Contrary To Popular Belief, Medicaid Hospital Admissions Are Often Profitable Because Of Additional Medicare Payments.

It is generally believed that most hospitals lose money on Medicaid admissions. The data suggest otherwise. Medicaid admissions are often profitable for hospitals because of payments from both the Medicaid program and the Medicare program, including payments for uncompensated care and from the Medicare disproportionate-share hospital program.

Spatial and temporal changes in promoter activity of the astrocyte glutamate transporter GLT1 following traumatic spinal cord injury.

After traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI), there is an opportunity for preserving function by attenuating secondary cell loss. Astrocytes play crucial roles in the adult CNS and are responsible for the vast majority of glutamate buffering, potentially preventing excitotoxic loss of neurons and oligodendrocytes. We examined spatial and temporal changes in gene expression of the major astrocyte glutamate transporter GLT1 following moderate thoracic contusion SCI using transgenic BAC-GLT1-eGFP promoter reporter mice.

Private-payer profits can induce negative Medicare margins.

A common assumption is that hospitals have little control over their costs and must charge high rates to private health insurers when Medicare rates are lower than hospital costs. We present evidence that contradicts that common assumption. Hospitals with strong market power and higher private-payer and other revenues appear to have less pressure to constrain their costs.

Small B-cell neoplasms with typical mantle cell lymphoma immunophenotypes often include chronic lymphocytic leukemias.

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) are CD5+ small B-cell neoplasms (SBCNs) with overlapping features. Flow cytometric immunophenotyping is often used to help differentiate CLL from MCL, and a characteristic CLL phenotype is considered essentially diagnostic. However, previous studies have not specifically examined how well a typical MCL immunophenotype distinguishes MCL from CLL.

Prioritizing conservation effort through the use of biological soil crusts as ecosystem function indicators in an arid region.

Conservation prioritization usually focuses on conservation of rare species or biodiversity, rather than ecological processes. This is partially due to a lack of informative indicators of ecosystem function. Biological soil crusts (BSCs) trap and retain soil and water resources in arid ecosystems and function as major carbon and nitrogen fixers; thus, they may be informative indicators of ecosystem function.

XK-aprosencephaly and related entities.

We offer further biological characterization of the XK atelen/aprosencephaly syndrome in two infants, one with prolonged survival, the other presenting prenatally with apparent hydranencephaly and an orbital tumor (OS). Familial occurrence in the former born to presumably nonconsanguineous Lybian parents may represent parental germinal mosaicism or autosomal recessive inheritance. Both had apparently normal chromosomes; however, the Lybian infant had slightly increased induced chromosome breakage suggesting that this rare multiple congenital anomalies syndrome may involve a DNA repair defect.

Response of desert biological soil crusts to alterations in precipitation frequency.

Biological soil crusts, a community of cyanobacteria, lichens, and mosses that live on the soil surface, occur in deserts throughout the world. They are a critical component of desert ecosystems, as they are important contributors to soil fertility and stability. Future climate scenarios predict alteration of the timing and amount of precipitation in desert environments.

Detection of occult cervical micrometastases in patients with head and neck squamous cell cancer.

Objective: The incidence of occult nodal metastases associated with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and the clinical significance of nodal micrometastases by cytokeratin immunohistochemical analysis are examined.

Study Design: In all, 1012 lymph nodes from 50 patients treated between 1992 and 2001 at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (Denver, CO) were evaluated retrospectively for micrometastases.

Methods: Serial sectioning in 5-to 6-microm interval specimens stained either with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) or immunostaining for cytokeratins using the monoclonal antibody cocktail AE1/AE3 was performed in 21 N0, 11 N1, and 14 N2 patient cases.

Comparison of soil bacterial communities in rhizospheres of three plant species and the interspaces in an arid grassland.

Soil bacteria are important contributors to primary productivity and nutrient cycling in arid land ecosystems, and their populations may be greatly affected by changes in environmental conditions. In parallel studies, the composition of the total bacterial community and of members of the Acidobacterium division were assessed in arid grassland soils using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRF, also known as T-RFLP) analysis of 16S rRNA genes amplified from soil DNA. Bacterial communities associated with the rhizospheres of the native bunchgrasses Stipa hymenoides and Hilaria jamesii, the invading annual grass Bromus tectorum, and the interspaces colonized by cyanobacterial soil crusts were compared at three depths.