Creston, IA hospital requesting $50 copay following ER visits

From the Creston News Advertiser:

Matt McCutchan, chief financial officer at Greater Regional Medical Center, said Tuesday starting March 1 the hospital began collecting a $50 copay on all emergency-room visits for non-Medicare patients.

The $50 copay policy at GRMC was enacted in an effort to help curtail uncompensated debt that continues to rise each year at GRMC. That uncompensated debt, which includes bad debt from unpaid bills and charity care, surged to $3 million last year at GRMC with more than $1.5 million originating in the emergency room (ER).

Abuse of OTC Drug Mimics Kidney Stones

From MedPage Today:

Nephrolithiasis caused by abuse of an over-the-counter drug used to treat excess mucus may mimic kidney disorders, a researcher said here.

In a poster presentation at the annual meeting of the Society of Hospital Medicine, Neil Shah, MD, of Tulane University in New Orleans, and colleagues presented a case they called “Not Quite the Rolling Stones.”

Fewer visits to primary care, fewer prescriptions, more visits to the ED

From the New York Times:

Patients cut back on prescription drugs and doctor visits last year, a sign that many Americans are still struggling to pay for health care, according to a study released Wednesday by a health industry research group. Visits to the emergency room, by contrast, increased by 7.4 percent in 2011, an increase that the report’s authors said was linked to the loss of health insurance resulting from long-term unemployment.

American Heart Association Updates Online Course to Treat STEMIs

From JEMS:

The self-directed online course prepares healthcare professionals to:

• Evaluate and assess patients with potential symptoms of heart attack.
• Interpret electrocardiograms (ECGs) to identify ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), a severe form of heart attack that occurs when blood supply is totally blocked to a large area of the heart.
• Activate a system of care to quickly open the blocked coronary artery.

Higher-spending hospitals see better emergency outcomes

From Fierce Healthcare:

Despite calls to rein in escalating healthcare spending, new research from Vanderbilt University Medical Center may have hospitals shelling out more dollars on emergency care, according to a study released as a working paper through the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Looking at Medicare ambulance and hospital data between 2002 and 2008, researchers found that higher-spending hospitals had significantly lower patient mortality for emergency patients than their lower-spending counterparts.

Texas Hospital Stops Hiring Overweight People

From BuzzFeed:

The “Texas Tribune” reports that Citizens Medical Center in Victoria, Texas won’t hire anyone with a BMI above 35. CEO David Brown offers an odd explanation: “The majority of our patients are over 65, and they have expectations that cannot be ignored in terms of personal appearance.” So, old people don’t like fat people? Even if this were true, it doesn’t seem to have much bearing on actual medical care.

iPod Video at DMV Helps Sign Up Organ Donors

From MedPage Today:

A 5-minute video shown on an iPod at the department of motor vehicles may help increase the number of organ donors, researchers found.

Participants who viewed the video, which addresses some common concerns about organ donation, were more likely to agree to be a donor than those who did not see the video (84% versus 72%; OR 2.05, 95% CI 1.49 to 2.81), according to J. Daryl Thornton, MD, MPH, of MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, and colleagues.