Deaconess Health System in Evansville has bought most of the assets of Welborn Clinic, also based in the southern Indiana city, to form one of the largest doctor groups in Indiana, according to the Evansville Courier & Press. The merged group will be called Deaconess Clinic, and will have more than 80 doctors, 500 employees […]
Doc pay-for-performance program set to launch Quality Health First signs up Anthem, 700 doctors After four years of development, a payfor-performance plan for Indianapolisarea doctors will officially launch Oct. 1. Quality Health First, the latest service of the Indiana Health Information Exchange, now has 700 primary-care doctors signed up to receive its reports on the quality of the care they give. And perhaps even more important, the program has contracted with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana as…
After four years of development, a payfor-performance plan for Indianapolisarea doctors will officially launch Oct. 1. Quality Health First, the latest service of the Indiana Health Information Exchange, now has 700 primary-care doctors signed up to receive its reports on the quality of the care they give. And perhaps even more important, the program has contracted with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana as the first health insurer to offer bonus payments to doctors based on how well…
Major Hospital CEO Tony Lennen says differences in personal style were key factors in his decision to resign suddenly on Monday. “There has been a lot of changes on our board,” Lennen, 50, said in an interview with IBJ. “I was uncomfortable. I don’t think we were in sync the way we used to be.” […]
St. Vincent Indianapolis and Women’s hospitals have received a $1.4 million gift from the estate of a surgeon who practiced at the hospital for decades. Dr. Robert F. Nagan’s gift is the largest ever by a physician to the hospital. About $375,000 went toward a new continuing care nursery at St. Vincent Women’s Hospital. The […]
The promise of personalized medicine-genetic tests that allow more informed and individualized health care decisions-has been blocked in recent times as patients struggle with the fear that those same genetic test results could bring genetic discrimination in the form of cancelled health insurance coverage or even the catastrophe of job loss. In 1997, Indiana enacted a state law protecting genetic screening or testing and prohibiting health insurers from considering any information obtained from such testing in a manner adverse to…
Medical-device maker Suros Surgical Systems was one of the fastest-growing companies in Indianapolis history. Just six years after forming it in 2000, founders sold it for $248 million. Is it any wonder they want to work together again? In late July, former Suros Chairman Jim Baumgardt and former Vice President of Sales Jeff Hanthorn joined locally based NICO Corp., the startup launched early this year by former Suros CEO Jim Pearson and Joseph Mark, one of Suros’ founders. The mission…
Tim Russert died last month at age 58. He was Washington bureau chief for NBC and the moderator of “Meet the Press.” His physician, Michael Newman, described the cause of death as coronary thrombosis-sudden cardiac arrest. Russert’s untimely death was possibly preventable. We can learn something here that may save lives at our businesses. Russert had been diagnosed with asymptomatic coronary artery disease that he controlled with medication and exercise. According to Newman, his stress test in April was normal….
Arming patients with portable electronic medical records that physicians can access during emergencies is becoming more prevalent among health care providers. The Heart Center of Indiana in Carmel, a partnership between St. Vincent Health and The Care Group Inc., the state’s largest cardiology group, recently started the practice. Community Health Network and Dr. Tim Story, who chairs the largest group of physicians at Clarian North Medical Center, are among others who have rolled out portable records systems. The health information…
Everybody’s doing it. So Heaton and Eadie and Katz, Sapper & Miller decided to get together, too. Katz Sapper announced last week that it will acquire Heaton and Eadie because both Indianapolis-based accounting firms expect their main health care clients-physicians-to link up more and more with one another and with hospitals in the next five years. They want the heft and experience to win the right to handle finance and consulting on more of those transactions. Katz Sapper gets Heaton…
A new law that went into effect July 1 says patients no longer need a physician referral before receiving acupuncture treatments. The upshot for a profession that only became legal in the state within the past 10 years is that acupuncturists should benefit from a boost in business. Competition is expected to increase as well, as the favorable conditions could prompt more of them to seek licenses in Indiana. The referral requirement has been a thorn in the side of…
The Indiana University School of Medicine has received $1.25 million from the National Institutes of Health to expand a partnership with Purdue University to train physician-scientists. The grant is one of 40 given nationally by the NIH. The IU-Purdue program leads to both a medical doctorate and a Ph.D. degree. IU accepts only five students […]
Nearly three-quarters of orthopedics patients in Shelby County have gone to an Indianapolis hospital to receive care. Now, Major Hospital in Shelbyville wants to keep more of those patients at home. By next June, the hospital will build a $7 million orthopedics center that will house two orthopedic surgeons. They will begin building their practices in Shelbyville next month. The play for orthopedics patients throws Major into a pitched battle among Indianapolis-area hospitals. Surging numbers of patients need new hips…
The U.S. health care policy debate has been strangely quiet the past few months. But the underlying problems grow ever more serious. Here’s some background. First, health care costs are rising rapidly. A huge amount of the increase stems from greater demand for the most costly services. These services include advanced end-of-life care, much more extensive neonatal care, and high-end elective surgery. Higher use of these services represents perhaps the largest single contributor to overall health care costs. Second, we…
Facebook and MySpace have harnessed the Internet to revolutionize how Americans keep in touch. Could providers of health care do the same? Indianapolis-based Community Health Network is trying to find out. It has opened its Web site to allow its patients to create their own MySpace-like pages to keep their family and friends informed about their treatment or about their new baby. Community’s Web site also hosts discussion forums for various groups of patients, such as new moms, cancer patients,…
Weâ??re increasingly bombarded with ads for health care products ranging from drugs for osteoporosis and restless
leg syndrome to knee replacements.
Zimmer went over the heads of doctors when it advertised its knee replacements designed specifically for women,
and…
Zimmer Inc. is racking up sales of a knee replacement designed for women despite lingering concern in the medical community that the implant is mostly a sales gimmick. More than 24,000 of the implants have been sold since the launch of Gender Solutions in 2006, according to The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne. The women’s […]
In a “supersized” culture, where bigger is better, nanotechnology is redefining the meaning of slimming down. Today, all of our favorite songs fit on a business card-size machine instead of on hundreds of CDs. Loud, clunky medical equipment has been with sleek quiet machinery that produces results in seconds. And, scientists and engineers in various industries are working with the smallest particles to build some of the most complex structures. The term “nanotechnology” refers to materials and devices that function…
Mary Andritz, dean of Butler University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, bursts into laughter when asked how long her department’s been short on space. “I’ve only been here for two years, but I think it’s been for some considerable amount of time,” she guessed. “Probably for 10 years.” Lilly Endowment Inc., however, is filling the prescription in the form of a grant to fund a 40,000-square-foot addition under construction and scheduled to open by the fall 2009 semester. The…
St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers settled a contract dispute with Cigna HealthCare and its Sagamore Health Network last week, days before their old contract expired June 15. The new reimbursement contract will run through 2011. Indianapolis’ fourth-largest hospital system made public its feud with the Philadelphia-based health insurer in early May. The agreement allows […]
