More hospitals hit with do-over penalties
Medicare will reduce payments to 68 Indiana hospitals—a 62-percent increase from last year—for having too many patients return within 30 days.
Medicare
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What if hospitals ‘upcharged’ you for being fat?
As local hospitals try to offer package deals with upfront prices on joint replacement surgeries, they're struggling with the reality that patients' other health conditions can significantly increase their cost of care.
Is this the future of rural health care: Walmart, walk-in clinics and an ambulance?
In two to three years, primary care clinics could be popping up in Walmart stores in rural Indiana while most rural Indiana hospitals will offer little to no inpatient services. That’s dramatically different from what we’re used to.
Should IU Health pursue a strategy of mediocrity?
Indiana University Health fell off U.S. News’ honor roll of the nation’s top 1 percent of hospitals. Because of Obamacare and other trends, perhaps IU Health should be happy about that.
Indy hospitals continue to see fewer patients. Why?
All of sudden, Hoosiers are buying less health care. Is that because we’ve kicked the habit, sobered up and found religion? Or is it the Great Recession hangover that will pass, eventually, so we can all get back to the party?
There will be blood
A new study found that common blood tests performed by hospital-owned facilities in the Indianapolis area were six to nine times more expensive than the same tests at independent lab facilities. Ouch!
Reimbursement snag trips up local DNA testing firm
Strand Diagnostics LLC’s Know Error test uses DNA analysis to make sure a tissue sample that has been declared cancerous does, indeed, belong to the patient doctors think it does. But Strand is having trouble convincing Medicare that the test is medically necessary.
Why hospitals leave the inner city, in one chart
Since hospitals lose money on just about every patient except those with private insurance, they have been closing inner-city facilities and opening new facilities in the suburbs for the past four decades.
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.
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.
Teamwork transforming care at IU Health’s Saxony hospital
Getting everyone into the same room prior to surgeries is cutting costs and improving health.
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.
Indiana signups lag for federal health care law
Data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services show that a total of nearly 230,000 Indiana residents were eligible to enroll in a marketplace plan, but only about 132,000 had done so by the March 31 deadline.
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.
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.
In Indiana, everyone makes big profits on health care
Indiana is the most profitable state for Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans in 14 states. WellPoint’s margin for Indiana in 2012 was 5.8 percent, 38 percent higher than WellPoint’s national average.
Five things I learned from the Medicare doctor payments
From this week’s historic data dump, I learned who the top 20 recipients of Medicare payments are in Indianapolis (hint: mostly labs, ambulances and eye surgeons). But the real takeaway is that meaningful price information about doctors is still a long way away.
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.
WellPoint shares top $100 on bullish 5-year forecast
The health insurer predicted growth in government-funded health insurance programs would push revenue above $100 billion by 2018. That prompted investors to push WellPoint stock above $100 per share—an all-time high for the company.