I came across 2 articles in the Orlando Sentinel(8/28/99 page C-1) that I thought I would pass on. K. ----- 2 HMO's draw violations State officials Friday cited two more health-maintenance organizations for improperly handling emergency-room claims. The Agency for Health Care Administration fined "Foundation Health" $24,500 for 49 violations of failing to pay claims on time, paying doctors or hospitals too little and one instance of improperly denying an ER claim. Officials didn't say where the violations occurred. Foundation has less than 1 percent of Central Florida's HMO business. "Neighborhood Health Partnership", a south Florida health plan, was fined $9,500 for 19 violations. Last week, AHCA said it had cited four other companies, including Humana Inc., as part of its ongoing audit of all HMOs operating in Florida. ---- Columbia drops 900 doctors Columbia/HCA Healthcare Inc., the nations largest hospital chain, has removed about 900 doctors from its payroll as part of a restructuring brought on by a federal fraud investigation into the company. Columbia, the nations hospital company, once owned physician practices that employed 1,500 doctors, but is now unraveling many of those contracts. Columbia, like most hospitals, lost money owning physician practices. Buying physician practices became a poplar strategy in the early 1990's as they sought a way to control patient admissions.