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The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has notified Forsyth Medical Center it might end Medicare payments Aug. 1 unless the hospital regains compliance in certain areas.

In a letter to employees Monday, Jeff Lindsay, president of Forsyth Medical Center and chief operating officer for the Greater Winston-Salem market of parent company Novant, said the hospital has “taken immediate steps to comply with the standards and will be submitting our formal written response (Tuesday) to show that we have corrected the deficiencies.”

The Medicare notice was a result of a site visit by state regulators July 7-9 who found a deficiency in monitoring patients in certain areas of the hospital.

In the letter, Lindsay said that once federal officials receive Forsyth Medical Center’s plan, they will send a team to re-survey the hospital and ensure the problems have been corrected.

“We are confident that they will accept our plan of correction,” Lindsay wrote. “We fully expect to continue to provide care to Medicare patients and to receive Medicare reimbursement for those services.”

While Medicare reimbursements typically do not cover the full cost of treating those patients, the payments make up a large portion of most hospitals’ revenues.

A similar issue arose at Greensboro’s Moses Cone Health System in June 2009. Medicare officials conducted a follow-up visit within a couple of weeks of finding non-compliance with some regulations and did not ultimately cut off payments.

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Optimism is returning in California commercial real estate with a turning point coming in 2013, according to a new forecast.

The Allen Matkins/UCLA Anderson Forecast Commercial Real Estate Survey cites a "distant glow of light at the end of the tunnel" in the state's office and industrial markets.

The survey includes the Inland Empire, East Bay, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange County and San Diego office markets. The survey compares the panel's forecast of what the market will be three years from now with today's market.

“After 18 months of pessimism about office and industrial markets we are now seeing indications that, after the markets hit bottom later in this year or early next year, they will follow the pattern of increased non-residential construction coming two to three years after the end of the recession rather than the pattern of a multi-year stasis in this sector,” said the report's author, Jerry Nickelsburg, a senior economist at UCLA Anderson Forecast paperless payday loans.

The report has been done since 2006 when it was initiated by the law firm of Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP.

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Fitch Ratings has assigned an ‘AAA’ rating to $36 million worth of new Wake County general obligation bonds that will help fund the construction of a Wake Technical Community College health sciences building. Receiving such a strong rating is good news for the county because it leads to lower interest costs on the bonds.

The series 2010E and 2010E are expected to sell competitively on July 22nd. The bonds will be the last issued as part of a building program approved by voters in 2007.

The health sciences building, which will be located near Wake Med in Raleigh, will house associate degree nursing, emergency medical sciences and radiography programs. The facility is expected to open in January 2012. A construction contract for it will be awarded in late 2010 payday loans.

“I think the AAA reflects the county’s financial strength and will result in the lowest interest rates available in the marketplace at the time of the sale,” says Wake County Manager David Cooke. “And that saves taxpayers’ money.”

Fitch on Monday also affirmed the following Wake County ratings:

* $1.8 billion in outstanding GO bonds at ‘AAA’;

* $303.5 million in outstanding limited obligation bonds at ‘AA+’.

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Food prices in Kentucky for the second quarter were up over the first quarter, according to the latest Marketbasket Survey, released Friday by the Kentucky Farm Bureau.

The total cost of 40 basic grocery items was $108.48, up $4.86, or about 4.7 percent, from the first quarter of 2010. The total was the highest since the first quarter of 2009, according to the report.

Of the 40 items, 21 experienced price increases, 17 decreased and two — lettuce and wheat bread — were unchanged from the previous quarter.

Of the six food groups in the survey — beef, dairy, fruits and vegetables, grain, pork and poultry — beef had the greatest quarter-over-quarter increase, at 13 percent. Fruits and vegetables had the greatest price decline, at 2.6 percent.

The largest single-item change was in the price of a T-bone steak, which increased in price by 23 no checking account payday advance.8 percent from the first quarter, to $9.47 per pound from $7.65 per pound.

Mild cheddar cheese, sirloin tip roast and Idaho potatoes also experienced double-digit percentage increases in price between the first and second quarters, according to the survey.

Grade A large eggs fell 49.5 percent in the second quarter to $1.03 per dozen from $1.54 per dozen in the first quarter.

Tomatoes fell 33.6 percent during the same period, to $1.52 per pound from $2.03 per pound.

The survey is conducted quarterly to gauge food pricing trends. The Kentucky Farm Bureau estimates that farmers receive 19 cents of every retail food dollar.

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Sam Meyers Formal Wear has relocated its Clarksville store.

The business, which has been at the Green Tree Mall for 32 years, has departed for a new store in leased space at 1401 Veterans Parkway, next to the Walmart Supercenter.

The new store opened Thursday, July 1.

In addition to renting men’s formal wear and suits, the new Sam Meyers location is selling special-occasion dresses and gowns for proms, weddings, pageants and black-tie events, according to a news release.

In addition to the Clarksville, Sam Meyers has Louisville stores at Mall St instant payday loan. Matthews, 5000 Shelbyville Road, at 3400 Bashford Ave. and at 1901 Rudy Lane.

Sam Meyers also has a store in La Grange, at 2028 S. Highway 53 in the Kroger Center; and a shop in the Florence Mall in Florence, Ky., according to the company’s Web site, www.sammeyers.com.

Sam Meyers also operates a Bittners Formal Wear shop at 2817 West End Ave. in Nashville, Tenn.

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Manufacturing activity expanded for the 11th straight month in June, according to a purchasing managers’ survey released Thursday, but the rate of expansion slowed more than economists expected.

The Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) index of U.S. manufacturing dropped to 56.2 in June from 59.7 in May. The reading came in much lower than the slight decrease to 59 economists had expected, according to a Briefing.com consensus survey.

Despite the slowdown in growth, levels higher than 50 signal manufacturing growth, while readings below 50 indicate contraction.

"We are now 11 months into the manufacturing recovery, and given the robust nature of recent growth, it is not surprising that we would see a slower rate of growth at this time," said Norbert Ore, chair of the Institute for Supply Management Manufacturing Business Survey Committee.

"Comments from the respondents remain generally positive, but expectations have been that the second half of the year will not be as strong in terms of the rate of growth, and June appears to validate that forecast," he added cashadvance.

The decline in manufacturing growth in June was largely due to a slowdown in new orders and production, the report showed.

ISM’s new orders index dropped to 58.5 in June from 65.7 in April, driven by contraction in the machinery and wood products industries. The institute’s production index fell to 61.4 from 66.6, led by declines in the wood products and apparel industries.

Overall, only three of the 18 manufacturing industries surveyed reported slower growth in June, while thirteen reported accelerated in growth.

Apparel and leather products, wood products and machinery all posted slower gains. Activity expanded most in the plastics and rubber products, transportation equipment, printing activities and computer and electronic industries. 

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The San Francisco solar company SunRun Inc. has closed a $55 million Series C round of funding led by Sequoia Capital, of Menlo Park, with existing investors Accel Partners and Foundation Capital also participating.

The announcement comes a week after the company announced a $100 million investment from San Francisco-based PG&E to fund more than 3,500 residential solar systems in five states.

SunRun plans to use the new investment to expand into new U low rate payday loans.S. markets.

The company has a unique business model in which it owns its customers' solar panels, making it possible for them to switch to solar for little initial cost.

The company currently has a customer base in California, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

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Florida’s attorney general has sent a letter to the head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, urging her department to “engage every available asset” to combat the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Bill McCollum said in his letter to Janet Napolitano that the 28 skimmers operating off the coast of Florida are “clearly inadequate,” now that oil has started coming ashore.

McCollum said he learned that there are hundreds of additional skimming vessels that could be made available, and that at least one Florida firm – Jacksonville-based Crowley Maritime – has four inactive skimming platforms that could be deployed within days of request, but “no one with the Coast Guard or BP seems interested in engaging their vessels,” he claims in his letter.

Millions of gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon oilrig exploded on April 20.

On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted possible shoreline impacts along the western panhandle through Sunday, mainly west of Destin.

While Pensacola Beach is open, some areas are closed to swimming and wading.

BP PLC said Friday that it has two systems collecting oil and gas that are transporting them to vessels on the surface. About 37,000 personnel, more than 4,500 vessels and some 100 aircraft are now engaged in the response effort, according to the oil giant.

The company said it has recovered about 25.6 million gallons of oily liquid.

So far, there have been 74,000 claims filed and 39,000 payments totaling nearly $126 million. BP claims in Florida total 20,431, with about $17.9 million paid.

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Home prices in the Raleigh-Cary area increased by 1.37 percent in April compared to April 2009, even as home prices statewide fell by 0.7 percent, according to CoreLogic’s Home Price Index.

Nationally, home prices, including distressed properties, increased by 2.6 percent in April, the company (OTC BB: CLGX) reports.

It was the second straight month that home prices in the Raleigh-Cary area rose. Home prices in the Raleigh-Cary area increased by 1.31 percent in March compared to March 2009.

“The monthly increase in the HPI shows the lingering effects of the home buyer tax credit,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “We expect that we will see home prices remain strong through early summer, but in the second half of the year we expect price growth to soften and possibly decline moderately.”

Hawaii experienced the largest year over year price increase, 10.6 percent. Also in the top five were California (8.4 percent), North Dakota (6 percent), New York (3.7 percent) and Virginia (3.6 percent).

Idaho led the nation in sales prices declines, with prices falling by 7.2 percent. Rounding out the bottom five were Illinois (-5.8 percent), Nevada (-4.6 percent), Maryland (-4.3 percent) and Washington (-3.7 percent).

Home sales statistics released last week for the Triangle showed increased sales and prices in May.

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A former employee of Bank of Colorado was sentenced on Friday to 40 months after pleading guilty to bank fraud, U.S. Attorney David Gaouette and FBI Special Agent in Charge James Davis said.

Patricia Cabano, 56, of West Sacramento, Calif., pleaded guilty on April 5 to taking money from unsuspecting customers’ accounts at the Bank of Colorado office in Craig from 1998 to 2002.

In addition to the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge John Kane ordered Cabano to pay $535,530.67 in restitution to victims and to serve five years on supervised release following her prison term. She has been barred from ever working in the financial industry again.

According to the stipulated facts contained in the plea agreement, Cabano, as a head bookkeeper and later operations officer at the bank, used her position, knowledge of operations, and her largely unsupervised access to customers’ accounts to facilitate fraud.

From July 1998 through November 2002, Cabano made numerous unauthorized electronic transfers from unsuspecting customers’ accounts to her own accounts and the accounts of customers she favored, as well as some of her family members, according to the plea agreement.

“People put their trust in banks, and when a bank employee steals from customers, it reduces the confidence people have in their financial institutions,” Gaouette said in a statement.

“This is one of the more complicated internal fraud cases with a single suspect that the FBI has investigated in the Denver Division,” Davis said in a statement.

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