Bayer Not Welcome at Hemophilia Foundation’s Anaheim Meeting
Cogent Healthcare Inc., a Laguna Hills-based healthcare company, is expanding some of its inpatient-based physician networks to Central Florida. Cogent last week signed an agreement with Aetna U.S. Healthcare in Orlando, Fla., to put a voluntary “hospitalist” program in place for the health maintenance organization’s membership in the area. Under the deal, Cogent doctors will provide inpatient healthcare services in 10 hospitals in Orlando and surrounding communities. More than 290,000 Aetna members are eligible for services. The Web site of the National Association of Inpatient Physicians, a professional group, reports that the “hospitalist” term was first coined in 1996 by a pair of doctors writing in the New England Journal of Medicine. Managed care companies, in particular, have embraced hospitalists as a way to possibly reduce medical costs.
Because of that, the concept has come under fire. For instance, the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine and 23 other groups blasted several HMOs in April 1999 over mandatory hospitalist programs in a letter, calling mandatory programs “bad public policy.” But Dr. Michael Howell, Aetna U.S. Healthcare’s Orlando-area senior medical director, emphasized in a news release that Cogent’s hospitalist program was voluntary for primary-care doctors who may not be able to provide care to their patients in an inpatient setting. “Because physicians often make rounds at numerous hospitals in addition to their normal office hours, sometimes it is difficult for them to be available for patients and families as much as they would like,” Howell said.
Besides doctors, the company is also providing registered nurses who act as clinical care coordinators for its patients.
Cogent has contracts with more than 65 facilities nationwide, covering 155 hospitals, as well as 1,300 referrals from primary-care physicians. It also has a contract with Kaiser Permanente to handle emergency care sought by that health plan’s members at non-Kaiser hospitals.
Hemophilia Group Disses Bayer
The National Hemophilia Foundation, an advocacy group for people with bleeding disorders, held its annual meeting last week at the Anaheim Marriott. Prior to the meeting, the foundation expressed its pique with Bayer Corp., the U.S. arm of the multinational drug giant. Foundation officials, in a news release, said it refused funding from the pharmaceutical company and asked Bayer to stay away from the meeting because of its “strong disagreement” over Bayer Direct, a distribution program for Bayer’s new Kogenate FS blood-clotting drug. Bayer Direct is a marketing effort aimed directly at consumers with bleeding disorders. The hemophilia organization believes that the medication should be distributed by hospitals and healthcare professionals. In other reports, National Hemophilia Foundation officials expressed fear that Bayer would exacerbate a nationwide shortage of the drug by only selling it to people with high-paying insurance coverage. Bayer has dismissed the foundation’s claims, saying Kogenate FS’ price will be the same as an older clotting drug, and it would be more effective to market the drug directly to patients with bleeding disorders.
New Name for Foundation Health
The parent company of a health maintenance organization with more than 110,000 members in Orange County has a new name. Woodland Hills-based Foundation Health Systems Inc. announced last week that it changed its name to Health Net Inc. and plans to convert its products to the Health Net brand name.
Health Net Inc. has two plans in the West under that name: Health Net of California and Health Net Oregon. The company said that its other plans,in Arizona, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania,will change to the Health Net name over the next 12 months.
Bits and Pieces:
ICN Biomedicals Inc., Irvine, will move in the second quarter from its current Campus Drive facility to a 37,700-square-foot space at 15 Morgan. ICN Biomedicals, which employs 35 people, is the research products division of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., Costa Mesa … NeoTherapeutics Inc., Irvine, said it plans to fast-forward development of its Neotrofin drug for Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases. Specifically, NeoTherapeutics plans to refocus Neotrofin’s clinical development to a one-year study of moderate Alzheimer’s disease patients at a dosing range of 500 milligrams to 1,000 milligrams daily … Ramon Rossi Lopez, a partner with the law firm of Lopez, Hodes, Restaino, Milman, Skikos & Polos, Newport Beach, is on a national steering committee that will coordinate individual and class-action lawsuits against Warner-Lambert Co. and Pfizer Inc. The companies’ Parke-Davis division made Rezulin, a drug that allegedly caused fatal liver failure in diabetics. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned Rezulin earlier this year … Western Dental Services, Orange, and the Crest Oral Care Products division of Procter & Gamble launched an oral-health education program geared toward low-income children and their families in Los Angeles.
