Doctors resume battle with Anthem, health insurers
Doctors are pushing again to strengthen their hands in contract negotiations with health insurers, especially market leader
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
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Articles
Witham planning bond sale to acquire Anson site
Lebanon-based hospital system also wants to refinance about $21 million in debt on new medical office building.
Company news
Whew! A contract dispute that almost kicked seven central Indiana hospitals out of the network of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield was averted at the last minute last week. On Dec. 30, Anthem released a “News Flash” saying that its customers no longer would receive negotiated discounts at Hancock Regional, Hendricks Regional, Henry County, Morgan, Riverview, Westview and Witham hospitals, beginning the next day. The hospitals are part of Indianapolis-based Suburban Health Organization. But by 4 p.m. the same day, the two sides came to terms.
What Dow AgroSciences has done with corn, it’s now trying to do with cotton. The Indianapolis-based company has licensed genetically engineered cotton traits from Switzerland-based Syngenta AG. Dow Agro will combine Syngenta’s traits with cotton traits it developed. In 2012, Dow Agro expects to launch cotton seeds stacked with the traits to better protect against cotton pests. Dow Agro, a subsidiary of Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co., developed corn seed with eight genetically engineered traits following a licensing deal with St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. Dow Agro and Syngenta did not disclose financial terms of their deal.
St. Francis Hospital and Health Centers has sued three OrthoIndy physicians over the group’s new $20 million outpatient surgery center scheduled to open in Greenwood next year. The complaint alleges the new facility breaches an earlier partnership between the two health care providers. According to St. Francis’ civil complaint, filed Dec. 18 in Hamilton County Superior Court, St. Francis and an OrthoIndy affiliate agreed in 2001 to become equal partners in another facility—the Indiana Orthopaedic Surgery Center at 5255 E. Stop 11 Road on the St. Francis campus on the south side. But in December 2008, OrthoIndy announced it had purchased property four miles from the Indiana Orthopaedic Surgery Center and planned to construct a competing facility there. An attorney for the OrthoIndy physicians said St. Francis’ lawsuit has no merit.
When production at Tippecanoe Laboratories in Lafayette started today at 9:30 a.m., it officially launched a new era for the drugmaking plant. Germany-based Evonik Industries AG is now operating the plant after acquiring it from Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. Lilly sold the plant as part of $1 billion in operating cuts it wants to achieve by the end of 2011. Lilly signed a nine-year contract for Evonik to supply it with the materials made at the Lafayette plant. Gov. Mitch Daniels attended the start of production this morning.
Community Health Network’s philanthropic foundation received $1 million in cash from John W. “Jack” Heiney, a retired president and CEO of Evansville-based Indiana Gas Co. Heiney’s gift, made in honor of his late wife Betty, will be used to fund outreach, wellness and prevention programs, as well as improve Community’s facilities and employees.
People
Clarian North Medical Center named Damita Williams, a registered nurse, its chief nursing officer and vice president of patient care services. She has been interim chief nursing officer since September. Williams joined Clarian North in 2005 as director of Riley Hospital North and Resource Center.
Dr. Andy Dillingham, has joined St. Vincent Physician Network in Carmel as a family medicine physician. Dillingham, a former pharmacist, earned a pharmacy degree from Butler University and a medical degree from Midwestern University’s Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Q&A
Mike Rinebold, director of government relations for the Indiana State Medical Association, discussed the
national health reform effort of 2009 as well as the 2010 session of the Indiana Legislature that
began Jan. 5.Grass-roots groups prepare to fill gaps in health care reform
Legislation set to come out of Washington will not change the most fundamental problems of the health
care system, leaving it up to states, cities and companies to figure out what to do about it.Health care software firm RealMed regains momentum
RealMed enjoys a nearly 99-percent renewal rate among its current customers and attracted 4,000 new doctors
in 2009. Employment at the company is rising after a steady decline.St. Francis sues OrthoIndy over new surgery center
Legal complaint alleges new $20 million facility in Greenwood breaches partnership deal struck in 2001.
Company news
AIT Laboratories is doling out another $1 million to its employees, its second round of profit-sharing payouts this year. The Indianapolis-based clinical, forensic and pharmaceutical testing company paid employees $2 million in bonuses in June, right before CEO Michael Evans transferred ownership of the firm to its workers as part of an employee stock-ownership plan. […]
Company news
Carmel-based Dormir Inc. acquired a string of sleep-study centers and equipment stores in California,
Oregon and Utah, making it the nation’s second-largest provider of sleep-diagnostic services in the country behind SleepMed
Inc., headquartered in Columbia, S.C. The sleep centers and equipment stores were part of two subsidiaries of Australia-based
Avastra Sleep Centres Ltd. They give Dormir 85 locations in 16 states. Financial terms of the deal were
not disclosed.Eli Lilly and Co. said it won approval for a new long-acting
version of its bestselling antipsychotic Zyprexa. The new version has patents that could extend until
2018. Investors have shunned Lilly’s stock this year because they say Indianapolis-based Lilly does not have enough new
drugs to offset the loss of Zyprexa revenue that will occur after the drug loses its patents in 2011. Lilly issued a forecast
for 2012-2014 that suggested its profits could fall by as much as one-third from their present levels.Lilly
Endowment Inc. will give $60 million to the Indiana University School of Medicine
to implement its new Indiana Physician Scientist Initiative that aims to turn discoveries that could
improve human health into products and treatments that benefit patients and produce new businesses. Dr. David Wilkes,
executive associate dean for research affairs at the IU School of Medicine, will direct the Indiana Physician Scientist Initiative.
Its biggest goal is to recruit 20 physician-scientists to the IU med school to focus on cancer, neurosciences and diabetes/vascular
disease.Scientists have made chemotherapy drugs better at reducing side effects by engineering them to bind only
to cancerous cells. But researchers at Purdue University are taking an entirely different approach. They
used cold and magnetic particles to create nanorods—about 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. They then coated these
rods with the breast cancer drug Herceptin and inserted them into breast tumors. Professor Joseph Irudayaraj and graduate
student Jiji Chen wrote about their work in the journal ACS Nano.The Eli Lilly and Co. Foundation
gave $1 million to Indiana University to form a school of public health at IUPUI. Indiana University will
build the school using faculty from its medical school and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.Two Fort Wayne consulting firms are joining forces in an attempt to do more work for financially
strapped doctors and hospitals. MedOptima and Ruffolo Benson LLC now
offer expertise in improving billing and other processes, as well as finding capital.In the
latest combination of fitness and physicians, St. Vincent Health has opened
a rehab therapy clinic at the Fishers YMCA. The 3,900-square-foot clinic will offer
orthopedic, neurological and general rehab care. The first local example of such a partnership is the Westview Healthplex
Sports Club on Guion Road operated by Westview Hospital. Also, Hendricks Regional Health
is working with YMCA to build a joint facility in Avon.Dormir acquires two sleep companies
Carmel firm using $12 million in venture capital for buying spree is now nation’s second-largest operator of sleep centers.
Fix what’s broken first
As a physician, I owe it to my patients to help get health care reform right. From the front line, physicians can offer
changes that could result in more cost-effective, efficient and accessible health care. That’s why I joined the Coalition
to Protect Patients’ Rights, along with 10,000 other doctors.Health reform provision called ‘death sentence’ for doctor-owned hospitals
House and Senate versions of health care reform could halt the trend toward physician-owned hospitals.
Company news
<p><strong>Dow AgroSciences LLC</strong>, which seems to sign a new deal every week, announced two, in fact, in the past eight
days. The Indianapolis-based developer of agricultural products announced Nov. 24 that its Canada subsidiary acquired the
assets of Hyland Seeds, a division of Thompsons Ltd. of Blenheim, Ontario. Dow Agro is adding distribution
capacity for the 2010 launch of its SmartStax variety of genetically modified seeds. Then on Dec. 1,
Dow Agro invested an undisclosed amount in Ontario-based Agrisoma Biosciences Inc. The companies have been collaborating
since 2004 to genetically engineer plant traits, and now will expand their work into field crops, such as corn and soybeans.
Dow Agro’s investment secured it a commercial license option for Agrisoma technology.</p><p>The <strong>Indiana
Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute</strong> has received $2.5 million to help it turn laboratory discoveries into
treatments faster. The money will be used to bring the <strong>University of Notre Dame</strong> into the institute, now a
partnership of Indiana and Purdue universities. Other funds will go to build up the institute’s Web site
and to figure out best practices for community-health efforts. Nearly $1 million of the funds will be used to recruit patients
to participate in clinical trials conducted by physicians at the Indiana Clinic, a new joint venture of the <strong>IU
School of Medicine</strong> and the Indianapolis-based <strong>Clarian Health</strong> hospital system.</p><p>Officials of
<strong>Wishard Health Services</strong> released details Tuesday of their first
request for bids on construction of a new Wishard hospital downtown. Hospital officials
are looking for contractors to build a 2,300-space parking garage, the first of five buildings to
house the new hospital. Marion County voters agreed Nov. 3 to back bonds that Wishard’s
parent organization will sell to fund the $754 million project. A meeting about
the bid process will be held Dec. 17. The new hospital is scheduled to open in December
2013.</p>
Lilly’s Cymbalta wins new approval for anxiety disorder
FDA action should boost sales of the Eli Lilly and Co. drug, which were already on pace to top $3 billion this year.
St. Vincent-Novia clinic partnership cuts out insurance middleman
The St. Vincent Health hospital system has joined with Indianapolis-based Novia CareClinics LLC to set up clinics on employers’
campuses, offering health care for their workers with no insurance companies involved.