Morning Headlines 8/5/13

Maine hospitals disband remote ICU program, citing costs

MaineHealth announces that it will stop offering its tele-ICU service in October after several participating hospitals drop out. The program connected nine rural hospitals across the state with a 24-hour-a-day ICU command center at Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Whistleblower suit: Hospitals defrauded Medicaid

A whistleblower lawsuit filed by the former CFO of Health Management Associates charges HMA and Tenet Healthcare with paying kickbacks to clinics that referred pregnant illegal immigrants to their hospitals where emergency care claims were then submitted for their deliveries. The report says that the scheme has been operating for more than a decade.

More doctors avoiding Medicare patients

According to CMS, the number of doctors opting out of Medicare has tripled since 2009, with 9,500 physicians opting out in 2012.