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By Christine Jordan Sexton and Carol Gentry
1/6/2009 © Florida Health News
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida’s ambitious effort to help lower the state’s number of uninsured has gotten off to a bumpy start. On opening day, Monday, the Cover Florida program Web site had no phone numbers or links to application forms. And in an embarrassing gaffe, Gov. Charlie Crist’s office sent out a press release saying the information was up when it wasn't. By Tuesday, information was beginning to appear, but the delays remained unexplained. 
 1/06/2008 © Orlando Sentinel
With signs that the state's economy continues to deteriorate, legislators on Monday sharply deepened the third round of spending cuts to the existing budget. They also proposed increasing speeding fines by $25 per violation. Some areas that are likely to be cut as talks resume today: nursing homes, hospices, AIDS care and prevention, and hospital reimbursement.
1/06/2008 © New York Times
Should patients be told of better care elsewhere? They should, according to an article in the journal PLoS Medicine co-authored by cancer surgeon Leonidas G. Koniaris of the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami. Doctors have an ethical obligation to tell patients if they are more likely to survive, be cured, live longer or avoid complications by going to Hospital A instead of Hospital B, he said.
1/06/2008 © Miami Herald
Capping a four-year investigation, the U.S. attorney's office has indicted two Fort Lauderdale lawyers and the top executives of now-defunct Mutual Benefits, which sold bogus life insurance policies on AIDS patients and the elderly to unwitting investors. Prosecutors allege CEO Joel Steinger hired doctors who falsely said patients were near death so the company could sell low-value policies at a higher price. It was a kind of Ponzi scheme, they said.
1/06/2008 © Miami Herald
Those who work in hospitals' housekeeping departments do important work, but usually don't get rich. One who did was Sylvia Oramas of Kendall Regional Medical Center. On Monday, a federal judge named her as one of the two ringleaders in a $7-million fraud conspiracy involving resold medical supplies. Jorge de Céspedes, the No. 2 official at Pharmed, was named as the other.
1/6/2009 © Jupiter Courier
Robert M. Rozenti, 68, of Port St. Lucie was charged Sunday with neglecting his 90-year-old mother, for whom he had power of attorney. His side of the house they shared was clean while hers was covered in feces, police said. She was emaciated and her shoes had not been removed for so long that they had "grown into her feet," according to the police report. Rozenti said his mother preferred to care for herself.
By Carol Gentry
1/5/2009 © Florida Health News
Enrollment for Cover Florida, the state-sponsored program to make limited coverage available to the state’s millions of uninsured residents, opened on Monday, but at the end of the day the links for applications and phone numbers to call with questions were nowhere to be found on the state's Cover Florida Web site. (Update: Some phone numbers appeared early Tuesday).
 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.
1/3/2009 © Miami Herald
In a dramatic Christmas Eve raid of a Miami maternity clinic, 20 state and federal agents carried off 500 patient records and both frozen and dehydrated placentas for analysis. State health officials accused the clinic of using the tissue to make illegal pills; owner Shari Daniels denied the accusations and called the raid "Big Brother at its worst."
1/5/2009 © St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald
Florida legislators will start the new year in familiar fashion: by cutting aid, borrowing money, skimming cash surpluses and hiking traffic and court fees to patch a $2.3-billion hole in a leaky state budget. Legislators may borrow $600 million from a health care fund.
1/04/2008 © News-Press Capital Bureau
Under a new law that took effect Jan. 1, hospitals must give uninsured Floridians a copy of their charity care policy and a good-faith estimate of the charges for an elective procedure ahead of time, if requested. They must post signs telling patients how to obtain the information. Also, the Agency for Health Care Administration has to develop a list of those hospital charges for 150 common procedures and post them on the Internet.
 1/1/2009 © Miami Herald
The number of Cuban immigrants who have fleeced U.S. taxpayers and then fled back to their home island, beyond the reach of U.S. prosecutors, has now risen to about 60. The latest is Alcides Garcia, charged with submitting $10.7 million in false Medicare claims for powered air mattresses, feeding pumps and other medical equipment that was never provided to patients.
1/5/2009 © Amednews.com
A five-year pilot Medicaid reform begun in Broward and Duval counties during 2006 to improve care access and quality has not yet lived up to its expectations, according to some physicians. The project offers financial rewards to patients who access preventive care, but some physicians are considering dropping out rather than deal with the hassles.
1/1/2009 © St. Petersburg Times
Paula O'Conner and her 15-month-old son Alijah were found strangled in their St. Petersburg home in July 2007 after she sued an Air Force sergeant to prove paternity, receive child support and get military benefits to cover more than $100,000 in medical bills. Sgt. Ralph "Ron" Wright Jr. denied being the father, and police couldn't prove he was. Until he cut himself.
 1/1/2009 © Miami Herald
Miami boasts a sky-high rate of luxury cars, gym memberships, and plastic surgery. Its people were recently voted the nation's best-looking, but among the least friendly. Columnist Daniel Shoer Roth discusses the reasons for and effects of a culture where the "perfect look" is all that matters.
1/05/2009 © Bradenton Herald
Bailey Locklear is legally blind because of optic nerve hypoplasia, a congenital disorder. At present no treatment for the disorder has been okayed in the U.S. So the 8-year-old Lakeland girl and her mom are traveling to Thailand for an experimental protocol using stem-cell injections.
12/30/2008 © South Florida Sun-Sentinel
About 500 medical equipment businesses have lost the right to bill Medicare after inspectors found they failed to meet basic rules, such as having an address, a federal official says. More than 100 medical business operators in South Florida have been jailed for false billings.
1/04/2008 © The Associated Press
MIAMI -- Medicare fraud is so prevalent among medical-equipment suppliers, especially in Florida, that the government has decided to enforce a 12-year-old law requiring them to post a surety bond that would pay the government up to $50,000 if they engage in fraud. The bond will cost each company about $1,500, which the industry warns will be a burden to legitimate companies.
1/04/2009 © Florida Times-Union
Michael Hollahan had good health insurance before AOL closed its Jacksonville call center in 2006, putting him and 1,500 others out of work. Within a year he was homeless. Last week, he found help for a sinus infection at a new clinic for homeless and uninsured people in Jacksonville Beach.
1/04/2009 WPBT-TV
West Palm Beach toddler Michelle Martinez pushed out a window screen and fell three stories and survived. Doctors who checked said she has no broken bones, no serious trauma.
 12/31/2008 © USA Today
Two members of the Florida Board of Pharmacy who were employed by Walgreens took part in a case involving a Walgreens pharmacist in Jacksonville, successfully lowering the fine for failing to catch an error that led to an overdose. The Florida case was one of several that USA Today found in an examination of pharmacy chains' ties to state disciplinary boards that could be construed as conflicts of interest.
By Carol Gentry
12/24/2008 © Florida Health News
A Jacksonville company that processes Medicare hospital claims missed overcharges more than half the time in an audit of high-dollar cases, according to a recent report. The audit of First Coast Service Options Inc., which covered calendar years 2004 and 2005, studied 199 cases in which payments of more than $200,000 were made for treatment of a Medicare patient.
 12/24/2008 © Associated Press
By deciding that state law doesn't consider nursing homes "health care facilities," the Supreme Court on Tuesday exempted them from the Constitutional amendment that gives patients the right to see incident reports on medical errors. The decision came in a case involving the death of Marlene Gagnon, a resident in a West Palm Beach nursing home owned by Tandem Health Care.
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It's the second day of the state's much-touted Cover Florida program for the uninsured, and there are finally some phone numbers posted  on the Cover Florida Web site. It would be nice to see a state-staffed toll-free number for general information -- so that consumers could double-check the accuracy of what companies are telling them -- and another toll-free line to the Insurance Consumer Advocate so they'll know where to complain if they feel they've been misinformed or unfairly turned away. One thing's for sure: If state employees had no health coverage, there would be fewer delays. -- Carol Gentry, editor Contact
Pres.-elect Barack Obama and his choice to lead the Health and Human Services department, Tom Daschle, asked Americans to host informal gatherings between Dec. 15 and Dec. 31 to brainstorm how to improve the U.S. health system. We want your ideas, as well, for our new Opinions & Analysis page, which will debut soon. Please send them in. -- Carol Gentry, Editor
 If you want to be ready for the big health-reform debate next year, you've got to do your homework. The Kaiser Family Foundation has compiled primers on private insurance and public programs, including new ones on Medicare and Medicaid, at its Web site.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel provides a reminder of the importance of journalism by having toxicologists test 10 common products labeled "microwave-safe." If you read this, you'll never nuke plastic again.
Pinellas insurance broker John Sinibaldi, who helps small employers try to find affordable health coverage, says he laughs at the results on national  surveys of the cost of health insurance. The results don't apply in Florida, he says, where small businesses are the norm. Premium increases for his clients averaged over 20 percent for next year, he said, and deductibles are thousands of dollars. His views are posted at The Health Care Blog.
Next month, at long last, we plan to unveil the newly redesigned and expanded Florida Health News site. We'll introduce Consumer's Corner, a page designed to meet the information needs of those who don't get their paycheck from the health care industry but care passionately about improving access, quality and efficiency. We'll also debut Analysis & Opinion, which will finally give us a place to post editorials, op-ed pieces, columns, and blogs about health issues, along with a daily cartoon. And we'll also have a place to display ads, so please get in touch if your organization wants a good sponsorship spot. Send me an e-mail or call 727-410-3266. -- Carol Gentry, Editor
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