Business briefs for July 31, 2003

Thursday, July 31, 2003 | 11:24 a.m.

Job forum scheduled for Friday afternoon

The first-ever Diversity Employment Expo, featuring recruitment officers from several expanding Southern Nevada companies and government offices, is scheduled Friday afternoon at the MGM Grand Conference Center.

The event is scheduled from 1-5 p.m.

Among the companies that have confirmed their attendance are Bechtel Nevada, the Bureau of Reclamation, the City of Las Vegas and the City of North Las Vegas, the Clark County Library District, Cox Communications, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Las Vegas Water District, MGM MIRAGE, Ocean Spray Industries, Southwest Airlines, Sprint and the Venetian hotel-casino.

Hospital payments to increase

WASHINGTON -- Medicare plans to raise payments 3.4 percent for care of patients admitted to more than 4,300 U.S. hospitals starting Oct. 1, only the second time in 20 years that they would get a full inflation-adjusted increase, the U.S. government said.

Hospitals and chain operators such as HCA Inc. and Tenet Healthcare Corp. would get a reimbursement increase in fiscal 2004, under the plan by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Washington. The raise is less than the 3.5 percent the agency had proposed.

Medicare is the U.S. government health-insurance plan for 40 million elderly and disabled people. Congress has been considering a compromise on legislation that would be the biggest expansion of Medicare in its 38-year history.