Hospital Held Accountable for Sexual Abuse

San Francisco Chronicle: Hospitals Can Be Held Responsible For Sexual Abuse By Employees, Appeals Court Rules
In a victory for abused hospital patients, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday that a hospital can be held responsible for sexual abuse by an employee, and that damage awards for pain and suffering by surviving victims who are 65 and older are not subject to California's $250,000 limit in medical malpractice cases. The Second District Court of Appeal in Ventura upheld a jury’s damage award of $6.75 million to two elderly patients at a psychiatric hospital in Ventura in a suit against the hospital and a mental health worker. The court said the worker was hired despite a history of sexual misconduct, and had sex with both women when he was left alone with them in their rooms. The hospital, the court said, allowed male mental health workers to be alone with female patients for 20 minutes a day, with the door open. (Egelko, 4/5)

AP: Court: Hospitals Can Be Responsible For Abuse By Employees
A state appeals court said Tuesday that a Southern California hospital can be held responsible for sexual abuse by an employee, upholding a jury’s damage award of $6.75 million to two elderly patients who were abused at a psychiatric hospital. The Second District Court of Appeal also ruled that damage awards for pain and suffering by victims who are 65 and older are not subject to California’s $250,000 limit in medical malpractice cases. (4/6)

In other health care industry news —

Modern Healthcare: HHS Requests Info On Cybersecurity Practices At Health Organizations
The Health and Human Services Department wants input on how healthcare organizations implement security practices for health information privacy as it considers future rules and guidance. A 30-question information request issued Tuesday also solicits feedback on how HHS should define "harm" that results from health privacy violations and how it should decide what types of incidents should result financial compensation to individuals whose information was compromised. HHS has to consider an organization's use of cybersecurity best practices for a year prior to a privacy failure when levying fines for Health Information Portability and Accountability Act violations, as required by a 2021 law. (Goldman, 4/5)

Stat: More Than Half Of Data Used In Health Care AI Comes From The U.S., China
As medicine continues to test automated machine learning tools, many hope that low-cost support tools will help narrow care gaps in countries with constrained resources. But new research suggests it’s those countries that are least represented in the data being used to design and test most clinical AI  — potentially making those gaps even wider. Researchers have shown that AI tools often fail to perform when used in real-world hospitals. It’s the problem of transferability: An algorithm trained on one patient population with a particular set of characteristics won’t necessarily work well on another. Those failures have motivated a growing call for clinical AI to be both trained and validated on diverse patient data, with representation across spectrums of sex, age, race, ethnicity, and more. (Palmer, 4/6)

Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Not As 'Recession-Proof' As Expected, Analysts Say
Healthcare companies are at higher risk of defaulting on their loans than many other industries, according to a new report. The healthcare industry had the highest likelihood to default over the next year at a 4.4% median, first-quarter S&P Global Market Intelligence data comparing U.S. sectors show. That probability was up from 3.3% as of the end of last year, according to S&P's analysis, which is based on the volatility of share prices for public companies and country- and industry-related risks. (Kacik, 4/5)

Axios: Medicare Advantage Insurers Get A Pay Bump
Private insurers who administer Medicare Advantage plans can expect a 5% average increase in federal payments next year — half a percentage point above what the Biden administration proposed in February. The pay bump in the controversial program marks a big win for insurers like UnitedHealth Group and Humana and doused speculation the administration would break with a trend of strong recent increases. The MA plans’ total expected revenue, factoring other changes, would rise 8.5% in 2023, compared to a 7.6% increase in 2022, per the announcement. (Bettelheim, 4/5)

Also —

Modern Healthcare: Tivity Health Goes Private In $2 Billion Deal 
Tivity Health, a Franklin, Tennessee-based consumer health company, announced it will be purchased by private equity firm Stone Point Capital for $2 billion. The transaction with Greenwich, Connecticut-based Stone Point, which is expected to close in the third quarter, will end more than 30 years as a publicly held company under various names. Stockholders of Tivity will receive $32.50 per share. Richard Ashworth will stay on as CEO and the company will also maintain its Tennessee headquarters. (Perna, 4/5)

Axios: Buzzy Health Startup Olive Fails To Deliver On Lofty Promises
Olive is the buzzy startup whose purple “go save health care” busses dominate industry conferences. But its promises don't deliver, according to an Axios investigation that included interviews with 16 sources. Olive relies on rough estimations for its calculations, inflates its capabilities and, in many cases, generates only a fraction of the savings it pledges. Valued at $4 billion, Olive is the highest-profile startup in health care automation; a holy grail that promises to cut costs and direct more time toward patient care. (Brodwin, 4/5)

AP: Mississippi Doctor Convicted Of Hospice Health Care Fraud 
A federal jury has convicted a Mississippi doctor of referring and certifying patients to hospice care who were not terminally ill and didn’t know what sort of treatment they would be getting. Dr. Scott Nelson, of Cleveland, was found guilty on Monday of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Mississippi said in a news release Tuesday. (4/5)