Fifteen senior executives have left WellPoint Inc. since November 2004, when the giant health insurer formed through Indianapolis-based
Anthem Inc.’s $16.5 billion acquisition of California-based WellPoint Health Networks Inc. The merger made many of them rich,
work at WellPoint was grueling, and personal commitments called. So they moved on.
Richard and Wendy Horn have had their share of separate real estate successes. Now, they’ve combined their corporate talents as a husband-and-wife team to lead an upstart senior housing developer. Richard joined The Stratford Cos. in May 2006 as chairman and CEO, and has since moved its headquarters from St. Louis to Indianapolis’ north side in Parkwood Crossing. He is known within commercial real estate circles as a former veteran of Duke Realty Corp., where he enjoyed a two-year stint…
Here’s a new strategy to control spiraling drug prices: multilevel marketing. That’s right. A new company called NuLegacy International LLC is deploying the tactics of Amway Corp. to give Americans-particularly those without health insurance-a break on prescription drug costs. The Texas-based company’s key selling points? Its cards are free. And they’re good for potentially large discounts off the full price of prescription drugs. Drugstores, in theory, get a higher volume of customers because of the discounts. “The timing is now,”…
Doctors who make house calls are about as obsolete as polio. But a fledgling local company is taking a page from the past and reintroducing the practice to the workplace instead of the home. Rising medical costs and the companies desperate to contain them are driving interest in the emerging model of on-site clinics. Large employers such as Toyota Motor Co., Pepsi Bottling Group, Credit Suisse and Sprint Nextel have embraced health clinics in recent years, in hopes of promoting…
Arcadia Resources Inc. CEO Marvin Richardson, an Anderson native and Purdue University pharmacy graduate, said Indianapolis was chosen for the company’s new headquarters because the city’s central location will create an advantage when it launches a new drug-packaging system. The system, called DailyMed, will help patients manage their prescription pills. The company plans to open a distribution center for DailyMed in the near future that eventually could employ 300 or more. Arcadia will move from the Detroit suburb of Southfield….
Five local industry leaders conducted a serious debate over problems and issues facing our health care system during the most recent installment in Indianapolis Business Journal’s Power Breakfast series. The event took place at the Downtown Marriott hotel on Sept. 21 The panelists: Robert Brody, president and CEO of St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers, the Indianapolis-area’s fourth-largest hospital system. Brody has been chief executive at St. Francis since 1996. Dr. Robert Mouser, a primary care physician at Cornerstone Family…
In the last year, Hetrick Communications has hired 10 employees, added a major new client, and changed its focus. What was once primarily a public relations firm is now also an advertising agency targeting health care and life sciences. On the heels of the changes, Hetrick actually wants fewer clients. “We want fewer, bigger clients,” said Amy Ahlersmeyer, the firm’s president and chief operating officer. “We want our growth to come absolutely in the health care and life sciences sector.”…
Why pay to get employees healthy if they’re likely to leave in a few years? That used to be the killer question for wellness and disease management programs. But that attitude is changing. And employers like Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana are a good example of why. The not-for-profit, whose main mission is to help workers make a transition into other jobs, has enjoyed significant savings on health care costs even as it has ditched the employee-paid deductible on its…
What do most people concerned with economic development want to see? More jobs at better pay. How can we tell if we are getting there? Simply by looking at what is happening to earnings. Earnings divided by the number of jobs equals average earnings per job. Hence, with elementary school arithmetic, we can say that earnings equals the number of jobs multiplied by the average earning per job, exactly the two indicators of economic development that most folks want to…
When Dane Hudson sold his health benefits consultancy on Aug. 1, he hoped it was only his first of many mergers. Hudson, the founder of Strategic Health Plans Corp. in Carmel, sold his company to Illinois-based Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. for an undisclosed amount. Gallagher, a quiet company that is one of the nation’s largest health benefits firms, wants Hudson to buy up another three or four health benefits brokers in the next five years. Hudson also said he’ll…
Andy Jacobs Jr. wrote in an IBJ column that smoking is an expensive and painful way to commit suicide. He’s right. But he didn’t go far enough. Breathing secondhand smoke at one’s place of employment is also an expensive and painful way to go. The world is beginning to read the smoke signals. Many countries have passed laws to protect their work force from secondhand smoke. Today, you cannot smoke even in an Irish pub. In our country, 22 states…
That’s not what many NFIB members wanted to hear. “I’ve been a member of [the advocacy group] since 1985, and since 1985 the top issue has been health care that is affordable for businesses and employees,” said Barbara Quandt of Indianapolis-based Quality Environmental Professionals Inc. The firm’s health insurance costs increased by 33 percent in 2007, and Quandt said company leaders are “quaking” with dread over what will happen in 2008. QEPI covers 75 percent of insurance costs for its…
Plans abound to bring new health care facilities to Brownsburg, one of Hendricks County’s fast-growing towns. Some familiar
local names, such as OrthoIndy, St. Vincent Health and Clarian Health Partners, all have claims to land in the Brownsburg
area.
Good news. The shortage of hospital nurses isn’t quite as bad as it used to be. In the last five years, Indianapolis’ hospitals have chipped away quietly at the gap in nurse staffing that seized local and national attention earlier this decade. To achieve these modest declines in what hospitals call their nursing vacancy rates, they have revamped their recruitment and retention efforts at a time when nurses have more options outside hospitals than ever before. Nursing schools are working…
Buildings, just like people, have lives. They’re born, they do their jobs, they take on new roles and, after about 75 years, most of them reach the end. Sadly, some beautiful ones die too soon, while a few ugly ones live too long. How should we decide when to save a building or when to tear it down? And have the reasons changed? The terms of renovation are well-known (adaptive re-use, mixed-use development and historic preservation). When our actions meet…
Sooner or later, in the life of almost every building owner, there comes a time when a structure has outlived its usefulness in its current condition. A choice between two options must be made. Do we renovate or do we demolish and build something totally new? The answer is by no means easy or automatic. Confronted with these options, an owner must grapple with a host of issues. The following sample is not exhaustive but may prove helpful as a…
So you want to be a boxer in Indiana? There’s a $10 fee to be paid every other year for the privilege. That’s a lot lower than the twoyear fee of $100 paid by architects. A driver’s license is good for five years and costs just $19.50. Whereas your aircraft bears a $10 annual registration fee, your passenger car has a $20.75 annual state fee. If you want to support a special cause, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles charges a…
This week marks the start of my tenure as director of Ball State University’s Bureau of Business Research. I take over from Pat Barkey, whose thoughts on the state’s economy have long graced this column. His will be hard shoes to fill. I have read over many of Pat’s old columns, and the one thing that stands out is how much we agree on the issues facing the state-and their solutions. Contrary to the old stereotypes, hard-headed economists usually come…
Terry Majors wants to make a name for himself in the business community, and he’s confident he’s well on his way to being successful. Making eye contact, he shakes hands firmly and confidently. He’s dressed neatly and professionally in a white, buttondown shirt and tie. His shoes are well-polished. He speaks in a friendly, yet authoritative, voice about a new job he will soon start. “It’s all about choices,” he says philosophically of life, as if he’s been making choices…
Before they had fancy suits or fast cars, the four owners of Lauth Property Group were resourceful teen-agers, busy finding ways to make money. Chairman Bob Lauth, President Michael Curless and CEO Greg Gurnik each started neighborhood lawn-care businesses. The company’s treasurer and chief accounting officer, Larry Palmer, hawked programs at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. At the time, their hard work and entrepreneurial instincts helped scrounge up date money. In the last few years, it’s helped them turn Indianapolis-based Lauth…
