Health Providers

Emily Shearn, who worked for Humanim, a mental health services provider, died Monday at her Columbia home. She was 34. Miss Shearn, who had cerebral palsy and mental retardation as a result of a birth injury, was born in Stamford, Conn., and moved to Baltimore with her family in 1971. "We were doing a kind of home therapy program called patterning that required help from other people," said her father, Allen Shearn, a professor of biology at the Johns Hopkins University. "We had no family in Baltimore nor did we know anyone at all. "My wife went door to door in Mount Washington, where we lived, and asked our neighbors to help us. No one refused.

Maryland health care providers - particularly nursing homes, pharmacists and adult day care centers - told the House Health and Government Operations Committee yesterday that the latest round of state budget cuts hits them disproportionately, and could lead to reductions in quality and in patient access. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced, and the Board of Public Works approved, $208.4 million in cuts to state spending for the fiscal year; of that, $88.3 million is from the health budget.

Imagine a doctor who takes time to ask you about your family or chat about a movie. Who guarantees that you won't have to wait long for an appointment and even makes house calls. A doctor, in short, who provides the same VIP service you'd receive flying first class. You'd have to pay first-class prices, of course. One of the latest signs of the continuing backlash against managed-care medicine is so-called boutique doctors who promise red-carpet service to patients for a fixed fee, usually from $1,000 to $4,000 a year.

The director of the state's Mental Hygiene Administration, Oscar L. Morgan, submitted his resignation this week and will leave at the end of the month, state health officials said last night. Morgan, 49, of Annapolis, was appointed director of the mental health agency - part of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene - in 1997, after three years as its deputy director. He was instrumental in implementing the state's public mental health system, run by Maryland Health Partners, a unit of Columbia-based Magellan Behavioral Health.

Trying to reverse a tide of opposition to its planned acquisition, CareFirst BlueCross Blue- Shield will stress the benefits for the public rather than its business needs, William L. Jews, CareFirst's president and chief executive officer, said yesterday. An agreement to sell CareFirst for $1.3 billion to WellPoint Health Networks of California encountered a political storm in the General Assembly that threatened to scuttle the deal altogether. The company, which had not anticipated a tough review in the legislature, hurt its cause, according to legislators and others.

Feeling the effects of the state's growing mental health crisis, Omni House - a provider of services to Anne Arundel County's poor mentally ill for 20 years - is struggling to remain open after closing two of its clinics. The Glen Burnie facility joins the list of community-based mental health providers across the state that are trying to cope with lack of funding and administrative problems in the state's public mental health system. Financial pressures forced Omni House to close its mental health clinic for children and adolescents two months ago, as well as its substance abuse clinic.

Nonprofit mental health care providers warned yesterday that they're in danger of going out of business unless the state puts more money into the system and starts paying its bills more quickly. "If you don't do something, you won't have any clinics left," Craig Knoll, executive director of Threshold Services in Montgomery County, told lawmakers. "We're waiting until April 8," the last day of the General Assembly session, Knoll said. "If the right things happen, we'll keep the clinics open.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge will hear a last-minute plea tomorrow to block the sale of PrimeHealth Corp., which serves 19,000 patients and has been in receivership for more than two years. In a motion filed Friday, lawyers for the original owners of the Lanham managed-care company argued that the pending sale could jeopardize the patients' health care. According to the petition, a sale to Amerigroup Inc., a Prime- Health competitor, is about to be finalized. A spokeswoman for the Maryland Insurance Administration said the agency will respond to the request for a preliminary injunction at the hearing before Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan.