancer Care for South Florida
September 20, Ft. Lauderdale
Nova Southeastern University
More info: MGonzalez16@med.miami.edu or 305-243-4821
Board of Medicine Probable Cause Panel- North
September 26, 2 p.m.
Conference Call: (888) 808-6959, Code: 2454131
Contact: Joyce Blackwell at (850) 245-4640, ext. 8142 or e-mail her
National Academy State Health Policy Conference
October 5-7,Tampa
Marriott Waterside Hotel and Marina
Viist web site for details
Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Medicaid Reform in Florida: Year 2
October 15, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.,Tampa
Marriott Tampa Airport
Contact Jennifer Thompson by email or at 202-687-2471 |
Top Story
By Carol Gentry and Christine Jordan Sexton 8/27/2008 © Florida Health News
Breaking news: Three companies that together cover 60 percent of the Medicaid patients enrolled in a pilot project called "Medicaid Reform" have notified the state that they are pulling out on Dec. 1 and have asked to be assigned no more members. The actions follow the state's decision to reduce payments by 5 percent on Sept. 1. 
 By Christine Jordan Sexton
8/27/2008 © Florida Health News
So often, when there’s good news about health costs or coverage, Florida misses out. It happened again Tuesday with the release of survey data by the U.S. Census Bureau. Nationally, the percentage and number of people without health insurance dropped last year, but the trend skipped over this state.
8/27/2008 (from news release)
The Office of Insurance Regulation announced Wednesday that the rate request for workers' compensation insurance in Florida for next year is 14 percent lower than the current rate. If approved, the rate drop will be the sixth in a row, reflecting reforms enacted by the Legislature in 2003.
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| Lawrence |
8/27/2008 Miami Herald
A taxpayer-financed fund for children that generates about $100 million a year won permanent status in a lopsided favorable vote in Miami-Dade on Tuesday. The Children's Trust provides a range of programs for tens of thousands of children, including health awareness, nonviolence training, counseling and a 24-hour helpline. David Lawrence, chair of the Trust executive board, said it will put a nurse in every school in the county within three years. (Disclosure: Lawrence is also a board member for Florida Health News).
8/25/2008 © Miami Herald
Heart surgeon Don Williams didn't mince words when he left Mount Sinai Medical Center several weeks ago. His scathing letter to the board called CEO Steven Sonenreich overpaid and "ruthless" and described the hospital itself as "filthy." Sonenreich says the personal criticism is unfair, and some doctors who have left say the real problem is the changing demographics of Miami Beach.
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| Schreiber |
8/27/2008 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Plastic surgeon Mark Schreiber of Boynton Beach was suspended from medical practice three times in the past decade and was the subject of numerous complaints to the state, yet he continued to see patients. That drew a two-year prison sentence Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to four counts of practicing medicine without a license.
8/27/2008 © Miami Herald
Jonas Read and Austin Pence had been friends since they were 3. So when Pence needed a kidney, his friend of 19 years felt it was his "moral obligation" to give him one of his.
8/27/2008 © Tampa Tribune
Gianna Colucci was excited about starting middle school this year until she was told by a school worker that she would be suspended for carrying her asthma inhaler with her.
8/27/2008 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
A settlement approved by Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey Streitfeld will provide $1,000 compensation to anyone who was strip-searched by Broward deputies after arrests on minor crimes like trespassing and public drunkenness between December 1998 and October 2007. But the attorneys stand to receive more than the total paid out to those searched.
8/27/2008 © Miami Herald
The ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee overseeing Medicare, Sen. Chuck Grassley, is demanding a ''full accounting'' of how the agency underestimated the extent of fraud, abuse and waste in a 2006 audit of the medical equipment industry. An inspector general's report released earlier this week said the errors cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year in phony orders for power scooters and wheelchairs and other pricey medical equipment.
8/26/2008 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Patients accustomed to paying their share of the cost following a hospital stay may get a shock: Some hospitals want their to pay upfront and won't do the procedures until they get the cash.
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Miller
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8/26/2008 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Rodney E. Miller Sr. was already a star in the health-care business when he arrived in Broward County 10 months ago, a brilliant young administrator who turned hospitals around. But he had a lot to hide, if the U.S. Inspector General's Office is correct. He will be arraigned this week in the Virgin Islands.
8/26/2008 © Orlando Sentinel
Florida plastic surgeons and bioethicists say they're not comfortable with the idea of women raising money for breast implant surgery through a Web site, MyFreeImplants.com. There, women share risque photos and videos and their benefactors send money for the site to bank on their behalf -- money that will go to the surgeon.
8/26/2008 © St. Petersburg Times
When federal investigators visited Tampa General following the suicides of two patients within three days, they found at least five patients had to sleep in the hallway of the psychiatric unit so they all could be watched by one person. The team said it raised questions about staffing and management. Also, the Miami Herald reports on concerns about foster children being treated for mental illnesses being placed in restraints.
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Bernal
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8/26/2008 © South Florida Sun- Sentinel
When police pulled up to the storage unit in Palm Springs, they say, they found Juan Bernal, 71, with a light attached to his head, leaning over a patient in a reclining dental chair. Nearby were a syringe filled with lidocaine smuggled in from Colombia, dental tools and a trash can filled with bloodied gauze. Bernal said he didn't do it to make money, but to help people. He told WPTV-Ch. 5: "I tried to get a license here and it cost too much money."
8/26/2008 © Miami Herald
Most of the patients physician-in-training Christopher Dodd tends to don't have health insurance. But he doesn't mind. He marries his love of medicine with a social conscience by attending one of only four social residency programs in the country at University of Miami. Also read about a protest of the cancellation of Miami Dade College's midwifery program.
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| Duncan |
Reporters and editors, you can't beat the price on this one: The Foundation for American Communications will offer a seminar for journalists on Florida health care and health insurance on Tuesday, Sept. 16 at the Orlando Sentinel. Lead speaker is Paul Duncan, chair of the Department of Health Services Research, Management & Policy at UF. It's free if you register.
If you’re old enough to remember Harry and Louise, brace yourself: The fictitious couple in political TV ads who torpedoed the nation’s last serious attempt at health-care reform in 1993-94, are back. Last time, they were on the payroll of the health-insurance industry. This time, they’re begging public officials to fix the mess that they defended last time. Do they have no shame? Read "I Still Hate Harry and Louise" in Slate.
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Tim Collie
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" Erosion of the capital press corps creates concern," by free-lancer Tim Collie, is worth a look if you missed it last week. So is his first article for Florida Health News: "Who will cover health issues if reporters are gone?" Collie worked for The South Florida Sun-Sentinel until a few weeks ago. His stories raise the question: What happens when there are no watchdogs left to bark?
Florida Health News, a non-profit, public-interest journalism organization, has agreed to permit bona fide metro and community newspapers to republish our original articles, with proper credit, at no charge (See our previous articles at the tab "Our Stories"). We have taken this action because of the crisis in newsrooms that has forced cutbacks in coverage of important health issues. For permission and details, contact me. -- Carol Gentry, Editor.
If you want to bone up on the Presidential candidates' health plans, here's an even-handed, well-informed analysis: the Health Care Policy and Marketplace Blog by insurance analyst Robert Laszewski.
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