KENNEDY: The harmful problem with ‘principles’
I have my own “principled” critique of the Affordable Care Act.
I have my own “principled” critique of the Affordable Care Act.
Rivienne Shedd-Steele, director of the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center’s Office of Health Disparities and Outreach, also has been named director of Cervical Cancer-Free Indiana, an advocacy organization for screenings and vaccinations to prevent humillopapillomavirus, the prime cause of cervical cancer.
Indianapolis-based Indiana Health Centers Inc. has hired Dr. Stephen Sauer, a family physician, to serve in the Community Health Center of Miami County in Peru. Sauer completed medical school at Saba University SOM in the Dutch Caribbean.
Planned Parenthood of Indiana hired Jon Mills as director of marketing and communications. Mills worked on mayoral candidate Melina Kennedy’s 2011 campaign as communications director. Early in his career, he was a legislative aide for congresswoman Julia Carson. Mills has also been director of corporate communications for WellPoint Inc. and Indiana University Health.
Eli Lilly and Co.’s osteoporosis drug Forteo was used in the first successful human trial of an implantable device that delivers injectable drugs—showing promise for eliminating the need for regular shots. Massachusetts-based MicroCHIPS Inc. implanted wirelessly controlled drug-delivery devices in women with osteoporosis. The devices delivered daily doses of Forteo into the women’s bloodstreams. The device could be helpful for Lilly and its peers, who are trying to develop more biotech drugs like Forteo. Such drugs are typically made up of large proteins, which cannot be reduced to pill form and must instead be injected. Many patients resist taking injectable drugs and many do not fully comply with their prescribed regimens.
A Cicero-based developer plans to build a $15.7 million senior health care center at 16th Street and Arlington Avenue on Indianapolis’ east side. The city’s Metropolitan Development Commission approved the project Wednesday after accepting Mainstreet Property Group LLC’s offer to purchase the property for $912,500. Mainstreet plans to begin construction in July and finish by June 2013. The facility would include 100 beds for skilled care, short-term rehabilitation and assisted-living patients. The facility is expected to create up to 150 jobs, said Zeke Turner, Mainstreet’s CEO. Overall, the company owns or co-owns 13 senior health care centers in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio, and has six more under development. It plans to break ground on as many as 12 centers by the end of the year, including a $13.3 million facility in Westfield, Turner said.
Marian University is looking to hire as many as 25 professors to help launch its College of Osteopathic Medicine, which is slated to open in August 2013. The school, which would be Indiana’s second medical school, would train 150 physicians each year. Marian, a small Catholic university in Indianapolis, wants to hire as many as three professors in each of seven disciplines: anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, immunology, physiology, pharmacology and pathology.
After years of screaming by employers that spiraling health care spending is crimping their profits and forcing them to hold down wages, the economic impact study released last week by Indiana University Health suggests health care spending is an unmitigated blessing to the Indiana economy.
The Indiana Health Information Exchange Inc., or IHIE, signed a collaboration agreement with Texas-based AT&T to use AT&T’s clinical message exchange system to help integrate new health care providers into IHIE’s database. The organizations think their collaboration could be used around the country. “Our vision is to establish a model of health information exchange for the nation,” said Harold J. Apple, CEO of IHIE, an Indianapolis-based not-for-profit . “We operate the most advanced system for connecting disparate health care IT systems in the nation, and AT&T is helping us take our efforts to the next level.” In fact, IHIE is launching a services organization to help other health information exchanges and large health care systems establish their own systems around the country. AT&T will also work with IHIE on that consulting effort. IHIE is the nation’s largest health information exchange. It has more than 80 hospital and long-term-care systems, more than 19,000 physicians and 10 million patients. IHIE’s services allow hospitals and doctors to exchange patient records electronically, as needed.
CHV Capital Inc., the venture capital arm of Indiana University Health, and Indianapolis-based Spring Mill Venture Partners participated in a $10.9 million investment in PerfectServe Inc. The Tennessee-based company provides communication software systems that route calls and messages to the right doctor on whatever platform they choose at a given moment: office phone, cell phone, text messaging, pager or e-mail. The “series C” funding round was led by PJC Capital LLC, the private equity arm of Minneapolis-based investment banking firm Piper Jaffray. PerfectServe already serves more than 17,500 physicians around the country, processing 30 million transactions each year.
A lawsuit contends that a Carmel-based health insurer ran a scheme to avoid paying in-home-care claims for potentially thousands of California's elderly, according to the Associated Press. Senior Health Insurance Company of Pennsylvania, or SHIP, had a claims process "designed to frustrate and confuse policyholders with needless demands for irrelevant information" in violation of its own policies and California law, according to the suit filed Feb. 4 in San Bernardino County Superior Court by the group Consumer Watchdog. The not-for-profit insurer is run by a trust created by the Pennsylvania Insurance Department. Senior Health Insurance operated as Conseco Senior Health Insurance until late 2008, but Carmel-based Conseco Inc. (now CNO Financial Group Inc.) transferred the unit to an independent trust based in Pennsylvania due to heavy losses. Conseco took a $1.2 billion charge to unload the unit. The new lawsuit claims that SHIP tried to avoid reimbursing policyholders for long-term care by ignoring or taking an unreasonably long time to respond to claims; requiring unnecessary paperwork and medical examinations, and requiring that the care givers have licenses in violation of company policy and California law. The suit, which seeks class-action status, was filed on behalf of Dr. William Hall, 78, of Upland. Hall, a retired chief of medicine at a California hospital, bought a long-term-care policy in 1994 and submitted claims in 2010. SHIP refused to reimburse all but 20 percent of his expenses, the lawsuit claims.
Roche Diagnostics Corp.’s North American business, which is headquartered in Indianapolis, posted a 4-percent boost in sales last year on the strength of its fluid analyzer business unit, even though its diabetes sales fell.
A Johnson County man whose home is listed for sheriff’s sale and who has filed for bankruptcy protection twice and been convicted of check fraud managed to convince several Indianapolis cultural institutions that he was good for multimillion-dollar gifts.
John Ryan, 39, started with Hall Render Killian Heath & Lyman P.C. straight out of Indiana University law school and took only 12 years to ascend to president and managing partner of the Indianapolis-based law firm.
The achievements of Bryan Schneider, 38, in breast cancer research continue to build on each other.
Sometimes your “dream job” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That’s what Derek Empie, 39, former broadcast sports professional-turned-attorney, discovered after several years working for NBC Sports, ESPN and Turner Broadcasting.
John Kunzer, 35, credits his success to a long list of mentors, starting with his grandfather, a chemistry professor who took him to his office on Sundays and stressed the importance of education.
Ryan Kitchell, 38, didn’t expect to be overseeing health plans for Indiana University Health and its 80,000 members. But he’s found himself in unexpected places before, with good results.