No, Community didn’t make a list of 1,000 people to fire
My post on a presentation by Community Health Network CEO Bryan Mills was interpreted in a stronger way than I intended. So let me set the record straight.
Health Care Costs
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The worries of a hospital CEO
In a video presentation to his employees, Community Health CEO Bryan Mills discusses the threats hospitals face from retail clinics and employers—and how Community briefly discussed laying off 1,000 workers last year.
Why Obamacare is likely to fail in Indiana (and most other states, too)
New data show eight out of 10 Hoosiers with private health insurance are covered by employer plans that are exempt from most Obamacare rules. So, rather than being an invasive train wreck, Obamacare may fail because it doesn’t affect enough people.
GOP politico creates health clinic for the Obamacare age
Brose McVey is leading a new health care clinic company that is squarely aimed at helping individuals, the self-employed and even large businesses deal with the new health care reality that is emerging under Obamacare.
The real health care money in this town is at IU Health
While the biggest hospital profit margins are made in the suburbs, the biggest pile of cash—$353 million in 2012—is made at the three downtown campuses run by Indiana University Health. In fact, those hospitals generated 32 percent of all operating gains posted by central Indiana hospitals in 2012.
Why are we so fat? Our food, health care are so cheap
Two new studies show that Americans have every economic incentive to consume too much food and then, when that overeating creates health problems for them, to consume lots of health care to fix it.
Rotten Teeth Report Card
Indiana ranks 10th in the nation for the highest spending on health care and 10th in the nation for the number of adults missing six or more teeth. That’s not a coincidence. Hoosiers do a poor job of taking care of themselves, and we end up paying for it in higher taxes and health insurance premiums.
OurHealth to add employer clinics, 450 jobs by 2018
The 5-year-old firm has pledged to invest $20 million to double the size of its corporate headquarters in Indianapolis and lease real estate for a series of 3,500-square-foot health clinics across the state.
Dropping health plan for Obamacare, this firm saved money but sacrificed choice
RANAC Corp., a small firm in Indianapolis, cut its spending on health benefits 25 percent after dropping its group health plan. Could it be a sign of things to come?
Pence’s HIP 2.0 insurance expansion has national aspirations all over it
Gov. Pence's HIP 2.0 plan is nothing less than an attempt to roll back liberal policy on low-income health benefits as far as currently possible–and to get other states to follow suit. It might even be an opening bid for president.
Marathon talks yield good deal for hospitals in Pence’s HIP expansion
Fees on hospitals will generate the lion’s share of the funds for Gov. Mike Pence’s Healthy Indiana Plan expansion. But the benefits hospitals will receive will outweigh those costs.
Study: Hospital-doctor hook-ups swell prices
Now that Indianapolis-area hospitals employ large numbers of physicians, a new study suggests the integrated health systems will be able to charge higher prices to private health insurers.
Indy’s most profitable hospitals, revisited
On the eve of Obamacare, almost no central Indiana hospitals were having trouble making money. Hip replacements, heart surgery and Hamilton County were the biggest drivers of profits.
Zimmer-Biomet deal could stanch their bleeding at hospitals
Hospitals, which have forced orthopedic implant makers to lower their prices in recent years, may have a harder time doing so when the combined Zimmer-Biomet controls nearly 40 percent of the market.
Time to eat crow and fix my error on Obamacare sign-ups
When I predicted on March 13 that Obamacare would fail to expand individual private insurance coverage in Indiana, I was completely off. It now looks like an extra 30,000 Hoosiers have bought individual health insurance this year.
Hospitals might limit executives’ pay hikes after run of big increases
Before local hospitals slashed staff and expenses last year, they had been boosting the pay packages of their top executives faster than hospitals around the country. Seven of every 10 senior executives at the major hospital systems in Indianapolis saw their total compensation rise more than 10 percent from 2010 to 2012.
What health care really needs is a full-meal deal
Until doctors and hospitals make a whole lot more headway—or, perhaps, more accurately, are allowed to make more headway—in offering package deals, it’s hard to see major progress on containing out-of-control health care costs.
Roche battles payment cuts while growing diagnostics business
New tests have helped Roche Diagnostics grow its North American revenue, excluding its troubled diabetes care business, 23 percent over the past five years. But the money for diagnostic tests continues to go down in key areas, noted CFO Wayne Burris.
Think Obamacare will help hospitals? Think again
The typical hospital around the country will see its profits wiped out entirely by the changes coming from health reform and the aging of the population. But in Indianapolis, the hits will be cushioned by this region's fatter commercial reimbursements.
Hospitals rethinking a la carte pricing
Indianapolis hospitals have begun to offer joint replacement surgeries to employers and insurers using “bundled prices.” That means, instead of billing piecemeal for each individual service and supply, the hospitals wrap everything needed from just before to just after surgery into a package deal.