Briefs

Genesis spins off Rx/HME BALTIMORE — Genesis Health Ventures, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation company with roughly $1 billion in annual revenue, will spin off its pharmacy and HME arm into a separate company. The split should be completed by year's end. Genesis bought NeighborCare in 1996 for $57.4 million. NeighborCare's 31 retail pharmacies in the Baltimore area represent only a small part of the company's business. Filing prescriptions for nursing homes provides the bulk of NeighborCare's revenues. Neighbor-Care, which recorded $317.2 million in revenues last year, also owns Towson-based Tidewater Group Purchasing, which sells health care supplies to 4,000 customers, mostly independent nursing homes. Geriatric sleep problems often go undiagnosed WASHINGTON — While some older adults are very healthy and have normal sleep patterns, frequent untreated sleep problems may be interfering with the ability of many others to cope with chronic medical conditions, according to a poll released by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). Although the majority of older adults (67%) report frequent sleep problems, only a small fraction (one in eight) says his or her sleep problems have been diagnosed. This means of the 37 million older adults reporting sleep problems, only about seven million have been diagnosed, leaving 30 million to count sheep. NSF is urging the medical community to treat sleep as an integral part of disease management, especially in older patients. Bankrupt NCFE will dog debtors DUBLIN, Ohio — National Century Financial Enterprises has cancelled plans to shutdown operations and sell its accounts receivable. The healthcare financial lender now reportedly intends to continue operations for one year in hopes of recovering roughly $600 million from bankruptcies by its former customers. More than 660 claims totaling at least $5.2 billion have been filed against bankrupt NCFE. NCFE, of Dublin, Ohio, purchased accounts receivables from healthcare providers at high discount rates.