Health News
- Baptist Health Buys Trover Health In Western Kentucky, Making Baptist Kentucky's Largest Health-care Provider By Licensed Beds
Following the nationwide trend of large hospitals taking over smaller ones in light of health care reform demands in a slow economy, Louisville-based Baptist Health added an eighth hospital to its statewide network this week by acquiring Trover Health...
- Critics, Proponents Debate Louisville Hospital Merger
Questions regarding ectopic pregnancy, end-of-life care and funding for indigent care were addressed Wednesday by proponents and critics of a proposed merger between University Hospital, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare and St. Joseph Health...
- Louisville Hospital Merger Would Be Just One Of Dozens Across The Country, Driven By Economic And Regulatory Concerns
Hospitals are banding together to create organizations better able to withstand the changing tides of the economy and health-care policy. The proposed merger of Louisville's Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare, Lexington-based Saint Joseph...
- University Hospital Is Public, Not Private, So State Has Say On Merger, Conway Says
Louisville's University Hospital is a public institution, not a private one, which means the state gets a say about the proposed merger between the hospital, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare and Lexington-based St. Joseph Health System,...
- Baptist Hospital East Would Allow U Of L Docs To Perform Tubal Ligations There After Merger With Catholic System
Since the merger between Jewish Hospital, University Medical Center and Saint Joseph Health Systems will prevent female patients from getting their tubes tied there ? because St. Joseph is owned by a Catholic-based parent company ? Baptist Hospital East...
Health News
Hospitals merging to shore up finances and, as federal health-reform law encourages, improve patient outcomes
With one expert calling it "merger mania," Robert Hadley of The Lane Report looks at how Kentucky hospitals and hospital systems are banding together as they brace for reimbursement changes mandated in the new health care law.
The most discussed merger is that of Louisville's Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare, Lexington-based St. Joseph Health System and University Medical Center at the University of Louisville. "At stake in the plan is not only the sale of a physical asset (University Hospital) that belongs to the commonwealth, but also potential changes in delivery of care that ceding control to a faith-based organization might bring," Hadley writes. Saint Joseph is owned by Catholic Health Initiatives, which follows the Catholic directives that prohibits abortion, sterilization and euthanasia.
Baptist Hospital East has since stepped in and said University of Louisville Medical School physicians are welcome to perform needed procedures at its facility.
Though complicated issues need to be addressed, hospitals are eager to merge regardless. Why? Financial viability, especially in the face of change as a result of the federal health-care reform law, sometimes called "Obamacare." Starting in 2013, hospitals will be reimbursed for Medicare and Medicaid procedures differently. Rather than be paid using a fee-for-service model, in which facilities are paid for each procedure performed, they will be paid based on quality and outcomes. If the outcomes are good, the facility will get paid more. The goal is to encourage care with good outcomes, rather than just pay for treatment, in which the incentive might be to over-treat in order to get more reimbursement.
"More and more of the reimbursements we receive in the future are going to be tied to performance, our quality and satisfaction scores," said Andy Sears, vice president of planning and system development for Baptist Healthcare System, which is looking to merge with Madisonville-based Trover Health System. "That's what the value-based purchasing coming out of Obamacare is all about. It's going to cause Baptist, Trover (Health System) and any other health-care organizations to begin to address how we're going to provide more value for the care we deliver."
"Pressure to leverage cost savings as reimbursement declines while being able to afford facility expansion are the two primary reasons" for the Baptist-Trover merger, Hadley reports. "As a single hospital in a rural community, Trover is finding it difficult to attract capital investment, much like University Hospital."
The Jewish-St. Joseph-University Hospital merger will mean at least a $200 million cash infusion for University Hospital alone, and nearly $1 billion of capital investment, including information technology, over the next five years, said Dr. Dan Varga, chief medical officer at St. Joseph Health System.
Essentially, with new changes coming, there is power in numbers. "Trover is a big organization and clinic," Sears said. "But they're facing the same situation a lot of stand-alone facilities are facing. Business is declining, reimbursements are declining, and when you don't have payments in, you can't take care of capital needs." (Read more)
- Baptist Health Buys Trover Health In Western Kentucky, Making Baptist Kentucky's Largest Health-care Provider By Licensed Beds
Following the nationwide trend of large hospitals taking over smaller ones in light of health care reform demands in a slow economy, Louisville-based Baptist Health added an eighth hospital to its statewide network this week by acquiring Trover Health...
- Critics, Proponents Debate Louisville Hospital Merger
Questions regarding ectopic pregnancy, end-of-life care and funding for indigent care were addressed Wednesday by proponents and critics of a proposed merger between University Hospital, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare and St. Joseph Health...
- Louisville Hospital Merger Would Be Just One Of Dozens Across The Country, Driven By Economic And Regulatory Concerns
Hospitals are banding together to create organizations better able to withstand the changing tides of the economy and health-care policy. The proposed merger of Louisville's Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare, Lexington-based Saint Joseph...
- University Hospital Is Public, Not Private, So State Has Say On Merger, Conway Says
Louisville's University Hospital is a public institution, not a private one, which means the state gets a say about the proposed merger between the hospital, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare and Lexington-based St. Joseph Health System,...
- Baptist Hospital East Would Allow U Of L Docs To Perform Tubal Ligations There After Merger With Catholic System
Since the merger between Jewish Hospital, University Medical Center and Saint Joseph Health Systems will prevent female patients from getting their tubes tied there ? because St. Joseph is owned by a Catholic-based parent company ? Baptist Hospital East...