Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Hospital Roundup: Connecticut Approves Sale Of Two Hospitals
The Connecticut Mirror: CT Regulators Give Final OK To Sale Of Manchester, Rockville Hospitals
State regulators gave final approval Friday to the $105 million purchase of Manchester Memorial and Rockville General hospitals by Prospect Medical Holdings, a for-profit company based in Los Angeles. (Pazniokas, 6/10)
New Hampshire Public Radio: With Long Laundry List in NH, Building Secure Psychiatric Hospital Off Prison Grounds Easily Ignored
New Hampshire has become the first state to launch a campaign solely aimed at breaking down the stigma around mental illness and improving treatment and prevention. But left unaddressed has been a population of mentally ill people at the state prison who are incredibly violent and have no place else to go. (Sutherland, 6/13)
The Columbus Dispatch: Nationwide Children's Hospital's $158M Mental-Health Center Seriously Needed
Nationwide Children's Hospital is hoping to close some of that gap with its planned Behavioral Health Pavilion, a project announced Friday as part of a massive, $730 million campuswide expansion. (Kurtzman, 6/12)
California Healthline/Kaiser Health News: As Hospital Chains Grow, So Do Their Prices For Care
As health care consolidation accelerates nationwide, a new study shows that hospital prices in two of California’s largest health systems were 25 percent higher than at other hospitals around the state. Researchers said this gap of nearly $4,000 per patient admission was not due to regional wage differences or hospitals treating sicker patients. Rather, they said California’s two biggest hospital chains, Dignity Health and Sutter Health, had used their market power to win higher rates. "California experienced its wave of consolidation much earlier than the rest of the country and our findings may provide some insight into what may happen across the U.S. from hospital consolidation," said the study’s lead author, Glenn Melnick, a health care economist at the University of Southern California. (Terhune, 6/13)
