I commend the governor for recognizing the state’s long overdue need to expand access to quality early-childhood education. In my years as a teacher, I found the difference between students arriving with a preschool education and those without to be profound.
Gov. Mike Pence has proposed eliminating property taxes on business machinery and equipment. How exactly that is to be done, and over what time frame, he has left to the wisdom of the General Assembly.
Gregg W. Throgmartin is stepping down, a move that will leave the retailer without executive leadership from a member of its founding family for the first time since the first store opened in 1955.
Carmel-based Mainstreet Property Group will open 24 more health care facilities for Hoosier seniors during this year and the next two years. Those facilities, in total, would create 3,000 permanent jobs for Hoosiers–if they’re allowed to be built. The Indiana General Assembly is mulling a five-year moratorium on the construction of skilled nursing facilities, which if passed would prevent Mainstreet from building any new facilities not already begun by June 30. That legislation, known as Senate Bill 173, has passed the Indiana Senate and now awaits a hearing in the Indiana House. Zeke Turner, CEO of Mainstreet, said that if Indiana enacts a construction moratorium, Mainstreet will simply build more facilities in other states. The company has existing facilities in eight states and is working to expand in six more. Mainstreet alarmed older nursing home companies by developing 10 new facilities in the past five years—and breaking an unwritten rule of the industry by building in competitors’ back yards. That prompted the Indiana Health Care Association and other long-term-care groups to call for a ban on new construction.
Purdue Research Foundation and Bloomington-based medical-device maker Cook Medical have created a $12 million fund intended to help life-science businesses with connections to Purdue University. The Foundry Investment Fund will try to work with other investors to provide funding for companies that use Purdue-licensed technology or Purdue’s expertise in human and animal health and plant sciences. It typically would provide a match to outside investors’ funds. Outside investors could include venture capital firms, corporations, angel funding groups, or qualified individuals.
Indiana University Health announced a deal with UnitedHealthcare on Feb. 6, ending a contract dispute that had pushed IU Health doctors and hospitals out of the health insurance company’s discounted network Jan. 1. The two-year agreement gives UnitedHealthcare discounted rates retroactive to Jan. 1. Such discounts, which insurers negotiate with hospital systems, reduce prices 30 percent or more. The dispute between Indianapolis-based IU Health and Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare dates to 2012, when the sides could not agree on a new long-term contract. They instead extended their previous agreement by one year, to Dec. 31, 2013, but then could not come to terms before the end of the year.
Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie Inc., the company it spun off last year, hid the dangers of using the testosterone replacement drug AndroGel, five men claim in lawsuits.
This year will be ugly for Eli Lilly and Co., after the recent loss of two blockbusters, but it also gives Lilly an opportunity it hasn’t really had for nearly a decade: grow sales and profit by launching new drugs.
A new study of 10 cities, including Indianapolis, gives a picture of how big hospitals have been battling with big health insurers over prices—and winning.
Once the work is finished in about nine months, the Canterbury, which will be rebranded as a Le Meridien, should be able to better compete with other upscale downtown hotels, a consultant said.
Plenty of examples, both at home and abroad, show the world is still an unfriendly place.
Since WellPoint says it’s not losing money on the exchanges—at this point—that’s encouraging news for those who would like the Obamacare exchanges to remain a viable option.
Willow Marketing hires eight people following a brutal period of downsizing for most agencies, nearly doubling its staff.
Sarah Urist Green, 34, left a job with the Indianapolis Museum of Art to launch, with her husband—and fellow Forty Under 40 honoree John Green—the interactive PBS online program “The Art Assignment,” debuting Feb. 20.
The Denver Post has snagged Jon Murray, who will join the ranks of more than a dozen Indianapolis Star newsroom staffers to depart in the last year.
Jim Terwilliger, president of Indiana University Health’s Methodist and University hospitals, will step down March 1. He had led IU Health’s two flagship hospitals since July 2012, when longtime executive Sam Odle retired. Dennis Murphy, whom IU Health hired to fill Odle's other job of chief operating officer, decided to replace Terwilliger. Dr. Jeff Sperring, CEO of IU Health’s Riley Hospital for Children, will serve as interim president of Methodist and University hospitals, while IU Health conducts a search for a permanent replacement.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. named Amy Cheslock vice president of payment innovation for provider engagement and contracting within the company’s commercial and specialty business division. She previously was vice president of provider engagement and contracting for WellPoint’s central region markets and enterprise cost-of-care initiatives. Cheslock succeeds Jill Rubin Hummel who, last month, was named president of WellPoint’s affiliated health plan in Connecticut.
We can now measure the dollar value of a good reputation. Unfortunately, Indiana is doing a lot to hurt its.
Over the past two decades, Indianapolis has become a vibrant metropolitan area, powering growth throughout Indiana. The next phase for the Indy region requires not just statewide progress, but global integration.
Jim Terwilliger had led IU Health’s two flagship hospitals since July 2012, when longtime executive Sam Odle retired. The CEO of Riley Hospital for Children will replace him temporarily.
Congress’ recent willingness to play hardball with providers is driving providers to cautiously embrace concepts—like pay-for-performance and keeping patients out of the hospitals—they have long resisted.
The folks at Lumosity, the San Francisco company that tries to improve human brain cognition, must have cheered when they saw this study partly led by a researcher at the Indiana University School of Medicine. The study, published this month by the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found that seniors who underwent exercises meant to boost mental sharpness still showed benefits up to a decade later. The study involved 2,800 seniors living independently in Indianapolis and six other regions. Lumosity, which makes a smartphone app to exercise your brain, is one of numerous programs, both online and offline, that are meant to boost mental sharpness in older adults.
Over-the-counter medications for common colds and allergies, such as DayQuil, could become harder to obtain under an Indiana House bill introduced this month. According to the Associated Press, HB-1106, authored by Rep. Rebecca Kubacki, R-Syracuse, would make medication containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine a schedule III drug, which means it couldn’t be purchased without a doctor’s visit and prescription. An existing law puts a limit on how much ephedrine and pseudoephedrine can be purchased in a day, month or year. But, Kubacki said she doesn’t think the law goes far enough. However, Dr. Richard Feldman, chairman of legislation for the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians, said the medical community prefers the existing legislation to Kubacki’s new bill. “We think it’s adequate; we don’t want any more restrictions,” Feldman said. He added, “The last thing that the doctors I talked to want is to be overrun with patient visits for an over-the-counter drug that should remain over-the-counter, rather than seeing patients who deserve their attention.”
WellPoint Inc.’s core operations turned out more profit than the company predicted, the Indianapolis-based health insurer disclosed in a Jan. 13 securities filing. WellPoint raised its 2013 profit forecast to $8.52 per share, up 12 cents from a previous forecast of $8.40 per share. The company has yet to close its books on 2013. It will reveal its actual 2013 financial results Jan. 29. The new forecast roughly matches what Wall Street analysts were expecting. A survey of 23 analysts by Thomson Reuters found an average 2013 profit forecast of $8.51 per share, even before the disclosure. Both WellPoint’s and analyst forecasts exclude a variety of special charges, such as investment gains, the early extinguishment of debt, a favorable tax ruling and a charge related to WellPoint’s sale of its 1-800-Contacts subsidiary. When those items are included, WellPoint’s 2013 profit would total $8.20 per share, according to Monday’s disclosure. In October, WellPoint predicted full-year profit would total $8.45 per share. But that was before the 54-cent-per-share charge for the 1-800-Contacts sale was announced.
In late December 2013, the Health Foundation of Greater Indianapolis gave $440,376 to three organizations that will help Hoosiers navigate the Obamacare health insurance exchange. A grant of $270,000 was awarded to Indiana 2-1-1, a call-in service for obtaining information about social assistance, to maintain detailed information about the exchange navigators and application counselors that have been approved by the government to help exchange customers. A sample conducted in May 2013 showed that 38 percent of callers to Indiana 2-1-1 have at least one person in the household without health insurance. The Indiana Primary Health Care Association will receive $70,376 to train 26 certified Navigators to provide continuing education to at least 126 state-certified Navigators in state-funded and federally qualified health centers. Because of the cost of the federal certification process, many state-funded health centers, especially in rural areas, have been unable to certify their enrollment staff. Also, $100,000 was granted to Eskenazi Health to extend its media and outreach campaign through the end of the first open enrollment period in March 2014. The campaign promotes Eskenazi Health’s toll-free Navigator Call Center (1-855-202-1053), which answers consumer questions and provides assistance in obtaining health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges.
The retail giant’s futuristic delivery plan has some monumental obstacles to overcome.
