Ill. bill to limit charging of uninsured moves ahead

From Modern Healthcare (requires free subscription)
The Illinois General Assembly is poised to pass a bill that would limit what hospitals could charge and collect from eligible uninsured patients. A bill carrying an amendment dubbed the Hospital Uninsured Patient Discount Act was passed unanimously by the House and is expected to clear the Senate.
Specifically, hospitals could [...]

New Proposed EMTALA Regulations Issued By CMS

From Medlaw.com
New proposals for EMTALA rules issued April 30.

Just days after new site review guidelines went into effect in April, CMS issued proposed new regulations that would implement some recommendations of the EMTALA Technical Advisory Group (TAG) that were issued before the committee went out of existence last year. 
Among the proposals:

Move the on-call requirements of [...]

Intolerances

From Edwin Leap:
Our emergency department electronic charting system is now going to start listing as separate categories allergies and intolerances.  It makes sense, really.  How many times are we told ‘he’s allergic to Lortab…it makes him act all crazy!’  (Never mind that he might have been a wee bit crazy to begin with.)  ‘She can’t [...]

Nocturnists

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
They call the overnight doctors “nocturnists,” though as far as we can tell they’re basically hospitalists who work at night. As of last year, about 1,200 hospitals had either a nocturnist or hospitalist sharing night coverage, compared with 700 hospitals in 2003, according to the Society of Hospital Medicine.

After Taser Shot, Fugitive’s Irregular Heartbeat Becomes Normal

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
A 28-year-old man with a history of mental problems fled from the cops and spent 40 minutes hiding in a lake before they collared him and hauled him to the ER.
His body temperature had fallen to a chilly 89 degrees. Docs found speed and cocaine in his blood, and [...]