Only 1 percent of the jobs given to Texas-based Merritt Hawkins over the past year were for solo practitioners, the physician recruiting firm reported this month. That’s down from 22 percent of all searches in 2004.
A troubled central Indiana nuclear medicine company said it plans to build a $65 million plant in Gary that would employ up to 50 people within five years, dropping plans to build a smaller facility in Noblesville. Fishers-based Positron Corp. will make radioactive medical imaging isotopes at the new plant, which will be equipped with a 70-million-electron-volt cyclotron, it said in a news release issued Friday. Cyclotrons are molecular particle accelerators that can be used to produce isotopes that can help physicians spot medical anomalies in the human body. The Gary plant will boast the nation's most powerful commercial cyclotron, the company said. Gary has approved $15 million in tax increment financing bonds for Positron and is helping the company land New Market Tax Credits worth another $15 million, Positron said. That's more than the incentives offered last year when the company said it planned to move its operations to Noblesville and build a $55 million cyclotron there, creating 86 jobs. Positron has lost tens of millions of dollars in recent years, and the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission last year accused CEO Patrick G. Rooney of defrauding investors in a hedge fund he operates. The company has racked up more than $110 million in losses since its founding in 1983. Its accounting firm issued a "going concern" warning about Positron in 2010, raising doubt about its ability to remain in business in the long term.
Franciscan St. Francis Health will open an Immediate Care facility on Aug. 1 in the Village Park Plaza strip mall on the edges of Carmel and Westfield. The facility will operate from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, with four physicians seeing patients without appointments. Immediate Care, which Franciscan acquired in 2010, operates four other clinics around the Indianapolis area. The newest clinic will complement Franciscan’s new short-stay hospital in Carmel, which is about two miles south of the Immediate Care clinic. The new short-stay hospital offers imaging, surgery and laboratory, and includes six inpatient beds.
Westfield-based MaxIT Healthcare Holdings Inc. has agreed to sell itself for $473 million to Virginia-based Science Applications International Corp., the companies announced July 17. MaxIT’s 1,300 employees provide information technology services to hospitals and physician practices throughout the United States and Canada. Only about 75 of MaxIT’s employees are in Westfield. The company is riding a wave of hospitals’ and medical offices’ switching or adding computer systems to better track patient records, CEO Mike Sweeney told IBJ earlier this year. MaxIT saw revenue shoot up 63 percent in 2011, to $179.4 million. The acquisition is expected to close next month. MaxIT was founded in 2001 by Parker Hinshaw. Healthcare Informatics, a trade journal, ranked MaxIT the 41st-largest health IT firm in the nation in 2011, based on revenue. SAIC ranked No. 18 in the nation, with revenue from health IT businesses topping $554 million. SAIC also performs a variety of secret work for the U.S. departments of defense, homeland security and the U.S. intelligence community.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said July 17 he plans to consult his potential successors before he decides whether the state should set up a health care exchange, according to the Associated Press. States have until Nov. 16 to submit a plan to the federal government for a health exchange. Daniels said he does not want to make a decision that binds the state's next governor without consulting the candidates. "I don't consider it right for me or my administration to make such a decision that the next administration then has to implement. So I'm going to have to find some way to get input from the next governor," the Republican governor said. Libertarian Rupert Boneham, Democrat John Gregg and Republican Mike Pence are running for governor. Daniels is barred by law from seeking a third term. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that the part of the federal law enabling health insurance exchanges is constitutional. States can choose to create their own exchange or have residents seek insurance via a federal exchange. The court also ruled that states cannot be forced to expand Medicaid coverage. Spokespeople for the Gregg and Pence campaigns said they look forward to working with Daniels.
For the first time, Indiana University Health in Indianapolis has been named to U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals Honor Roll," a distinction that goes to the top medical centers in the country. Hospitals on the list, announced July 17, must show high expertise across multiple specialties, scoring at or near the top in at least six of 16 ranked specialties. IU Health was ranked No. 16 out of 17 hospitals on the Honor Roll. Eleven of its clinical specialties were ranked among the top 50 in the nation: cancer; diabetes; gastroenterology; nephrology; orthopedics; urology; cardiology; ear, nose and throat; geriatrics; neurosurgery; and pulmonology. The hospital's top specialty ranking came in urology, at No. 8 in the nation. U.S. News said it surveyed nearly 10,000 specialists and analyzed data for almost 5,000 hospitals to compile its rankings. Massachusetts General Hospital was ranked No. 1 in the nation for the first time, displacing Johns Hopkins Hospital of Baltimore.
A troubled central Indiana nuclear medicine company is dropping plans to build a multimillion-dollar facility in Noblesville after reaching a better deal with the city of Gary.
Hospital system’s health insurance unit has IT infrastructure that will allow physicians to participate in Medicare’s shared savings program.
MaxIT’s 1,300 employees, who provide information technology services to hospitals and physician practices, will join Virginia-based Science Applications International Corp.
The six-block stretch just outside the front door of the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway was desolate when the town of Speedway formed a redevelopment commission in June 2005.
WellPoint Inc. said it will pay for DNA testing for three children to see if they have an inherited heart disease their father suffers from that often strikes without warning, reversing an earlier decision to deny coverage.
Even ardent supporters of the Affordable Care Act know changes are required.
Indiana University Health, as well as a partnership of Franciscan Alliance and American Health Network, have formed accountable care organizations that won the blessing of the federal Medicare Shared Savings program.
When Helene Cross arrived to lead Fairbanks Addiction Treatment Center in 2001, the alcohol and drug rehabilitation hospital was as sick financially as its patients were physically.
The great results Regenstrief Institute has produced over the years in studies at Indianapolis’ Wishard Memorial Hospital have not held up when conducted in a wider variety of settings.
Michael Ryan was named vice president of sales at TriMedx, an Indianapolis-based health care technology management firm. Ryan previously worked for McKesson Medical-Surgical, VWR International and General Electric Corp.’s Healthcare IT division. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and also earned master's degrees in business administration and engineering management from Saint Martin’s College in Washington.
Jane Keller was named interim CEO of OrthoIndy after previous CEO John Martin decided to step down from that position to puruse other opportunities. Keller is CEO of the Indiana Orthopaedic Hospital, in which most OrthoIndy physicians have an ownership stake. Keller earned a degree in nursing from Ball State University and an MBA from Butler University.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels says he wants to make sure he understands the Supreme Court ruling upholding the health care law before deciding how the state will respond.
Among major occupational groups, only farming has a smaller share of African-Americans, government figures show.
The federal stimulus program to speed “meaningful use” of electronic medical records is starting to generate significant cash for Indiana health care providers: More than $135 million has flowed to more than 2,000 Hoosier hospitals and doctors since January 2011.
The Indiana University Center for Aging Research and the Indianapolis-based Regenstrief Institute Inc. won a $7.8 million award from the federal government to expand a mental health program for seniors throughout Marion County. A pilot of the program at Wishard Memorial Hospital was shown to reduce participating patients’ emergency room visits 45 percent and hospitalizations 54 percent. The program uses home visits, phone calls and e-mails—both to patients and to their family members—to cut out dangerous medications and daily stressors and to boost brain and physical exercise. The new funding, awarded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will expand the program to more than 2,000 Medicare patients at 11 community health centers operated by Wishard.
Anderson-based Saint John’s Health System announced a name change and a new $27 million surgery department to its hospital. Beginning Jan. 1, Saint John’s will be called St. Vincent Anderson Regional Hospital. The hospital system has for nearly a decade been part of the Indianapolis-based St. Vincent Health network of hospitals, which is a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Ascension Health. Hospital leaders said the new name will better reflect that the hospital serves patients from a wider area, which extends beyond Anderson and Madison County. The regional expansion is driving the need for more operating space. So the new surgery department will include at least nine operating suites, which Saint John’s plans to use to bring in newer technology and recruit more physicians.
St. Catherine Regional Hospital of Indiana LLC near Louisville has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans to sell the hospital as an ongoing operation. The 96-bed hospital has $8.3 million in unpaid debts, but less than $1 million in assets. In the 12 months ended in April, the hospital had an operating loss of nearly $1.3 million, according to court filings. According to the News and Tribune of Jeffersonville, St. Catherine is the second hospital in Clark County to declare file for bankruptcy protection recently. Kentuckiana Medical Center filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September 2010, but recently announced it has secured $40 million in funding that will bring it out of bankruptcy. St. Catherine has $40 million in annual patient revenue and employs 284 people.
Evansville-based Welborn Health Plans announced last week it would exit the Indiana and Kentucky health insurance markets by year’s end, and recommended that its employer customers shift to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Welborn said it is exiting the business because changes in health insurance would require significant investments in its staff and systems to maintain a high level of customer service. Welborn insures 30,000 people through its employer clients. The two insurers signed an agreement to help Welborn customers transition smoothly.
The University of Notre Dame received $5 million to fund adult stem cell research from alumnus Michael Gallagher and his wife, Elizabeth, who live in Denver. The gift will fund three new endowed professorships in adult and other non-embryonic forms of stem cell research. Notre Dame already has built a team of researchers focused on adult stem cell research, which it supports over embryonic stem cell research—sparking controversy because the Catholic Church views the destruction of an embryo as destruction of a human life.
Home Health Depot Inc., which ranked as the fifth-fastest-growing company in Indianapolies last year, tacked on even more girth this month by acquiring Fort Wayne-based Medical Mobility LLC. The retailer sells durable medical supplies with a focus on complex rehabilitation equipment. That store will now be consolidated with Home Health Depot’s existing Fort Wayne store. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. This is Home Health Depot’s third acquisition this year. In February, Home Health Depot acquired a majority interest in Advanced Rehab Technologies LLC, the largest provider of complex rehabilitation equipment in Iowa. And in April, Home Health Depot acquired the assets of RCS Management Corp.’s in-home respiratory and sleep therapy business.
Roche Diagnostics Corp. plans to spend $300 million on an expansion of its Indianapolis headquarters, creating 100 jobs by 2017, the company said Wednesday.
WellPoint Inc. lowered its 2012 profit forecast 23 cents per share, or nearly 3 percent, due to a $90 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit. Lawyers for former policyholders of Anthem Insurance Cos. Inc., the predecessor of Indianapolis-based WellPoint, disclosed the settlement Friday afternoon. Pending approval by a federal judge, the settlement would cover the claims of more than 700,000 former policyholders, whose stakes in Anthem were undervalued, according to the lawsuit, before the company’s 2001 conversion from a mutual insurance company into a publicly traded one. Because of the settlement, Anthem now expects to earn a 2012 profit of $7.57 per share, down from a previous estimate of $7.80 per share.
Hancock Regional Hospital is moving to acquire nearly 50 acres in McCordsville, even though it has no specific expansion plan. According to the Greenfield Daily Reporter, the hospital’s board of trustees approved spending up to $1.2 million for the 48.5-acre parcel in the Villages of Brookside development. Hancock Regional, based in Greenfield, has made a tentative offer for the land to its current owner, Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bank. The offer hinges on an environmental assessment that is still under way. If the bid is accepted, said Rob Matt, Hancock Regional’s vice president of development, the land could become the location for additional medical office space, another wellness center or another surgery center. But in the short term, the hospital likely would lease the land for farming. “We’re not exactly sure what the future holds, but we think McCordsville is a great location for potential future expansion of a variety of health services,” Matt said. The land was part of a 300-acre development started in 2005. But the sections of the project that were marked off for business and apartments have been slow to develop because of the housing slump, financial crisis and recession.
Eli Lilly and Co. invested $20 million in a Chinese pharmaceutical company in an effort to build a portfolio of branded generic medicines in the fast-growing Asian market. Novast Laboratories Ltd., based north of Shanghai, received a $10 million initial investment from Indianapolis-based Lilly five years ago. The new money, announced June 12, will fund an expansion of Novast’s manufacturing capabilities. Lilly is working with Novast to develop a catalog of generic versions of medicines not created by Lilly that will be branded with the Lilly name. Down the road, Novast also may take on manufacturing responsibilities for new drugs Lilly launches in China and other Asian countries. Since 2009, Lilly has rapidly ramped up sales and research functions in China, and now employs more than 3,000 people there. In June, Lilly announced the opening of a research and development center in Shanghai focused exclusively on diabetes. It employs 150. Lilly's sales in China increased 31 percent last year, to nearly $420 million, according to company officials.
An Indian-born physician fired by St. Vincent Health is suing the hospital network in federal court on charges of discrimination and harassment. Seema Nayak filed her suit June 13 and is seeking past and future pay in addition to other damages for the hospital’s “malicious and/or reckless conduct.” St. Vincent officials did not return messages seeking comment on the suit. Nayak’s suit follows a complaint she filed in October 2010 with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which granted her the right to sue. Her employment contract was not renewed by the hospital in June 2010. She began her first-year residency program at St. Vincent in July 2007 in the obstetrics and gynecology department. Though Nayak exceeded performance standards during her first- and second-year residencies, according to the suit, she became the target of discrimination from other residents due to her accent and Indian origin. Later, her suit alleges, St. Vincent also pressured her to return to work quickly after taking maternity leave and then retaliated against her by giving her an especially difficult residency rotation.
Elanco, the fast-growing animal health division of Eli Lilly and Co., wants to add 200 jobs at its headquarters in Greenfield, but says it needs taxpayer assistance to do it, according to the Greenfield Daily Reporter. Elanco asked the Greenfield City Council for a 10-year tax abatement on a $14 million expansion, which would add two buildings to the corporate campus Elanco opened in 2010. Elanco employs 475 workers there now, paying average slaries of $80,000. Elanco projects it would hire the 200 additional administrative employees—who would oversee the company’s marketing, manufacturing, finance and other operations—by the first half of 2015. The new jobs would pay on average $60,000 apiece. Elanco has been growing rapidly through both increased sales of its products for livestock and pets, as well as through acquisitions. Elanco’s revenue last year grew 21 percent to nearly $1.7 billion.
Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare revamped its myHealthcare Cost Estimator tool for its customers in Indianapolis and 46 other markets, and now provides cost estimates based on the health insurer's actual contracted rates with physicians, hospitals, clinics and other health care providers. The cost estimator tool covers more than 100 common treatments and procedures, factoring in a UnitedHealthcare member’s specific benefits plan. It also allows health plan members to compare cost and quality information between different hospitals and physicians. And the tool even points out alternative treatment options that a patient might consider. “myHealthcare Cost Estimator meets a longstanding consumer need for thorough but simple online comparison shopping for health care by putting relevant information right at people’s fingertips,” UnitedHealthcare's Yasmine Winkler, chief product and marketing officer, said in a prepared statement. Many health insurers are rolling out tools to help consumers gauge cost and quality before making decisions on health care. This year, Indianapolis-based Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield expanded to more than 100 the procedures its cost-comparison tool covers. Anthem also rolled out a program in which employers can give its workers a cash payment each time they use the cost comparison tool before seeking care.
Indiana medical device companies enjoyed at least a symbolic victory last week when the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to repeal the 2.3 percent medical device tax that was part of the 2010 health reform law. The tax, estimated to raise $29 billion over the next decade, is scheduled to take effect next year. Indiana has more than 300 medical device manufacturers, employing almost 20,000 people, including Zimmer Holdings Inc., Biomet Inc., Cook Group, DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., Hill-Rom Inc. and Roche Diagnostics Corp. The repeal is not likely to even come up for a vote in the Senate, and if it does, will almost certainly be defeated by the Democrat-controlled chamber. Also, a repeal of the tax likely faces a veto from President Obama. However, the repeal vote is a sign of Republicans’ attempts to scale back the health care law that passed without a single Republican vote. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on the law’s constitutionality.
