61.   Federal officials sent a stern warning to agencies Tuesday not to drop ill patients from their rolls.

62.   Fluent in several languages, Sanchez made a point of tending to patients from abroad.

63.   For example, they are under pressure to keep patients from seeing specialists outside of CareGroup lest it reduce their income.

64.   For example, high-blood-pressure medications now keep some patients from having heart bypass surgery.

65.   For example, it did not eliminate the hurdles that prevent patients from suing HMOs for denials of treatment.

66.   Fifteen burn patients from Germany had pig skin grafts.

67.   For example, discharging a patient from the hospital a few days earlier might save an insurer thousands of dollars in hospital costs.

68.   For one thing, HMOs squeezed savings by moving patients from a high-cost hospital setting to a lower cost ambulatory setting.

69.   Gifford of Yale said the requirement would ultimately help protect doctors and patients from violence.

70.   He added that some states may stop offering community care services to avoid the costs of transferring patients from state institutions.