Indiana preparing to lift most bird flu-related restrictions
Animal health officials monitoring the bird flu outbreak in southwestern Indiana say they will lift most restrictions in two weeks if ongoing testing finds no additional infections.
Health Care
Articles
UPDATE: Nightingale CEO claims state retaliated for report of ‘racially tinged’ remarks
The home-health firm’s lawsuit alleges state officials discriminated against the company and CEO Dev Brar when they conducted inspections that led Medicare to terminate payments to the company.
Retirements, aging population cause nursing shortage
Facing a surge of retiring nurses and a growing number of patients, Indiana hospitals are scrambling to fill thousands of nursing positions, raising questions about whether they will be able to keep operations fully staffed.
UPDATE: Final Obamacare enrollment hits 12.7M for 2016
About 12.7 million people signed up for policies under the Affordable Care Act, as enrollment accelerated during the final deadline week. More than 196,00 people in Indiana enrolled, including 90,546 consumers in the Indianapolis market.
Anthem merger partner reports dip in profit
Cigna Corp. blamed the nearly 9 percent decline on transaction costs related to its pending $54 billion sale to Anthem Inc.
Marian University lands new dean for medical school
Marian University has found a successor for Dr. Paul Evans, who plans to retire as dean of the school's College of Osteopathic Medicine, which he helped launch in 2013.
Aetna CEO has ‘serious concerns’ about Obamacare sustainability
The head of the third-biggest U.S. health insurer said he has “serious concerns” about whether or not Obamacare’s new markets are sustainable, echoing criticism from other top for-profit insurers.
Feds want to cut off funding for Carmel home health firm
Carmel-based Nightingale Home Healthcare Inc. is trying to keep from being kicked out of the federal Medicare program for allegedly putting patients in “immediate jeopardy,” according to documents in a bankruptcy reorganization case the company filed in December.
Obamacare will probably cost more in 2017, Anthem says
The Indianapolis-based insurer is eking out a small profit from selling policies to individuals under the Affordable Care Act, but many of its rivals aren’t.
Lawmakers hear another pitch for cold-medicine prescriptions
Supporters of a proposal to allow pharmacists to require prescriptions to buy medicine with pseudoephedrine say the requirement is the only way to curb Indiana's methamphetamine problem.
Proposal for cold medicine prescriptions being scaled back
The new version of the Indiana bill would classify pseudoephedrine in a way that most consumers would be able to buy it, but pharmacists could require a prescription from suspicious customers.
Health officials finish euthanizing 400K birds at Indiana farms
Animal health officials responding to a bird flu outbreak in southwest Indiana say crews have finished euthanizing more than 400,000 birds at 10 affected commercial poultry farms.
U.S. to limit Obamacare sign-up periods to help insurers
The U.S. government will limit a process that allowed people to sign up for health insurance under Obamacare outside of the normal enrollment period, after insurers complained that the special periods were letting people into the program only when they got sick.
UPDATE: Pharmacist consultation bill clears senate committee
Indiana pharmacists could get the legal right to refuse to sell a common cold medicine used to make methamphetamine to suspicious customers under a bill a Senate committee approved Tuesday.
GOP plots revamp of medical malpractice law
Patients who have been injured or killed as the result of negligence by Indiana hospitals and physicians could win more cash under proposed changes to Indiana’s Medical Malpractice Act.
Carmel-based Stratice aims to be Amazon of health care
Carmel-based Stratice Healthcare LLC wants to take the concept of electronic prescribing for drugs and extend it to most of the rest of the health care system.
Anthem seeks $3B more in drug savings from Express Scripts
Anthem, which contracts with Express Scripts to manage drug costs for its members, said the pharmacy manager should be passing along about $3 billion a year more in the savings it negotiates from drug companies.
Indy drug firm scores multi-million-dollar help from NIH
Indianapolis-based Chondrial Therapeutics LLC has been accepted into a program run by the National Institutes of Health that will provide the drug company with services worth at least $5 million, the company estimates.
Firm aims to nationally distribute brain care innovation
Preferred Population Health Management is trying to get hospital systems, health insurers and area agencies on aging to use a set of tools and techniques to help dementia patients and their families—tools that were developed by the medical staff at Eskenazi Health, the Indiana University School of Medicine and the Regenstrief Institute.
Survey: U.S. progress on health insurance stalled in 2015
The share of U.S. adults without health insurance was 11.9 percent in the last three months of 2015, essentially unchanged from the start of the year, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.