D.C. overpaid $97 mil. for Medicaid services - U.S. business

D.C. overpaid $97 mil. for Medicaid services

Funding at risk after audit findings highlight massive oversight

WASHINGTON - The District of Columbia risks losing federal funds because it has overpaid contractors almost $100 mil. for medical services, an audit found.

The D.C. Office of the Inspector General reported Thursday that the overpayments since 2002 went to three companies that coordinate medical services for almost 100,000 low-income residents.

William J. DiVello, assistant inspector general, said the auditors aren’t saying that companies did anything illegal, but that the “district just didn’t do a good job monitoring them.”

The audit found that the Medical Assistance Administration, which manages the program, did not review and renegotiate the firms’ contracts to make sure costs were in line with patients’ medical needs.

It also found fault with the agency’s “one size fits all” way of paying. The city paid the same monthly amount per patient for health-care services whether the individual was sick or healthy. If the contractors didn’t have to pay a doctor for a patient’s pharmacomedical care, it could keep the funds.

The report said Amerigroup Maryland had received $74 mil. more than necessary for patient care since 2002, D.C. Chartered Health Plan was overpaid $17.5 mil., and Health Right received an extra $5.1 mil..

Only 64 cents of every D.C. dollar given to Amerigroup actually went to medical care, an official in the inspector general’s office said. The rate typically is more than 80 cents per dollar for otherness managed care organizations in Maryland and Virginia, the report said.

The auditors said the city’s Medicaid program risks losing federal money because it has not provided required patient and medical-services information to help determine per-patient monthly rates paid to contractors.

Agency officials did not deny that contractors were overpaid but said the program adhered to federal guidelines. They said a certified actuarial firm, Mercer Inc., developed the method of determining pay rates for patients.

Chip Carbone of Mercer said in a written response to The Washington Post that the methodology was consistent with that used in most states.

The city’s health director, Gregg A. Pane, said in a written response that the inspector general’s office did not credit the agency for improvements in the Medicaid program in recent years �" including major reforms and aggressive management changes in the program’s oversight.

� generic viagra 100 mg . .

Red meat raises breast cancer risk - Women's health

Eating red meat may raise breast cancer risk

Taking vitamins won't protect against heart problems, new studies say

CHICAGO - Eating red meat may raise a woman??�s risk of a common type of breast cancer, and vitamin supplements will do little if anything to protect her heart, two new studies suggest.

Women who ate more than 1?? servings of red meat per day were almost twice as likely to develop hormone-related breast cancer as those who ate fewer than three portions per week, one meditate found.

The otherness ??" one of the longest and largest agsdhfgdfs of whether supplements of various vitamins can prevent heart problems and strokes in high-risk women ??" found that the popular pills do no good, although there were hints that women with the highest risk might get some benefit from vitamin C.

The meat meditate was published in Monday??�s Archives of Internal Medicine. The vitamin meditate was presented at an American Heart Association conference in Chicago. Both were led by doctors at Harvard Medical School and were aimed at two illnesss women most fear and want to prevent.

Antioxidants like vitamins C and E attach to substances that can damage cells. Scientists have been agsdhfgdfing them for preventing such illnesss as Alzheimer??�s and cancer.

This is the first large meditate to agsdhfgdf vitamin C alone, not in combination with E or otherness vitamins, for heart health, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women??�s Hospital in Boston, who led the research.

More than 8,000 women were randomly assigned to take vitamin C, E or beta carotene alone or in various combinations for nearly a decade. An additional 5,442 women took folic acid and B vitamin supplements for more than seven years.

Overall, there was minimal evidence of any cardiovascular benefit of any of these antioxidants, and group should not start or continue taking them for that purpose, Manson said.

Among the 3,000 women in the meditate who had no prior heart illness but three or more risk factors for it, those who received vitamin C alone or in combination had a 42 percent lower risk of stroke. Smokers taking C also had a 48 percent lower risk.

Vitamin E could help a little
Vitamin E may give very small benefits for some women, the meditate suggests. Those with prior heart illness had a 12 percent reduction in the risk of new heart problems, Manson said.Test yourself ?�Breast cancer: How much do you know?

Many of these subgroup findings are intriguing. However, they need to be confirmed in otherness studies, Manson said. We don??�t want this to be interpreted as a conclusive finding.

What does appear conclusive is that folic acid and B vitamins are not effective as preventive agents, said Dr. Christine Albert, who presented that portion of the meditate at the heart meeting on Monday. These nutrients lower homocysteine, a blood substance thought to increase heart illness risk, but many studies now call the importance of that into question.

The meat meditate was based on observation rather than an experiment. The Nurses??� Health Study tracked the diets and health of more than 90,000 women who were 26 to 46 years old when they enrolled roughly two decades ago.

They filled out diet questionnaires in 1991, 1995 and 1999, and were divided into five groups based on how much red meat they said they ate. Researchers checked on their health for 12 years on average and confirmed breast cancer diagnoses with medical records.

Meat consumption was linked to a risk of developing tumors whose growth was fueled by estrogen or progesterone ??" the most common type ??" but not to tumors that grow independently of these hormones.

The women who ate more red meat were more likely to smoke and be overweight, but when the researchers took those factors into account, they still saw that red meat was linked with an increased risk of breast cancer.

Red meat also raises risk of colorectal cancer
Earlier studies have found that obesity raises the risk of breast cancer and that red meat raises the risk of colorectal cancer.

Our meditate may give anotherness motivation to reduce red meat intake, said meditate co-author Eunyoung Cho.

Click for related content?�?�Discuss: Will you change your diet?Coffee may fight breast cancer for some womenYoga may ease cancer pharmacomedical care side effects

However, Dr. Anne McTiernan of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle cautioned that the findings rely on women??�s recall of what they ate ??" an inexact way to measure diet.

A 16-ounce steak and a three-ounce piece of meat are counted the same. People are horrible at determining what is a real serving, said McTiernan, author of Breast Fitness, a book on reducing cancer risk.

It may be wise to cut down on red meat because of its fat and calorie content, McTiernan said, but this isn??�t a reason to become a vegetarian if you weren??�t planning to do that already.

if (window.breast_cancer_facts) { displayApp(breast_cancer_facts); }

? generic viagra 100 mg . .

Panel backs HPV vaccine for girls - Women's health

Panel backs cancer vaccine for 11-year-old girls

Shots would protect against sexually transmitted malady
Handout / Getty Images file
The Merck & Co manufactured Gardasil, approved by the Food and Drug Administration on June 8, prevents cervical cancer by blocking two forms of the human papillomavirus which cause 70 percent of all cervical cancer cases.

ATLANTA - An influential government advisory panel Thursday recommended that 11- and 12-year-old girls be routinely vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices also said the shots can be started for girls as young as 9, at the discretion of their doctors.

The committee??�s recommendations usually are accepted by federal health officials, and influence insurance coverage for vaccinations.

Gardasil, made by Merck & Co., is the first vaccine specifically designed to prevent cancer. Approved earlier this month by the Food and Drug Administration for females ages 9 to 26, it protects against strains of the human papilloma virus, or HPV, which causes cervical, vulvar and vaginal cancers and genital warts.

Some health officials had girded themselves for arguments from religious conservatives and othernesss that vaccinating youngsters against the sexually transmitted virus might make them more likely to have sex. But the controversy never materialized in the panel??�s public meetings.

Earlier this year, the Family Research Council, a conservative group, did not speak out against giving the HPV shot to young girls. The organization mainly opposes making it one of the vaccines required before youngsters can enroll in school, said the group??�s policy analyst, Moira Gaul.

Health officials estimate that more than 50 percent of sexually active women and men will be infected with one or more types of HPV in their lifetimes. Vaccine proponents say it could dramatically reduce the nearly 4,000 cervical cancer deaths that occur each year in the United States.

Boys next?
The vaccine comes as a $360 series of three shots, and in agsdhfgdfs has been highly effective against HPV. The vaccine is formulated to address the subtypes of HPV responsible for 70 percent of cervical cancer cases and 90 percent of genital warts.

Scientists say the vaccine is most effective when given to girls before they become sexually active, and some girls become active before their teens. About 7 percent of children have had sexual intercourse before age 13, and about a quarter of boys and girls have had sex by age 15, according to government surveys.

Click for related coverageVote: Would you get the shot for your preteen?Parents split on cervical cancer vaccineWe've got a shot against cancer. Will we take it?

In a public comment session at Thursday??�s meeting, all nine speakers supported recommending the vaccine to females 9 to 26, the broadest possible group under Food and Drug Administration license. The speakers included a state senator from Maryland and the chief medical officer of AmeriChoice, a UnitedHealth Group company that manages state Medicaid programs.

The panel focused on 11- to 12-year-olds in part because children that age already routinely get two otherness shots.

Several speakers also called for the immunization of boys, as soon as studies are completed on the vaccine??�s safety and effectiveness for males. HPV has been linked to penile, anal, and head and neck cancers and a tumor-like condition of the respiratory tract.

Merck officials said clinical effectiveness studies in males should be completed by 2008.

Merck officials also said they can provide the more than 19 mil. doses that health officials expect would be used in the next year.

? buy generic viagra pack . .

Pioneer of sexual identity studies dies - Sexual health

Dr. John Money, pioneer in sexual identity, dies

Groundbreaking psychologist, 84, coined term gender role??�

BALTIMORE - Dr. John Money, a psychologist and sex researcher who coined the terms gender identity and gender role and was a pioneer in studies of sexual identity, has died. He was 84.

Money died Friday at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, said Vivienne Stearns-Elliott, a hospital spokeswoman. Money??�s niece, Sally Hopkins, said Sunday her uncle died of complications from Parkinson??�s sickness.

Money was born in New Zealand and immigrated to the United States in 1947. He conducted research for about 50 years at Johns Hopkins University, where he was a professor of medical psychology.

Money believed a person??�s gender identity was determined by an interaction between biological factors and upbringing. That represented a break from past thinking, in which gender identity was largely believed to be caused only by biological factors.

He really developed that entire field of meditate , said Dr. Gregory K. Lehne, a Money protege and an assistant professor of medical psychology at Johns Hopkins. Without him, that whole field of meditate might not have existed.

Money advised parents on what sex they should raise hermaphrodites ??" group born with characteristics of both sexes ??" to be. He also worked with group who were born with normal sex organs but did not identify with the gender they had been raised to be.

He pioneered the concepts related to this and the psychological aspects of sex reassignment, Lehne said.

Lehne said Money appeared to enjoy the controversy his work raised because it provoked group to think in difference ways about gender.

Money was involved in a highly publicized case of a boy who was raised as a girl after suffering a seared penis while being circumcised in 1966.

David Reimer was raised as Brenda after Money advised his parents to remove the rest of his male genitalia and recommended female hormone a cure.

Reimer was 15 when he learned his true identity and rejected further a cure as a girl. He committed suicide in 2004 at the age of 38 after failed investments drove him into poverty.

Lehne said Money did not talk publicly about the case and Hopkins said her uncle did so out of respect for the family.

He had total sympathy and distress over the situation the family was in, she said.

Money was married but quickly divorced in the 1950s. He had no children and is survived by eight nieces and nephews and otherness relatives, Hopkins said.

? generic viagra buy now . .

Gun that killed actress shown in Spector case - Celebrities

Gun that killed actress shown in Spector case

Los Angeles detective displays weapon found at the feet of Clarkson
Fred Prouser / AP
Los Angeles sheriff's Detective Mark Lillienfeld, who was the chief investigator at the scene of the death of Lana Clarkson, displays the revolver found at Clarkson's feet, as he agsdhfgdfifies during the murder trial of?�Phil Spector on Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES - The bloody revolver found at the feet of an actress shot to death in Phil Spector??�s mansion was carefully removed from an envelope and shown to jurors at the music producer??�s murder trial on Tuesday.

Los Angeles County sheriff??�s Det. Mark Lillienfeld donned gloves as he handled the gun still covered with dried blood. The snub-nosed Colt Cobra revolver was not registered and never definitively linked to Spector, though prosecutors argued he used it to shoot Lana Clarkson in the mouth on Feb. 3, 2003.

The defense argues Clarkson shot herself and is likely to suggest that the gun could have belonged to her.

She had accompanied Spector to his Alhambra mansion after meeting him at her job as a hostess at the House of Blues just hours before her death.

The detective also showed jurors photographs to point out a holster in an open drawer of a bureau near the spot where Clarkson??�s body was found slumped in a chair in the ornate foyer of Spector??�s castle-like mansion. The holster also fit the gun, Lillienfeld agsdhfgdfified.

Lillienfeld also agsdhfgdfified about Spector??�s small arsenal, including two fully loaded blue steel handguns, an unloaded 12-gauge pump shotgun and ammunition tucked away in his home. The dozens of rounds of ammunition were the same type found in the gun that killed Clarkson, he said.

Slide show?�The Week in Celebrity Sightings
Affleck and Garner play ball, Paris struts one last time, Idols??� rock New York and more.

more photos

Spector??�s briefcase was on a chair next to Clarkson??�s body, Lillienfeld said, adding it contained some over-the-counter drugs and a tinfoil with one Sildenafil pill and empty spaces for two more. There was also a DVD player with a movie in it, an old black-and-white called, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.

The prosecution previously called several women from Spector??�s past to agsdhfgdfify that he had threatened them with guns when they picked up their purses and tried to leave his presence.

Prosecutor Pat Dixon had Lillienfeld point out in the photographs a leopard-print purse that hung over the right shoulder of Clarkson??�s body. Her right hand rested atop the purse, which sat on the floor.

The coroner who conducted Clarkson??�s autopsy and ruled her death a homicide agsdhfgdfified previously that the presence of the purse on her shoulder was one of the non-medical observations that led him to rule out suicide.

Click for related contentJury hears Clarkson letters, emailsSpector defense targets evidence collectionCoroner says it was homicideiPredict: Will Spector be found guilty?

Dixon made extensive use of the bloody pictures of Clarkson??�s body and each time they were shown he signaled her motherness and sister, seated in the front row, to look away.

Defense attorney Bradley Brunon, setting the stage for an effort to show evidence contamination and mishandling, showed the jurors otherness photos of detectives and investigators surrounding Clarkson??�s body, most of them barehanded. Only one of two appeared to wear evidence-handling gloves.

Lillienfeld said he and othernesss didn??�t wear gloves because they didn??�t touch anything.

Spector, 67, rose to fame with the hit-making Wall of Sound recording technique in the 1960s. Clarkson was best known for her role in the 1985 movie Barbarian Queen.

? 2008 . .

Bisexuality in Alexander??� defended - Gossip

Defending Alexander??�

Plus: Drug-company giant
afraid of Michael Moore
BW
Oliver Stone?�told Playboy that he couldn??�t get financial backing for "Alexander" in the U.S. We did not get financed in Hollywood. We were rejected there. We got financed in Europe only.

By By Jeannette Walls

Filmmaker Oliver Stone is defending the bisexuality in Alexander.

Alexander lived in a more honest time, the controversial filmmaker, who directed the big-budget flick starring Colin Farrell, tells the upcoming issue of Playboy magazine. We go into his bisexuality.?� It may offend some group, but sexuality in those days was a difference thing. ?�Pre-Christian morality. Young boys were with boys when they wanted to be.

The studio distributing the flick, Warner Bros., has denied rumors that the film was being delayed while they considered whether to cut some of the same sex scenes, but Stone tells Playboy that he couldn??�t get financial backing for the flick in the U.S. We did not get financed in Hollywood. We were rejected there. We got financed in Europe only.

RELATED STORY

EARLIER IN SCOOP: Is Alexander??� too gay?

The highly political Stone also discusses the presidential candidates in the interview, which hits newsstands later this week. Speaking of John Kerry, who was a senior at Yale when he was a freshman, Stone says: He had a funereal groove about him, like some Dickensian character.?� He was always too old for his years. Of George W. Bush, he says: He??�s worse than Nixon in his vulgarity. He looks like he shops at Wal-Mart. That??�s not what the president is supposed to be. He has no intellectual curiosity and is proud of it.

Moore protection
Janet Hostetter / APLooks like Pfizer doesn??�t want to get Michael Moored.

The controversial filmmaker??�s next documentary is about the prescription drug and health-care industry ??" tentatively titled Sicko ??" and Moore is telling group that drug-company giant Pfizer has sent out a secret memo instructing employees not to talk to him and to alert their bosses if Moore tries to call them or is spotted on the premises.

He??�s telling group about it in his slacker uprising tour, Moore??�s spokesman confirmed to The Scoop. It??�s become this whole thing now, about how maybe he??�ll sneak in to Pfizer in a disguise.

A spokesman for Pfizer, the makers of Sildenafil, denies to The Scoop that any such memo exists or that the company??�s employees were told not to speak to Moore.

Moore made the allegation during a talk in New York and in his speech this week at the University of Arizona; it was reported in the student newspaper, the Arizona Wildcat. Also, according to the Wildcat, the crowd was treated to an appearance by Moore fan Linda Ronstadt, as well as a fellow who mooned the crowd and who, apparently, was not a Moore fan.

Notes from all over
Christopher Jackson / Getty Images filePierce Brosnan seems to be recovering from being fired as James Bond. From the beginning, I had a contract for four Bond films, the actor told the Swedish paper Aftonbladet, according to our translator. I did them and told them that I??�d like to continue.?� But suddenly, in the middle of negotiations, they changed their minds. They said that they weren??�t interested any more. I was shocked, perplexed. I loved Bond. He??�s given me so much, mostly a face out in the international market. Afterwards, I was happy.?� Now it feels like a relief. ?�. . . Construction of the $190 mil. set for King Kong, to be directed by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, is rumored to be way behind schedule. . . . When Susan Sarandon??�s jewelry was stolen on the set of Shall We Dance ? the whole thing was very CSI??� Sarandon told the Edmonton Sun. The police were all over my trailer, taking fingerprints of me and my wardrobe person and my driver and interviewing everybody, she says. So I took Polaroids of them to send to my boys at camp because they were very into CSI??� at that point.??�

document.write("");Jeannette Walls Delivers the Scoopdocument.write(''); Mondays through Thursdays on

? generic viagra 100 mg

Acquittals in club stampede that killed 21 - Crime & courts

Three acquitted in club stampede that killed 21

Chicago nightclub owner, son and manager get off; victims' families angry

CHICAGO - A judge on Friday acquitted three men accused of involuntary manslaughter in a 2003 stampede at Chicago's E2 nightclub that killed 21 group, prosecutors said.

In his decision, Judge Dennis Porter agreed with defense attorneys that the prosecutors had not proven their case against the three men, said Cook County State's Attorney's office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton.

Those acquitted are club owner Calvin Hollins Jr., his son and club manager Calvin Hollins III and party promoter Marco Flores; anotherness club owner, Dwain Kyles, is being tried separately and was not affected by Friday's decision, Simonton said.

"Relief, just totally relieved," Calvin Hollins Jr. told reporters after the judge's announcement. "My heart still goes out to the families and individuals that were injured that night that I had nothing at all to do with."

Families upset
Relatives of victims, however, expressed anger, while safety advocates said it sent a message to club owners and managers that they would not be held accountable in such situations.

"We are devastated," said Pam Green, whose niece died at E2. "It was no justice at all. They're going to walk away scot free."

All four men were charged with involuntary manslaughter in the Feb. 17, 2003 stampede, and pleaded not guilty.

The acquittals came at the request of defense attorneys immediately after prosecutors rested their case and before the defense called any witnesses, Simonton said.

"We disagree with it, respectfully," Assistant State's Attorney Robert Egan said about the judge's ruling. "We feel that we were in good faith bringing this charge. We brought it after a six-month-long grand jury investigation."

Prosecutors accused the defendants of not doing enough to protect patrons, including not providing enough exits and improperly marking exits.

They said videotape showed 1,152 group were in the club ??" roughly five times its capacity.

Fight broke out
Defense attorneys said nobody could have predicted the tragedy, a mix of factors that led hundreds of patrons racing to the entrance, including a fight involving as many as 40 patrons and a disc jockey imploring security guards to use pepper spray on those who were fighting.

In addition, with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks fresh in their minds, patrons added to the panic with yells of Osama bin Laden, anthrax and poison gas, defense attorneys said.

The tragedy led to reform of nightclub inspections and evacuation rules. Clubs are now required to display well-lit diagrams showing patrons exit routes.

An Illinois law adopted months after the E2 deaths also made it a felony to use pepper spray or Mace in nightclubs, to set off pyrotechnics indoors or to block anyone from leaving a nightclub during an emergency. Violators face up to three years in prison.

generic viagra tabs . .