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Once a year, hospitals roll out the influenza campaign and try to immunize as many health care workers as possible. But therein lies a problem. Once a year may not be enough.
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It took eight months for the supervisor in the hospitals pharmacy to realize that she and most of her co-workers had a persistent cough. That revelation began an employee health investigation, with employee health nurse Janet Abernathy, RN, COHN-S, on the trail of an indoor air culprit.
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The battle over annual fit-testing isnt over yet. The U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) rule became effective on July 1, but two weeks later, the House appropriations committee approved an amendment that would prohibit OSHA from spending funds to enforce annual fit-testing.
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If infectious disease specialists used a color-coded alert system, the color would be on yellow, for elevated. And its edging up to orange. While the threat of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has subsided, public health experts are becoming increasingly concerned about the potential for pandemic influenza coming from a highly pathogenic avian influenza strain in Asia.
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While the 39 federal class action lawsuits filed this year are based primarily on nonprofit hospital billing and collection practices, questions about the tax-exempt status of nonprofit hospitals have been litigated in local and state courts in recent years. Pennsylvania was a hotbed for such litigation a few years ago but now is relatively quiet.
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At least two congressional committees have held hearings into hospital billing and collection practices.
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A Medicare disease management pilot project is producing information that may be helpful in expanding disease management to the Medicaid population.
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Attorney Richard Scruggs, who is coordinating the federal class action lawsuits against nonprofit hospitals over their billing and collection practices, has suggested that interested citizens ask these questions of their local hospital administrator.
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The provision of charity care or a sliding-scale discount for patients deemed bad debtors is not a requirement for hospital tax exemption at the federal level, Harvard Business School professor Nancy Kane told the House Ways and Means Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight in a June 22 hearing.
