News in brief - Aug. 1, 2005

Insurer offers online health record - Thompson on cost-cutting committee - Former McKesson executive acquitted

Insurer offers online health record

Empire BlueCross BlueShield is giving its members the ability to create and maintain their own online personal health record.

When members sign up for the online record, the New York-based insurer adds health data pulled from claims, including lab test results, doctor visits, immunizations, hospital stays, diagnoses and prescriptions. Members will be able to add information to their record, including family medical history, health risks, allergies and medical history.

Separately, the MedicAlert Foundation and CapMed, a subsidiary of Bio-Imaging Technologies, on July 13 announced an agreement under which it will develop and market a portable device enabling individuals to carry health information with them at all times.

Thompson on cost-cutting committee

Former U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson will serve as chair of a newly developed committee assigned to investigate the role of preventive health care in cutting costs.

The MDVIP Committee on Cost Reduction through Preventive Healthcare will look at the concierge physician support company's approach to care and how it could be used to lower costs nationally. MDVIP, based in Boca Raton, Fla., provides technical, transitional and marketing support to doctors with whom the company has contracts. The company now has a network of 82 physicians in 14 states.

The firm stresses preventive care services to cut illness among patients as well as overall system costs.

Former McKesson executive acquitted

A federal judge in San Francisco found Richard Hawkins, the former chief financial officer of McKesson Corp., not guilty of all fraud charges related to an accounting scandal that wiped out $9 billion of the San Francisco-based company's market capitalization in 1999.

Hawkins is the first of seven people to stand trial for their alleged involvement in the fraud, which was uncovered after McKesson, a pharmaceutical distributor, acquired HBO & Co. for about $14 billion in 1999.

Of the all the executives charged with fraud, Hawkins is the only one who worked for McKesson before the merger of the two firms, the San Jose Mercury News reported. The others worked at HBOC, a health care software company. Four of them have already pleaded guilty and two are awaiting trial.

Earlier this year, McKesson agreed to pay $960 million to settle a class-action lawsuit arising from the accounting fraud. It also increased its reserves by an additional $240 million for its potential exposure from other lawsuits not covered by that settlement.