WellStar Health System – one of metro Atlanta's largest medical providers – plans to replace its aging Paulding County hospital with a new 112-bed, $125 million facility to help meet the need of a rapidly growing population. The 226,000-square-foot facility will be located in Hiram and create an estimated 300 new jobs in Paulding, one of the fastest growing counties in the state, said Mark Haney, WellStar's senior vice president of real estate and construction. A new medical office building -- totaling 80,000 square feet -- is also in the works and will bring an additional 200 jobs. Paulding County's population has jumped nearly 75% to more than 140,000 in the past decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It's expected to climb an additional nearly 19% by 2016.
Tacoma-based MultiCare Health System, Pierce County's largest private employer, announced that it would eliminate by early autumn up to 350 positions from its work force of 9,400. In the first round of selecting which positions will be lost – and before mandatory layoffs – MultiCare employees will be offered the opportunity to retire or leave voluntarily. The company will offer those departing a severance package that includes cash and paid medical insurance through the end of the year. "It's a difficult time for our organization," said Diane Cecchettini, MultiCare president/CEO. "We've agonized about this decision but feel that it is the right decision."
Three Miami-Dade residents who played distinct roles in the nation's largest mental-health clinic racket pleaded guilty Wednesday to Medicare-related charges. Joseph Valdes, 30, a marketer for American Therapeutic Corp., and James Edwards, 65, a recruiter for the Miami-based company, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit healthcare fraud and to paying illegal kickbacks to patients. Adriana Mejia, 40, pleaded guilty to a money-laundering conspiracy. The defendants are the latest to admit their participation in the Medicare scam, which enabled American Therapeutic to bill Medicare $200 million and to net $83 million over eight years, according to the Justice Department. The scheme enabled the seven-clinic company to charge the taxpayer-funded program for psychotherapy that was unnecessary for thousands of patients who faked depression, schizophrenia or bipolar conditions.
Hutcheson Medical Center's financial losses weren't quite as bad in May as they've been for the last year, but the number still is likely to cause some double takes -- $888,960. The publicly funded North Georgia hospital had reported several consecutive million-dollar monthly losses and laid off dozens of employees before Erlanger Health System agreed in May to manage Hutcheson and offer the struggling hospital up to $20 million in credit. Hutcheson had savings from April's 75 layoffs -- the hospital paid $1 million less in salaries than it did in May 2010 -- but trustees and top executives said the hospital has a long way to go. "I'm just happy there's improvement," said Bill Chapin, the CEO of Rock City who serves on various Hutcheson boards. Erlanger President/CEO Jim Brexler has pushed to "rebuild the physician base," claiming it's the way to avoid layoffs and revitalize Hutcheson.
Budget negotiators have not found a way to avert a government default on federal debt obligations, but with their ideas to cut Medicare and Medicaid they have managed to provoke opposition from almost every major group that represents beneficiaries and healthcare providers. The latest provocation was a list of proposed savings presented at the White House this week by the House majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia. Cantor said Tuesday that the ideas had all been seriously discussed, with varying levels of Democratic support, in seven weeks of negotiations led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But with House Republicans adamantly opposed to new taxes, Democrats said they would not accept cuts in Medicare that reduced benefits. Cantor’s list included 27 proposals that he said would save up to $353 billion over 10 years, in the context of a budget deal that could save anywhere from $2 trillion to $4 trillion over the same period.
The $350 billion or so in potential cuts to Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years that were identified in budget negotiations would shift the cost of medicine to public hospitals, the states and individuals, but wouldn’t do much to tackle rising healthcare costs themselves. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) this week presented a list of proposed cuts to the White House as part of the broader negotiations to reach a deficit-cutting deal. The cuts include lower federal payments to hospitals with many poor patients and to state Medicaid programs, new patient copayments for clinical lab work, and reduced payments to nursing homes and rural hospitals. The cuts would come on top of about $500 billion in cuts to Medicare payments made to allow passage of the 2009 healthcare bill. Healthcare analysts on the left and right say negotiators are pushing the limits of what can be cut without more-fundamental structural changes to the programs.