By Lynn Taylor Rick, Journal staff | Friday, January 16, 2009
Cooper Urbaniak will get treatment after all.
In 2nd Circuit Court in Sioux Falls on Thursday, insurance company Sanford Health Plan agreed to cover the costs to treat 3-year-old Cooper with high-dose chemotherapy and radiation.
Sanford came to the agreement after the University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis agreed to cover the remaining costs for Cooper’s stem-cell transplant, Read the rest of this entry »
Doctors at the San Mateo Medical Center left a five-inch catheter inside a Foster City man’s heart, causing an infection that complicated his fight against cancer, then tried to cover up the mistake, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
Alan Paolucci, 52, says the San Mateo County-run hospital should have known that a catheter being used to treat his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma had broken off from a port in his chest after he began treatment in 2003. Read the rest of this entry »
No longer stuck on the ground, drug smugglers from Mexico are taking to the air by using ultralight aircraft to bring their drugs into the U.S. through southernArizona.
Federal officials say the ultralights packed with drugs can evade radar by flying at treetop levels. It may be another way to smuggle drugs into the U.S., but it's certainly not thesafest.
In the past four months, three of the kite-winged motorized aircraft have crashed while Read the rest of this entry »
Medicare beneficiaries may be better off shopping around this year for prescription-drug plans.
The 10 drug plans with the largest enrollments will raise their premiums by 31% on average in 2009 — some by more than 60% — according to an analysis of Medicare data by Avalere Health, a Washington consulting firm.
In addition, many plans are adding or raising deductibles, and some are requiring higher co-payments for brand-name drugs, especially Read the rest of this entry »
Mich. twins born on different days, months, years
ROCHESTER, Mich. (AP) — They’re twins, all right, despite what their spanking new birth certificates say. Tariq Griffin entered the world at 12:17 a.m. on New Year’s Day at Crittenton Hospital in Rochester, Mich. Twin brother Tarrance was born a bit earlier — 26 minutes to be exact.
That means the boys have the unique distinction of having been born on different days, months and years. Read the rest of this entry »
The Food and Drug Administration has issued an advisory to remind patients, caregivers and health professionals about the potentially serious hazards of using skin-numbing products — topical anesthetics — for relieving pain from conditions and medical tests, including mammograms. The warning applies to over-the-counter anesthetics as well as prescriptions.
This follows an FDA advisory issued in February 2007, after the deaths of two young women Read the rest of this entry »
At the University of Minnesota Medical School, which is funded partly by clinical practices, the growth in unpaid bills means margins are narrowing to the point where just doing more procedures isn’t going to suffice, said Frank Cerra, senior vice president for health sciences. The university has postponed a $200-million building for outpatient care on campus and begun streamlining its management ranks. If things don’t improve, it might raise medical Read the rest of this entry »
Pakistan selectors included Shoaib Akhtar among five fast bowlers in its 15-man squad for this month's limited-overs cricket series against the WestIndies.
Pacemen Rao Iftikhar, Umar Gul, Abdul Rauf and Sohail Tanvir were named alongside Akhtar on Monday for the three one-day internationals to be played in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates from Nov.12-16.
Akhtar impressed the selectors with his fitness and form displayed during the on-going Read the rest of this entry »
– The Texas Department of State Health Services announced Friday that it is taking control of a recall of products from Peanut Corporation of America’s plant in Plainview.
The move came after the state health department said its officials had gotten no response from the company to a recall order issued last week.
“Manufacturers, distributors and retailers believed to have received products from the company in 2008 are being notified of the Read the rest of this entry »
In Minnesota, the most common reasons for denial are obesity, mental health conditions, hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But there are less well-known reasons insurers consider on a case-by-case basis: chemical dependency, allergies that require costly injectable drugs, a previous C-section, previous use of infertility medicine or something as simple as being pregnant.
Blue Cross and other insurers say they face a dilemma. If they Read the rest of this entry »