Raleigh, NC-based health system WakeMed expects to sell as much as $175 million in tax-free bonds this week, a step that suggests a slight thawing of the credit market. WakeMed, however, had to jump through additional hoops to get the sale done, including paying higher interest rates and hiring bond-research agencies to rate its fiscal health. WakeMed delayed the bond sale in fall 2007, when financial turmoil disrupted credit markets and brought such sales to a halt. Now hospital officials think its solid credit rating and history will attract bond investors who have been reluctant to take risks.
In a glimpse of the economy's toll on the investment portfolios of some of Chicago's largest academic medical centers, a series of financial reports shows three of these hospitals losing hundreds of millions of dollars. Moody's Investors Service said in a report that the University of Chicago Medical Center's investments have lost more than 25% of their value. Cash and unrestricted investments fell to $625 million as of Nov. 30, from $842 million on June 30—the end of the hospital's fiscal year. The cash positions at Rush University Medical Center and Northwestern Memorial Hospital also have been hit hard, Moody's reports show.
SSM St. Joseph Hospital of Kirkwood, MO, has set March 30 as the date it will move six miles southwest and become SSM St. Clare Health Center. Four years in the planning, SSM St. Clare Health Center's new campus has a 154-bed hospital, heart institute, cancer care, outpatient procedure center, outpatient diagnostic center and medical office building.
If the present House version of President Barack Obama's stimulus package passes Congress, Florida could get $4.25 billion over two years to help expand medical services for the state's poor. In a study released by Families USA, researchers say that provisions of the House bill could provide $87 billion to bolster hard-hit state Medicaid programs, including $4.25 billion for Florida for the period from October through 2010.
Unless healthcare reform becomes a reality, most Americans can expect to pay health insurance premiums that will double by 2016, a new report claims. Left unchecked, the costs of employer-paid health insurance will jump from $11,381 to $24,291 in the next seven years, according to the report by the Public Interest Research Group. Wasteful spending and inefficiencies are what is fueling the trend, the report contends.
Tucked inside the $819 billion economic stimulus package that passed the House are provisions to spur the adoption of electronic medical records. The $20 billion for health information technology would be, by far, the biggest government infusion to enable medical information to follow patients back and forth among doctors' offices, hospitals, and other providers. If successful, experts say, electronic medical records would improve quality, reduce duplication of services, and limit errors—ultimately saving the nation hundreds of billions of dollars each year.