Eli's Rehab Report

Word on the Street: HealthSouth Tinkers With Selling Headquarters

 
Birmingham, Ala. -- Small rehab practices aren't the only ones downsizing these days. HealthSouth Corp. could sell its headquarters in Birmingham to help reduce its $3.3 billion in debt, according to the April 2 edition of the Birmingham Business Journal.
 
During an investors' conference call, CEO Jay Grinney said the company could save as much as
$5 million annually in operating costs by selling the Birmingham headquarters.
 
How it works: HealthSouth would remain in Birmingham but, as a cheaper alternative, would lease space for $2 million to $2.5 million a year. The company could also make close to $100 million for selling its outpatient rehab diagnostic division and corporate offices in Birmingham, Grinney said. He indicated that the company expects to sell the diagnostic division during the second quarter of this year. 

 
Bethesda, Md. -- Keep an eye on your athletic trainer peers, occupational therapists. The Maryland Occupational Therapy Association (MOTA) is opposing legislation that would expand athletic trainers' state scope of practice, according to an April 2 press release from the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA).
 
Two bills in the Maryland House and Senate (H.B. 1083 and S.B. 584, respectively) seek to establish an Athletic Trainers Advisory Committee under the State Board of Physicians and establish licensure requirements for athletic trainers, AOTA said.
 
The concern: MOTA worries that the bills define the "practice of athletic training" too broadly, lack definitions for "athlete" and "athletic injury," and do not specifically exclude the practice of occupational therapy.
 
"In essence, these bills, if approved, would allow athletic trainers to provide therapeutic interventions to the general public," AOTA states, adding that it has been working with MOTA on this issue. 

 
The well-known speech-language outcomes tool, NOMS, has been the name of the benchmarking game for SLPs who are members of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association.
 
But the association decided that the SLP community might enjoy a complement to this product and announced April 6 that it is developing new software that caters to documentation and billing needs.
 
The details: ASHA has entered into a licensing agreement with Cedaron Medical Inc. to develop "a comprehensive point-of-care (POC) electronic documentation system" for SLP services, which it will call SLP Connect. The documentation and billing product is set for a March 2008 release