Incomplete (tip-o-the-iceberg) list of healthcare related layoffs, shutdowns and crimes in April 2018:
A study by Crowe Horwath says for-profit insurance companies take 30 days longer to reimburse a healthcare provider than taxpayer funded Medicare.
According to The Economist it cost the royal family of England less money to give birth than it does the average ‘commoner’ family in the United States!
Fidelity Investments says Americans about to retire need at least $280-thousand USD to cover healthcare expenses, a 75% increase since 2002 (so much for Obamacare).
The Commonwealth Fund accuses the U.S. healthcare industry of being the world’s 7th largest producer of CO2.
The New England Journal of Medicine reports that only 37% of doctor quality of care standards are to be considered valid!
Two studies warn that even after ‘reprocessing’ 71% of endoscopes still infected by active bacteria.
Operator of 11 ObamaCare-ACA call centers General Dynamics Information Technology now accused of shorting its employees of $100-million USD in taxpayer funded paychecks!
According to a study by Verizon the healthcare industry is the only industry were cybersecurity threats by ‘insiders’ outnumber outside cybersecurity threats!
JPMorgan Chase Institute reporting that more and more Americans who get tax refunds are using their refunds on healthcare, despite ObamaCare-ACA.
Possible cause of increased STDs as Quest Diagnostics reports 1 in 4 doctors ignore STD testing guidelines if the female patient has no symptoms.
PayScale says females working as medical assistants make more money than male medical assistants.
Medscape Physician Compensation Report says ‘black’ doctors make and average of $50-thousand per year less than ‘white’ doctors!
The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that the United States could be short 121-thousand doctors by 2030!
More than 80% of Chief Nursing Officers say they can’t find qualified nurses.
Becker’s Hospital Review reports an unusually high number of hospital executives are quitting their jobs.
Non-profit Shriners Hospital for Children shutting down inpatient care service at many of its 22 hospitals around the U.S.! It’s blamed on lack of donations and ObamaCare-ACA drastically cutting back on reimbursements for inpatient care. Administrators for Shriners said their only other option was to start shutting down hospitals!
Arizona: Phoenix based Banner Health fined $18-million USD for filing fake taxpayer funded Medicare claims.
California: Symantec is warning of a new computer virus primarily targeting the healthcare industry; Orangeworm is infecting internet connected X-Ray, MRI and other medical devices as part of an operation to steal your data (Symantec first noticed it in 2015). Healthcare tech company Theranos issued a layoff WARN for its Newark operations, 105 jobs gone by mid-June! It’s in connection to the fact the company was accused of frauding investors regarding a new hi-tech way of testing blood donations, which turned out didn’t really work the way it was advertised. At one time Theranos employed 8-hundred people. Molina Healthcare finally notified state employment officials that it laid off 79 Californians in March. Texas based Concentra suddenly laid off 177 people in Valencia! Pacific Alliance Medical Center, which shutdown in December, finally notified state employment officials of how many people lost their jobs; 739! In Long Beach, Community Medical Center issued a shutdown WARN, 353 jobs gone by July! San Diego based Biotheranostics paying $2-million USD fine for frauding taxpayer funded Medicare. The FBI raided the home of now former CEO of Tulare Regional Medical Center, who is suspected of all kinds of fraud ops while at the hospital. It’s been revealed that a woman was charged $792 for a mandatory ambulance evacuation during a possible dam break in 2017! Memorial Medical Center fined only $71-thousand for causing the 2016 death of a female patient by giving the woman 25 times the standard dose of blood thinner, which caused the woman to bleed to death internally! The state Attorney General has ordered Mission Community Hospital, Emanuel Medical Center, and University of Southern California Verdugo Hills Hospital to fork over millions of dollars for failing to follow the state’s charity care rules! Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center in trouble for sending home a 90 years old patient with kidney failure in a taxi, without notifying the family. Goleta based medical device maker Inogen revealed that data of 30-thousand of its customers has been stolen, I mean improperly accessed! The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education took away Kern Medical’s surgery residency program’s accreditation. In Los Angeles, Avalon Villa Care Center accused of dumping a diabetic patient at homeless shelter, without his insulin! Facebook halted its hospital patient data collection ops due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Colorado: Saint Mary-Corwin Medical Center laying off 3-hundred people, but then says that it’ll hire back most of them! Non-profit Boulder Community Health suddenly laid off 25 people, due to rising costs, declining admissions, falling reimbursements and increased competition. Centura Health’s Longmont United Hospital eliminating less than 30 jobs due to a variety of reasons. Memorial Regional Health outsourcing 24 billing/coding jobs. A now former medical assistant at Kaiser Hospital, in Union City, charged with sex crimes against patients. God’s own Porter Adventist Hospital admitted that an infection control breach, which potentially exposed 5-thousand-8-hundred patients, was caused by human error. The state Department of Public Health and Environment has confirmed that several of Porter Adventist Hospital’s patients have become infected as a result of the breach. CovenantCare at Home shutting down, 67 jobs gone in May. Sky Ridge Medical Center charged a new mom more than $1-thousand USD for circumcising her newborn daughter!
Connecticut: Birmingham Health Center issued a shutdown WARN, but did not say how many people would lose their jobs in June. Police locked down MidState Medical Center after a man came in covered in a white powder, which turned out to be baking soda.
Florida: In Pinellas Park, Transitions Optical eliminating 12 jobs by June. An employee of a Sunshine State based medical supplier surrendered after getting caught stealing, and then selling on ebay, $231-thousand USD worth of medical supplies. It was his own employer who caught him after somebody noticed the stolen goods on ebay. Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital drastically cut back on surgeries after a baby was discharged with a suture needle in its heart! Tennessee based Community Health Systems selling-off its Munroe Regional Medical Center to god’s own Adventist Health System.
Georgia: Chestatee Regional Hospital shutting down, 2-hundred jobs gone by the end of July due to being sold! Taxpayers forced to pay for out-of-pocket expenses of 600-thousand employees affected by the contract lapse between Piedmont Healthcare and Blue Cross/Blue Shield! Georgia Bone & Joint, Southern Bone & Joint aka Summit Orthopaedic Surgery Center, Southern Crescent Anesthesiology, PC (SCA), Sentry Anesthesia Management, and David LaGuardia hit with $3.2-million USD federal fine for bribes to guaranty business and filing fake Medicare claims for drugs bought outside the United States.
Idaho: In Sandpoint, ‘Supplements and At-Home Health Tests’ maker Thorne Research laid off 136 people! In Caldwell, West Valley Medical Center revealed to have the most teaching hospital rules violations in the U.S., from 2014 to 2017! The National Health Security Preparedness Index says The Gem State is among 21 states that are the least prepped for a social health emergency. Benewah Community Hospital discovered that its main cause of recent lost revenue was the new Cerner billing software program! Parts of the Saint Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center lost electrical power for an hour, supposedly because of a bird getting tangled in power lines.
Illinois: The doctor owner of Palos Medical Care charged with charging $1-million USD worth of fake treatments to insurance companies and taxpayer funded Medicare. It’s been revealed that taxpayer funded DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing Center was fined $25-thousand USD for causing a patient to fall and break their leg. UnityPoint Health revealed it got hacked, resulting in 16-thousand patient records being stolen! State Healthcare and Family Services has banned Blue Cross/Blue Shield from enrolling any new customers into Medicaid due to ‘noncompliance’. A now former doctor with the taxpayer funded Cook County Health and Hospitals System accused of spending more than 248-thousand tax dollars on unauthorized expenses for personal items (like a piano and radar detector)! University of Illinois Hospital wants to shutdown its physical therapy ops. NorthShore University HealthSystem sued for collecting employee fingerprints without consent.
Indiana: A Ball State University study says 95% of mental health providers are failing patients in rural areas. Anthem reported a 30% increase in profit, despite losing 1-million ObamaCare-ACA customers! The insurance company claims the profit is a result of cost cutting. Miller’s Health System suddenly shutdown its short-term rehab unit due to lack of customers.
Iowa: Genesis Health System suddenly laid off 48 people, blaming “shrinking reimbursements and escalating costs” that have thwarted “cost-saving measures in recent years”.
Kansas: The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) halted payments to Blue Valley Hospital, the hospital is now suing.
Kentucky: Mountain Manor Nursing Home bankrupt busted due to fines imposed by Medicare and Medicaid services, declining patient volume and undisclosed deficiencies discovered during a state inspection. KentuckyOne Health selling its Saint Joseph Martin hospital and four clinics to Appalachian Regional Healthcare.
Louisiana: Lafayette General Health notified 8-hundred employees of potential layoffs due to lack of state-level taxpayer funding!
Maryland: MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center shutting down its pediatric inpatient and emergency room units due to a 40% drop in customers.
Massachusetts: So many people are sick that a study found that in order for the state funded RomneyCare system (prototype for the national ObamaCare system) to provide enough nurses for adequate care taxpayers would have to cough-up an additional $1.31-billion USD, plus another $900-million every year after that! Lowell General Hospital suddenly laid off 29 people due to lack of money. Lahey Hospital & Medical Center revealed it fired an employee for secretly video recording co-workers in the toilet room. UMass Memorial Health Care System shutting down its Plumley Village Health Services, in Worcester, because it serves profit eating low income zombies on Medicaid: “We’re sorry for the people impacted by this, but really, this is the right decision for the organization.”-Eric Dickson, CEO
Michigan: Aspirus Crystal Falls Clinic suddenly shutdown its dialysis operations, blaming a sudden crash in customers. Sturgis Hospital shutting down three urgent care clinics primarily because of a lack of ObamaCare-ACA reimbursements. In Lake City, after 26 years Jerry’s Pharmacy shutdown due to ‘economic realities’. Mental health provider New Center Community Services issued a shutdown WARN, 66 jobs gone due to “unforeseen business circumstances”. Six employees of god’s own Providence Christian Healthcare & Rehabilitation Center suing because they’re mad that patients are being allowed to request ‘white’ caregivers only. As proof there are too many people addicted to the healthcare industry, automobile maker Ford has launched a GoRide non-emergency medical transportation service covering about 322 square kilometers (2-hundred square miles) of Michigan, to stress this is for regular non-emergency medical appointments.
Minnesota: UnitedHealth Group admitted its CEO makes 298 times more than its median employee! Illinois based medical device maker Vyaire Medical shutting down its factory in Plymouth, 50 jobs gone. The Mayo Clinic is bribing 4-hundred transcriptionists to voluntarily quit (buyouts)!
Mississippi: A Saint Dominic Hospital employee arrested for stealing and selling patient’s financial information. University of Mississippi Medical Center got caught by local news media in overcharging for treatment of children. Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center eliminating 1-hundred jobs due to ObamaCare funding cuts and the cost of being forced to upgrade the hospital to federal standards! A judge has ordered a 25% cut in retirement pay for retired employees of the Singing River Health System, in a desperate attempt to keep the retirement fund from going bust! The state Supreme Court ruled that federal Medicaid ripped off Mississippi hospitals to the tune of $2-million in unpaid reimbursements! The U.S. Burden of Disease Collaborators says The Magnolia State has the lowest life expectancy in the country.
Missouri: CoxHealth-Cox South Hospital admitted it gave a patient the wrong blood type! Local news media says hospital admin refuses to answer questions about the patient’s condition. State investigators are trying to find out why there’s been a surge in air-ambulance billing. The family of a boy injured on a camping trip charged $32-thousand USD for the air-ambulance ride, because Anthem-Blue Cross/Blue Shield said the ambulance service was out-of-network!
Montana: Community Medical Center suddenly laid off 16 people due to state-level cuts for people on taxpayer funded Medicaid. Kalispell Regional Healthcare suddenly laid off about 40 people due to reduced taxpayer funded reimbursements.
Nebraska: Community Healthcare System warns of shutdown if it can’t come up with $800-thousand USD to pay for ObamaCare-ACA mandated upgrades. Mary Lanning Hospital paying more than $600-thousand USD for fake Medicare claims.
Nevada: Community Triage Center under threat of shutdown due to taxpayer funding disputes with the state Health and Human Services, the city of Las Vegas, other government entities, as well as funding disputes with Las Vegas hospitals. WalletHub declared The Silver State to be the worst state for children’s healthcare.
New Hampshire: Cigna eliminating 50 jobs at its Hooksett credentialing office.
New Jersey: Arizona based medical device maker MedPlast shutting down its factory in West Berlin, 67 jobs lost by the end of June. Lakewood Pathology Associates-Inform Diagnostics issued a WARN, 117 jobs gone by June! Personal Touch Home Care issued several WARNs, 181 jobs gone by mid-May! West-Ward Pharmaceuticals eliminating 38 jobs by July. Virtua Medical Group paying more than $400-thousand USD as a result of making patient records publicly available online.
New Mexico: New Mexico Heart Institute canceled its contract with god’s own Presbyterian Health Plan, affecting 3-thousand patients!
New York: CCS Oncology and Healthcare now chapter 11 bankrupt busted due to “substantial debt” and the fact that the FBI ‘raided’ the company. Easter Seals issued a shutdown WARN for four of its Intermediate Care Facilities, 78 jobs gone by mid-July. Association for Neurologically Impaired Brain Injured Children issued a layoff WARN for its ops in Oakland Gardens, at least 25 jobs gone by the end of June. Phoenix House Foundation issued a layoff WARN for its addiction treatment ops in Brooklyn-NYC, 30 jobs gone between July and the end of September. MZL Home Care Agency halting ops in Brooklyn-NYC, 1-thousand-535 jobs gone by mid-July due to operations being sold to a competitor! Aspire of WNY issued a layoff WARN for its Buffalo and Lakewood locations, 61 jobs gone by the end of June. Community Services for the Developmentally Disabled issued a layoff WARN for its Buffalo location, 31 jobs gone by the end of June. A North Shore University Hospital nurse arrested for stealing $34-thousand USD worth of medical devices. NYC Health + Hospitals lost a laptop containing data for 595 patients. NYC Fire Department paramedic arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a patient.
North Carolina: A now former employee of Mission Hospital accused of stealing $104-thousand USD from her former employer. Atrium Health suddenly shutdown two clinics supposedly due to lack of employees.
Ohio: Philips Medical Systems issued a layoff WARN, 79 jobs gone by the end of June. Prescription drugs manager Express Scripts issued a shutdown WARN for its Columbus ops, 456 jobs gone by mid-June! A civil-trial jury awarded a 77 years old doctor $28-million USD after he was fired from the Cleveland Clinic Head & Neck Institute because of his age.
Oregon: Providence Saint Vincent Medical Center warning that one of its nurses came to work sick with TB. The hospital offering free tuberculosis testing as a result.
Pennsylvania: Allegheny Health Network suddenly laid off 75 people, despite claims that the company is growing. Penn State Health-Milton S. Hershey Medical Center apologized to 2-thousand-1-hundred patients after refusing to treat people with multiple sclerosis, claiming they didn’t have enough employees to do so! A woman was arrested after stealing a credit card from a patient in the Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital, and racking up $4-thousand USD in charges. Bloomberg reports that the CEO of Universal Health Services was paid 541 times more than the average Universal Health Services employee. God’s own UPMC Presbyterian notified 4-thousand-7-hundred patients that an employee came to work infected with TB between October 2017 and February 2018! The employee is on leave. UPMC Mercy South Side Outpatient Center warning of shutdown due to the hospital needing at least $10-million in repairs. It’s been revealed that the now dead doctor-owner of Pelicci Pain Relief Center ripped-off the worker compensation insurance program and his estate must now pay a federal fine of $625-thousand. Jefferson Health announced plans to reduce the number of its hospital beds by 4-hundred, blaming it on a decline in need for inpatient care. Children’s Institute of Pittsburgh shutdown its inpatient rehab hospital, about 90 jobs gone. For proof that having insurance doesn’t pay; a family went to the hospital but forgot their Aetna insurance card, the family’s initial out-of-pocket cost of the visit was $821, but after they brought in their Aetna card their out-of-pocket cost jumped to $1-thousand-214: “I wanted to go back and ask if I could pretend I didn’t have insurance anymore.”-Annette Alexander
South Carolina: Roper Hospital being sued for actually making 27 patients sick with non-tuberculosis mycobacteria. There is a connection, all those made sick had gone in for breast cancer treatment. AnMed Health shutting down two of its retail pharmacy ops.
Tennessee: Ballad Health suddenly laid off 150 people and shutdown 49 vacant jobs, claiming the positions were redundant! But wait, at the same time schizophrenic Ballad Health admin claim they are hiring for 7-hundred positions! A man who dressed as Spider-Man, to wash the windows at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, sentenced to 105 years in prison for child porn. The CEO of Brentwood based Quorum Health got a big raise, to a total compensation of $3-million USD in 2017, despite the fact that Quorum Health has been laying off employees and selling-off assets supposedly due to lack of money (claiming tens of millions of dollars in losses every year). However, the poor CEO defended his pay by saying that last year he didn’t get a bonus, claiming that his 2017 compensation was 34% less than in 2016. Oh boo-hoo!
Texas: To show you how screwed up your taxpayer funded state health regulators are, the state Health and Human Services Commission fired an employee for violating HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) rules, then violated the rules itself by mailing the now former employee a box of patient’s personal records! God’s own Seton Medical Center Austin forcing pregnant female patients to ‘agree’ to pay for fetal burials if they miscarry. For-profit BlueCross BlueShield telling some Texans that they’ll have to pay for 100% of non-emergency ‘out-of-network’ hospital visits. Baylor Scott & White McLane Children’s Hospital reports they fired a doctor after finding child porn on his computer. Dallas based Tenet Healthcare says it’s hurting so much for nurses that its offering a $25-thousand sign-on bonus (maybe Tenet shouldn’t have laid off so many people?). College Station Medical Center shutting down its labor and delivery unit in July. A now former nurse with Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital and Christus Mother Frances Hospital charged with intentionally killing a patient, and leaving at least two other patients in vegetative states. Texas Health Resources revealed that about 4-thousand patients had their data stolen by a ‘unauthorized third party’. A now former Parkland Memorial Hospital employee pled guilty to stealing patient data of Dallas County prisoners. Huntsville Memorial Hospital suddenly shutdown its emergency room ops in an effort to reduce expenses.
Washington: Grays Harbor Community Hospital District suddenly laid off 60 people, in March it laid off 31 people as well as layoffs in January. Some full time employees were reduced to part time hours. Other employees are being asked to retire early or go on voluntary furlough. Local news media called it the “new normal” for healthcare. University of Washington Medical Center shutting down its inpatient psychiatric unit.
Washington DC: Another sure sign the prescription drug industry is a mafioso scam; at the National Business Group on Health‘s conference the national drug supply chain was described as “convoluted” and “expensive”. Senator Ron Wyden (from Oregon) says 20 major healthcare companies will get a total of $100-billion USD in tax benefits over the next decade due to the Trump Tax Law. The U.S. FDA finally admitting there’s a problem with medical devices by unveiling The Medical Device Safety Action Plan. The mayor of DC wants to spend taxpayer dollars to replace the United Medical Center with a hospital half its size. A lawsuit against MedStar Washington Hospital Center alleges that never ending infections of patients (which directly caused the death of at least one patient) is the result of unresolved ‘black water’ sewage leakage in the operating rooms.
West Virginia: Mylan Pharmaceuticals suddenly laid off more than 4-hundred people in Morgantown, saying the drugs factory “needed to be rightsized”! A now former employee of WVU Medicine University Healthcare-Berkeley Medical Center fined $22-thousand USD for stealing patient data. It’s been revealed that a nurse who worked for four months at the Eastbrook Center was actually an impostor: “… the leadership of Eastbrook became aware that a woman with a history of deceptive behavior had posed as a registered nurse using another person’s license number.”
Wisconsin: God’s own Sacred Heart Hospital and Saint Joseph’s Hospital both warning of massive layoffs saying “The healthcare industry continues to experience a shift in the way people utilize health care services nationwide. High deductible insurance plans are causing many people to postpone care…” Mmmm, isn’t that what ObamaCare-ACA was trying to avoid? A nurse at Waukesha Memorial Hospital accused of stealing more than $2-thousand USD from a patient. Wheaton Franciscan-Saint Joseph Hospital shutting down surgical and inpatient care in low-income neighborhood, due to lack of revenues.
WARN=Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification
ObamaCare (ACA) death spiral March 2018: “HEALTHCARE IS A TAPEWORM”