UnitedHealth to pay $350M in reimbursement suits

UnitedHealth Group has reported that it will pay $350 million to settle three class actions related to out-of-network reimbursements. ...

... Additionally, Aetna Inc. of Hartford, Conn., which also used Ingenix, agreed to contribute $20 million toward the new data source.

AHA, AMA object to Medicare “never event” policy — The American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association objected to Medicare’s plan not to reimburse hospitals for medical errors such as operating on the wrong patient or the wrong side of a patient’s body. The groups argue the policy is vague and needs to be better defined, such as by determining exactly which medical services it won’t pay for in such cases. [Source: Modern Healthcare]

Doctors, the traditional advocates for the medical status quo, are increasingly in favor of major reforms to the U.S. health-care system.

"The stock of the private sector has gone down in doctors' eyes, while the stock of the public sector hasn't," Foldy says. "Medicare is not unpopular among doctors. The concept of Medicare for all [which is how a single-payer plan is often described] is making ideological headway. And prior to the Iraq War, the VA system made great strides as a model of quality recognized by many doctors."

It shouldn't have ever been unclear, but now they can say for sure: it's barbaric and some lines have to be held. This is one.

By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The American Medical Association on Monday voted to refine its ethical guidelines that forbid doctors from participating in torture or "coercive" interrogations of prisoners.

The action was prompted by unconfirmed allegations that physicians or psychiatrists played roles in harsh interrogations conducted at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The 544-member house of delegates, which sets policy for the leading U.S. physicians group, voted at its annual meeting to approve a seven-page report that outlined a physician's duty "as healer" not to take any part in interrogating prisoners.

Other stipulations called for doctors to provide medical care to detainees as they would to any patient -- in strict confidence.

Similarly, doctors are not ethically permitted to participate in executions, or to heal an inmate to make him well enough to be put to death, the AMA said.