Excuse the Shop Talk

I try to keep a well balanced blog and cover some different topics then just what I've been up to lately. As a member of the healthcare administration industry, I read a lot of news and get wind of a number of rumors throughout the week. Just like any other industry, you need to know what's happening in the market. Well there were three overwhelmingly big stories that came out of this week:

1) HCA is almost bought out by investors
This is huge. For those of you who aren't in the field, HCA is the largest investor-owned hospital system (70% of hospitals in the US are not-for-profit). Not only are they the largest, but they are powerful. If the deal would have gone, it would have been one of the biggest in history and really would have been interesting. But buying a company with $11 billion in debt would make me think twice too.

2) CVS buys MinuteClinic
This one was just odd in my opinion. I saw a health system buying MinuteClinic before a retail pharmacy would. If the retail pharmacies wanted to get into the business, I figured it would be easy enough to setup internally. Oh, and for those grounded in market reality - CVS reportedly paid $170 Million for a company that has yet to turn a profit.

3) Physician and 2 Nurses arrested for Katrina-related deaths
This is probably the most controversial of them all. Basically, the Louisiana AG pressed charges against these individuals for purposefully administering too much pain medication which caused the deaths of chronically and severely ill patients during the Katrina catastophe. There are people on both sides of the fence on this one and the debate rests along the sacred lines around physician-assisted suicide. You can see some discussion of the issue at The Health Care Blog.


Well, there's my first healthcare news update for the blog. I hope those of you who read the blog take a minute to check out some of the links. This is the side of medicine that most people don't think about - but its one that I have to think about!