IU Health suffers small decline in 2013 profit
Indiana University Health’s business deteriorated last year in nearly every area. But price hikes and a surge in outpatient visits to Indianapolis-area facilities mostly offset those problems.
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Obama says more than 6M signed up for health care
Like much else about Obama's health care law, the milestone comes with a caveat: The administration has yet to announce how many consumers actually closed the deal by paying their first month's premium.
Where do hospital profits go?
When patients at Indianapolis-area hospitals pay their bills, they're not just funding their own health care. They're contributing to the care of Hoosiers in the rest of the state, too, especially care provided by hospital-employed physicians.
Medic! Early signal shows hospital profits plunged in 2013
Franciscan Alliance, always the first to report its year-end financial results, put out numbers that show a real decline in profit from operations of 58 percent.
Top 10 most profitable hospitals around Indianapolis
Based on 2012 data, 23 of 30 hospitals in central Indiana are generating profits from their operations of 10 percent or more. The Indiana Orthopaedic Hospital and St. Vincent's Carmel campus are on top. After that, there are a few surprises.
Can we, please, get a better name than ‘accountable care’?
Health care is going through dramatic change—but is doing so under some of the dullest names possible. So I’m offering a few alternatives that are more to the point. How about, ‘No-more-bankruptcy care’?
Republicans needed to make Obamacare work
Obama’s latest delay of Obamacare insurance rules could sabotage the law’s exchanges. The president must be counting on Republican critics, like Indiana Insurance Commissioner Stephen Robertson, to stop him.
Hospital layoffs hardly dented employment growth
Even though the state’s three largest hospital systems–IU Health, St. Vincent Health and Franciscan Alliance–eliminated a combined 2,700 jobs, it created just a blip in the long-term run-up in hospital employment.
Indy hospitals, doctors should start a price war
The choice for health care providers is binary: either limit patient choice through restricted networks or preserve patient choice by making price transparency real and usable. Hospitals and doctors would be better served by the latter.
Indiana’s hospitals face Obamacare timing problem
The Obama administration’s delays of Obamacare’s employer mandate penalties mean it will be another year or two before hospitals see the additional revenue the law was supposed to bring them.
What happens if Pence, Sebelius can’t make a deal?
Even if Gov. Mike Pence and Obama’s health secretary can’t come to terms this weekend, there are ideas bouncing around the state legislature that suggest other ways Indiana could expand coverage to low-income Hoosiers.
The weightlessness of Obamacare
Rich employer benefits are not always so attractive, sick patients are not always money losers for insurers, and hospitals and doctors are now health care preventers rather than health care providers. This is the bizarre world to which Obamacare has brought us.
Hospitals’ worries about Obamacare plans misplaced
The latest enrollment data from the Obamacare exchanges show that three out of four Hoosiers are purchasing decent coverage—not the super high-deductible plans that concerned hospitals.
Generous employer benefits now hurt some workers
Ever since World War 2, when employers started using health benefits to compete for workers, the less employees had to pay toward health insurance premiums the more attractive the benefits. But under Obamacare, this axiom will not always be true.
Despite exchange roller coaster, WellPoint says it’s all going according to plan
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.
St. Vincent hospitals not quite as rich as they seem
St. Vincent Health has been sending roughly $50 million to $70 million every year to its parent company, St. Louis-based Ascension Health, to support other hospitals in Ascension’s 93-hospital network.
New tiered network trips up IU Health, UnitedHealthcare talks
In spite of offers to strike a short-term extension, UnitedHealthcare and Indiana University Health are still hung up in contract negotiations on one key point: Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare wants to create a multi-tiered network of providers and services that would offer the lowest co-pays and deductibles for favored hospital systems—which IU Health is not.
My own Obamacare math says small employers will, indeed, drop coverage
In my financial situation, I could save from 2 percent to 30 percent buying health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges. I suspect a lot of small companies and their workers will see similar results.
Hopelessly divided Congress agrees on one thing: Cutting payments to providers
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.
OK, I’m convinced: Hospitals actually are transforming
There are clear signs that hospitals nationally, and even here in Indianapolis, are actually starting to make good on their promises to keep patients healthier and out of the hospital.