GENEVA  —  Finger Lakes Health will open a new joint center on the second floor of Geneva General Hospital in early January.

The new Joint Center of the Finger Lakes will open in a renovated portion of the hospital’s second floor on Jan. 3. The orthopedic unit will include private rooms for patients and handle joint-replacement surgery, rehabilitation, and physical therapy.

The New York state office of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has set state legislative goals for 2012 that include regulatory relief, mandate relief, and allowing companies to extract natural gas through hydraulic fracturing.

ITHACA - Working out a lot didn’t work out for one state social worker in Tompkins County whose habit of exercising on state time landed him in legal trouble.

Jeffrey Bieder, a former licensed master social worker with the State Office for People with Development Disabilities, pleaded guilty on Dec. 21 to first-degree falsifying business records before Tompkins County Court Judge John C. Rowley.

UTICA — After beginning 2011 by announcing job cuts, the Mohawk Valley’s two major hospitals announced they would end the year by starting discussions on the feasibility and benefits of merging the two hospitals.

ONEONTA - Medical Coaches, Inc. stopped selling its mobile medical equipment to the Middle East market in 1973 when the region cut off oil exports to nations, including the United States, which supported Israel in its conflict with Syria and Egypt.&l

Here are two fears the federal health-care reform legislation raises: If you are a certain person in certain situations, big government will make decisions about your health care - instead of you. Secondly, government, not you, will decide what care