Construction, manufacturing may lead economic recovery
The recession came to an official end 18 months ago, but Indiana’s unemployment rate hovered around 10 percent.
The recession came to an official end 18 months ago, but Indiana’s unemployment rate hovered around 10 percent.
Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc. has given $35 million to Manchester College to help launch a new school of pharmacy in Fort Wayne. Manchester, a 1,300-student liberal arts college west of Fort Wayne, plans to open the school in 2012 with a class of 70 students. The school, which would be Indiana’s third doctoral pharmacy program, would ramp up to 265 total students. Average pharmacist salaries nationwide top $115,000, according to the industry trade journal Drug Topics. There are 115 schools of pharmacy nationally, with 20 more preparing to launch, according to the American Pharmacists Association. There are nearly 175,000 pharmacists nationwide. Most dispense prescription medicines in community drug stores, though a growing number work at hospitals or as consultants and health care managers.
WellPoint Inc.’s request to raise rates on small-business health plans in New York by as much as 28 percent will face increased scrutiny because of new U.S. regulations, the state’s top health insurance official told Bloomberg News. Federal rules released Tuesday tell state regulators to view rate-increase proposals of more than 10 percent as “initially unreasonable,” said Louis Felice, head of New York’s Insurance Department’s health bureau. Indianapolis-based WellPoint asked for a premium hike of 20 percent to 28 percent for 216,000 people in health plans at businesses with 50 or fewer employees. State officials can choose to bar insurers with a pattern of rate increases that the new health law labels as “unreasonable” from new insurance exchanges that will be set up in 2014 as part of funding coverage for 24 million individuals. The 10-percent threshold will change after 2011 to a state-by-state measurement based on the history of health costs in each state.
Indiana Medicaid services likely will be cut in order to head off a projected 25-percent spike in spending over the next two years, according to the Associates Press. The actuary hired by Medicaid to make budget projections, Milliman Inc.’s Robert Damler, said the program’s spending is set to grow by $3.3 billion over the next two years, and more after that, unless some services are cut. Those figures rendered the State Budget Committee “speechless,” said committee Chairman Luke Kenley, a Republican state senator from Noblesville. Damler suggested cutting spending for chiropractors, podiatrists and adult dental services to reduce the Medicaid bill. But Medicaid is likely here to stay, after Kenley backed away from an earlier suggestion that Indiana follow Texas' lead in exploring alternatives to Medicaid. Kenley said there was no enthusiasm for such an option from Gov. Mitch Daniels' administration. Damler said Indiana's Medicaid population of about 1.11 million—mostly single moms and kids—will grow to 1.25 million in 2013, and then add another 400,000 the following year when key provisions of the health care overhaul kick in.
Anderson-based Saint John’s Health System plans to spend $24 million to build a surgical services center, with construction beginning this fall. The subsidiary of Indianapolis-based St. Vincent Health currently performs 11,000 surgeries a year in three facilities, one of which is 42 years old.
WellPoint Inc. and other U.S. health insurers will have to provide justification for any increases to customers’ premiums of more than 10 percent next year, according to federal regulations published Tuesday.
Simon Property Group Inc. is unlikely to buy Capital Shopping Centres Group Plc because it will take too long for rents to rise enough to justify a price its U.K. counterpart would accept, according to Barclays Capital real estate analysts.
A question that must be posed to the tea partiers intent on taking Sen. Richard Lugar out: Who replaces him?
I applaud the signs of progress that have been reported recently, but we are a long way from success.
The city should not approve another hotel development until it is clear the hotel operator will not pursue the same low-wage path of those who came before it.
The city should refuse to pay the contract-termination fee given alleged defaults by Veolia, the consumer group says. Veolia is out after city sells the water company to Citizens Energy Group.
The agreement allows embattled financier Tim Durham to remain on the board of CLST Holdings, but mandates he step down as chairman and not vote on any matter unless doing so would make the board unanimous.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. spent $1.1 million lobbying the federal government in the third quarter, as it focused on several issues tied to the health care overhaul Congress passed in March.
Carmel is building a dream home for the performing arts. Now those groups planning to move into it just have to figure out how to pay their share of the mortgage.
Butler basketball leads list of top sports stories of the year.
OneAmerica Financial Partners Inc. last month launched an insurance product aimed at landing far larger retirement plans than it has served before, and significantly growing its assets.
A startup brewery called Flat 12 Bierwerks has ignited a revival along lonely Dorman Street in Holy Cross, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.
Clarian Health got few takers in its first year offering a health care benefits program to large employers, but the Indianapolis-based hospital system is undeterred in growing its budding insurance services business.
Tight tax revenue will force hard choices on the General Assembly.
With Republicans firmly in control of the Indiana General Assembly, businesses have a better chance of achieving some of their legislative objectives than they have for years.
California-based Beckman Coulter Inc., which employs more than 500 people in the Indianapolis area, is up for sale, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to investigate a sale. After the Journal’s report, the company’s market value neared $5 billion. Potential buyers include private-equity firms such as the Blackstone Group and Apollo Global Management, or other companies in the medical-device industry, such as Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories, Germany-based Siemens or even Roche Diagnostics Corp. a Swiss company that operates its North American headquarters out of Indianapolis. Beckman’s testing machines are used in hospitals and medical research labs. In 2007, it moved more than 200 jobs to Indianapolis as it relocated its centrifuge development and manufacturing facilities. In October, Beckman announced plans to add 95 more jobs in Indianapolis over the next three years.
What is it about White County? In the same month that White County Memorial Hospital said it’s ready to merge with Indianapolis-based Clarian Health, now White County’s Monticello Medical Center is selling its four-physician family practice to St. Elizabeth Regional Health in Lafayette. St. Elizabeth is part of the Franciscan Alliance, which operates the three St. Francis hospitals in the Indianapolis area. Monticello, the White County seat, is about 30 miles north of Lafayette. St. Elizabeth will employ the four physicians, as well as three nurse practitioners, who collectively serve the largest percentage of White County residents. Locking up family practitioners is key for hospitals right now as they try to form themselves into “accountable care organizations” that will be paid by Medicare and private insurers for managing the long-term health of patients. Medicare’s rules will require accountable care organizations to provide family, or primary, care to at least 5,000 patients.
Indiana University’s health care budget will fall $24.9 million short of projected expenses in 2011-12, according to the Herald-Times of Bloomington, as a low-deductible Anthem Blue Access health care plan has become too expensive to offer to its 18,000 employees. IU trustee Tom Reilly Jr. implied that employees need to cover some of the extra costs.
Eli Lilly and Co. suspended a Phase 3 clinical trial of a skin-cancer drug after 12 patients in the study died, according to Bloomberg News. The deaths, among the 300 patients in the study, “may be treatment-related,” said Amy Sousa, a Lilly spokeswoman. Lilly was testing tasisulam on patients whose skin cancer had spread and who didn’t benefit from earlier treatment. No new or existing patients will be given the drug while the company evaluates safety data for the trial. But Lilly will continue to study tasisulam against breast, ovarian and renal cancers and against soft-tissue sarcoma, the company said.
Dr. Mark Pescovitz, a surgeon and researcher for 22 years at the Indiana University School of Medicine, died Sunday in a car accident outside Ann Arbor, Mich. Pescovitz was on his way home to Indianapolis after visiting his wife, Dr. Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, who is CEO of the University of Michigan Health System. Ora Pescovitz was the CEO of Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis and the head of research at the IU medical school before taking the job at Michigan in May 2009. A funeral for Mark Pescovitz will be held on Thursday at 2 p.m. at Congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis.
Dr. Stephanie Wagner has been hired by Clarian Health and the IU School of Medicine as medical director of the neuro-oncology program at the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center. A Brownsburg native, Wagner most recently was director of the neuro-oncology program at Norton Healthcare in Louisville. Wagner earned her medical degree from Ross University in North Brunswick, N.J., and received her nursing degree from DePauw University in Greencastle.
Blake A. Dye has been named president of the St. Vincent Heart Center of Indiana. Dye will start Jan. 17, replacing John Stewart, who now serves a president of the newly formed St. Vincent Medical Group. Dye has been CEO for 11 years of Henry County Hospital in New Castle.
Indianapolis-based Orbis Education, which creates nurse training programs, has hired Norm Allgood as senior vice president of operations and Clay Gillespie as chief marketing officer. Allgood worked for nine years at the Institute for Professional Development, a subsidiary of Arizona-based for-profit educator Apollo Group. Gillespie comes to Orbis from Career Education Corp., a for-profit educator based in the Chicago area.