Al Stubblefield, CEO of the Baptist Health Care Corporation, discusses the freeze in the credit markets and how that?s affecting hospitals? expansion and M&A plans for the coming year and beyond.
U.S. Preventive Medicine has appointed Glenn Robinette as executive vice president of customer service. In this newly-created position, Robinette will be responsible for examining and maximizing the efficiency of all customer service activities for the company's five major customer groups including employers, government, consumers, benefit brokers, and affinity partners. He will be based in the company's operations center in Jacksonville.
The board of directors of National HealthCare Corp., which operates long-term healthcare and assisted living facilities, announced the appointment of Robert G. Adams as chairman and CEO, Michael Ussery as COO, and Steve F. Flatt as president. These changes will become effective Jan. 1, 2009.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has named Rita Heise, corporate vice president and CIO for Cargill, to its board of trustees. She will serve on the board's human resources and finance and business development committees.
Bruce Mogel, a founder, president and CEO of Integrated Healthcare Holdings, Inc., is leaving the company to pursue opportunities outside of IHHI. His resignation becomes effective on Dec. 31, 2008. Mogel and two others founded IHHI in 2004 to acquire four hospitals formerly owned and operated by subsidiaries of Tenet Healthcare Corp.
Doctors across California and in two other Western states are owed millions of dollars in backlogged Medicare reimbursements, leading some physicians to turn away elderly patients and pushing others to the brink of bankruptcy. In the most extreme cases, doctors have not been paid since February. Others are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. Doctors who serve high numbers of Medicare patients say they are defaulting on rent, laying off staff, and begging drug suppliers not to stop shipments.
President-elect Barack Obama's plan to extend healthcare to uninsured Americans will provide a boon to hospitals and medical centers, according to Moody's Investors Service. "Moody's estimates that the annual cost of the plan could be on the order of $100 billion to $200 billion, inclusive of participant contributions, on top of current annual government spending of about $800 billion," the rating agency said in a report. "The expected spending could positively affect the top-line growth of many healthcare providers."
An Orange County, CA, executive has resigned after an internal investigation into his employment background and other activities, threatening new turmoil in the management of four major regional hospitals. Bruce Mogel, the president and chief executive of Santa Ana-based Integrated Healthcare Holdings Inc., has tendered his resignation. The resignation will be effective Dec. 31, although Mogel may stay on for up to four months more to assist with the transition to a new CEO.
In the first of an expected avalanche of post-election regulations, the Bush administration has narrowed the scope of services that can be provided to poor people under Medicaid's outpatient hospital benefit. The new rule conflicts with efforts by Congressional leaders and governors to increase federal aid to the states for Medicaid as part of a new economic action plan. Public hospitals and state officials immediately protested the action, saying it would reduce Medicaid payments to many hospitals at a time of growing need.
The AARP has announced it would voluntarily suspend sales of a type of health insurance plan critics say leaves policyholders vulnerable to tens of thousands of dollars in costs. Suspension of sales will occur "as soon as possible" and last until AARP completes an independent review of the plans their marketing efforts, the group said.