Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell's Charter Oak Health Plan for uninsured adults has gotten off to a slow start as administrators struggle to build up a comprehensive network of doctors and hospitals willing to participate. The three private insurers who have contracted with the state have signed on less than 3,000 primary care providers and only one hospital. Some medical providers say the lower-than-expected reimbursement rates offered under the plan, as well as additional administrative costs, are keeping them from signing on.
As the new owners celebrated Blue Island, IL-based St. Francis Hospital's transition to the MetroSouth Medical Center, local residents, politicians, doctors and hospital staff cheered, clapped, hugged and gave one another high-fives. In April, SSM Health Care announced it was going to close the hospital because it was losing money and it couldn't find anyone to take over its operations. A month later, MSMC Investors LLC announced plans to take over the struggling hospital under a for-profit model, administrators say they plan to make the healthcare facility profitable by expanding services for women and children.
Long Island College Hospital, a community facility in Brooklyn, is closing down its maternity ward and plans to sell the building that houses some of its obstetrical clinics and another building across the street. The hospital delivered 2,800 babies in 2007, officials said, although the numbers are expected to decline this year after some prominent obstetricians moved to nearby New York Methodist Hospital. Representatives from Continuum Health Partners, the parent company of Long Island College Hospital, said that the obstetrics service was being closed and the two buildings sold in an effort to pay off tens of millions of dollars in operating and capital debt that might otherwise force it to declare bankruptcy.
As it forges ahead with plans to build a new hospital in downtown New Orleans, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is considering an offer from a real estate company that wants to sell the vacant and deteriorating Lindy Boggs Medical Center. The agency has planned for more than two years to build its new hospital just north of downtown New Orleans, where it could share laundry, laboratory, and parking with Louisiana State University's proposed teaching hospital.
The 55 children transferred to Palmetto Health Richland (SC) hospital from the new Palmetto Health Children's Hospital are expected to return once power is returned to the facility. A pressurized, 24-inch water pipe burst behind the building and flooded an electrical room. Both hospitals, which are adjacent to each other and share a common corridor, lost air conditioning when the pipe burst. Care of the children was not interrupted and no surgeries were canceled, said hospital representatives. Patients requiring emergency treatment were diverted to other hospitals, hospital officials said.
Four years ago, the hot new idea for reining in health costs was the health savings account, and the thinking was that such accounts would slow spiraling medical costs for both employers and consumers.
But today, only 5% of the 114 million Americans covered at work opting for such health plans. In Texas, regarded as the birthplace of the HSA, only 387,000 people have signed up out of the 12 million with employer-provided insurance.