Providers raise concerns that the mandatory CMMI payment models will create unnecessary burdens and challenges.
The American Hospital Association and other key stakeholders are raising concerns about a proposed mandatory alternative payment model for radiation oncology that is scheduled to take effect in less than four months.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced in July that the five-year model would make prospective payments to cover radiotherapy services, in 90-day episodes, for patients diagnosed with 17 types of cancer.
The model would link payment to quality metrics and would require participation from physician group practices, hospital outpatient departments and freestanding radiation therapy centers in randomly selected geographic areas. It would also qualify as an Advanced Alternative Payment Model (APM) and Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) APM under the Quality Payment Program (QPP), CMS said.
A CMS fact sheet issued with the proposed rule said that the model would test whether episodic payments in a prospective and site-neutral fashion would reduce the amount Medicare spends on radiation services while maintaining or even improving quality.
In written comments, AHA called on CMS to a delay of the Jan. 1, 2020 starting date for the model, make the model voluntary, and "balance the risk versus reward equation much more appropriately."
"Our members support moving toward the provision of more accountable, streamlined care and are redesigning delivery systems to increase value and better serve patients," AHA wrote.
However, AHA added that hospitals and health systems "should not be required to participate in such a complicated program ... if they do not believe it will benefit the patients they serve. Moreover, other providers that may have the systems in place to excel under this new model could be excluded based on geographic location."
AHA said the proposed rule's requirement that model participants take on 100% risk immediately, without any stop-loss protections or adjustment for actual versus historical case mix "places too much risk and burden on providers with little opportunity for reward in the form of shared savings, especially in light of the significant investments required."
Those concerns were echoed by the Community Oncology Alliance. The nonprofit association said it supports efforts to transition away from fee-for-service to value-based payment models. However, COA said it "absolutely does not support mandatory CMMI models."
"CMMI should be working closely with COA and other organizations to develop a radiation oncology model that will first test and then implement the model on a broader scale," COA said in its formal comments. "We strongly believe that no provider, nor their patients, should be forced into any transformative model."
American Society for Radiation Oncology Board Chair Paul Harari, MD, acknowledged "some positive elements" in the model but raised concerns that it "falls short" of three key goals advocated by ASTRO; Rewarding radiation oncologists for quality initiatives that improve the value of healthcare; ensuring fair payment in both hospital and freestanding clinics to protect patient access; and incentivizing the appropriate use of cancer treatments.
"An ASTRO analysis estimates that the RO Model would cut payments to required participants by approximately $320 million during the 5-year period—an excessive amount that would undermine this unique opportunity," Harari said.
For the model to be successful, ASTRO recommended launch the model on a voluntary basis and trasition to mandatory on a limited basis, including opt-outs for low-volume practices and hardship cases.
ASTRO also identified what it called "serious flaws in the calculation approach for the national case rates," which it said would result in significant payment penalty for participants.
"We are concerned that the methodology fails to appropriately account for a range of complex clinical scenarios and average treatment costs for many clinics," Harari said.
To solve that, ASTRO recommended that CMS "include some physician fee schedule costs, properly attribute palliative care cases, and ensure adequate payments for patients receiving standard-of-care multi-modality treatments, such as combination therapy for gynecological cancer."
Harari said the payment adjustments proposed in the model could result in significant cuts to all participants and unfairly disadvantage "efficient" practices.
ASTRO recommended that CMS adjust the efficiency factor to avoid penalizing efficient practices and scale back the discount factors, and that CMS should pay for new technology at fee-for-service rates and adopt a rate review mechanism for new service lines and upgrades.
"The proposed RO Model would heap additional administrative tasks and costly requirements on already burdened radiation oncology practices that are required to participate in the model," Harari said.
ASTRO recommended that CMS delay many of these requirements and rely input from the radiation oncology community "to ensure that only information that is most meaningful and least burdensome is collected."
Philip Esformes of Miami Beach ran the largest healthcare fraud scheme ever charged by DOJ.
The Miami-based owner of a chain of skilled nursing and assisted living facilities has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his lead role in a decades-long scam that the Department of Justice has called the largest healthcare fraud scheme it ever prosecuted.
Philip Esformes, 50, of Miami Beach, was also sentenced to three years supervised release.
During an eight-week jury trial in April, federal prosecutors accused Esformes of billing Medicare for more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent charges. The jury found Esformes guilty of more than 20 felony fraud counts, including accepting kickbacks, money laundering, fraud, and obstruction of justice.
A Nov. 21 hearing will determine restitution and forfeiture, DOJ said.
"Philip Esformes is a man driven by almost unbounded greed," Deputy Special Agent in Charge Denise M. Stemen of the FBI’s Miami Field Office said in a media release.
"The illicit road Esformes took to satisfy his greediness led to millions in fraudulent health care claims, the largest amount ever charged by the Department of Justice. Along that road, Esformes cycled patients through his facilities in poor condition where they received inadequate or unnecessary treatment, then improperly billed Medicare and Medicaid," Stemen said.
Evidence presented at trial showed that, between 1998 and 2016, Esformes led an extensive healthcare fraud conspiracy involving a network of assisted living facilities and skilled nursing facilities he owned, DOJ said.
Esformes bribed physicians to admit patients into his facilities. Then, he cycled the patients through his facilities where they often failed to receive appropriate medical services or received medically unnecessary services billed to Medicare and Medicaid. Several witnesses testified to the poor conditions in the facilities and the inadequate care patients receive.
Evidence showed Esformes used his stolen money for extravagant gifts, including luxury automobiles and a $360,000 watch. He also used the stolen money to bribe the basketball coach at the University of Pennsylvania to gain admission for his son.
Altogether, Esformes personally pocketed about $37 million from the scheme, DOJ said.
Esformes’s coconspirator, physician’s assistant Arnaldo Carmouze, previously pleaded guilty to fraud charges and was sentenced in April to more than 6 years in prison and ordered to pay $12.5 million in restitution.
Co-conspirator Odette Barcha also pleaded guilty to a kickback charge and was sentenced in April to 15 months in prison and three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $704,500 in restitution.
Physicians say prior authorization creates undue time burden and administrative costs.
A House committee on Wednesday heard complaints from four physicians about the hassles of prior authorization and its ill-effects on patients.
"While there may be a limited number of justifiable cases where prior authorization is appropriate, it is clear that health plans more often require prior authorization as a cost-containment strategy by limiting and restricting access to specific services," John Cullen, MD, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, told the House Committee on Small Business.
"In submitting prior authorizations, family physicians and their staff spend countless hours reviewing documents, processing paperwork, checking boxes, and waiting on hold to talk to health plans to meet their often arbitrary and not evidence-based requirements so that our patients can get the care they need," he said.
Cullen's testimony was echoed by his physician colleagues before the committee.
"In one year, my practice dedicated over $80,000 in resources for prior authorizations," said Dave Walega, MD, Chief, Division of Pain Management at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
"If the same costs and circumstances were incurred in a small group medical practice, it could be financially devastating to have overhead costs rise so high," he said.
Paul Harari, MD, chairman of the American Society of Radiation Oncology, said "prior authorization is intended to minimize health care costs, but this is often done at the expense of a patient’s well-being."
"Nationwide, physicians and their patients are bearing the brunt of excessive prior authorization practices," he said.
"Physician practices are on the frontline – and complying with management utilization has driven up the cost of running a medical practice," said Howard Rogers, MD, a Connecticut-based dermatologist, speaking on behalf of the American Academy of Dermatology Association. "On average, dermatologists dedicate eight hours per week solely to administrative activity; precious time they could be otherwise dedicating to patient care."
"Prior authorization is one of the most unbalanced approaches to utilization management in terms of increasing practice costs while providing no increase in quality of care and regularly delaying patient treatment," Rogers said.
The physicians got a receptive ear from subcommittee Chairwoman Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY).
"When doctors spend hours dealing with paperwork or can't treat a patient because a health insurance company won't approve a treatment, the result is patients suffering," she said in opening remarks. "And that is why we are here today–to discuss a barrier preventing family physicians and specialists from providing critical care to their patients."
Velázquez said that while prior authorization is a vital tool used to reduce care costs and advance evidence-based medicine, "it's also putting an undue burden on physicians, their staff, and patients. It is not uncommon that patients now face delays of two weeks and sometimes over a month before getting treatment."
America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association submitted a joint statementto the committee, citing statistics that "65% of physicians reporting that at least 15-30% of care is unnecessary."
"Needless medical tests harm patients and waste billions of dollars every year; $200-$800 billion is wasted annually on excessive testing and treatment," the payers said. "Medical management ensures patients have access to safe and clinically-effective health care services and addresses this type of waste in our health care system."
The payers said that prior authorization is a valuable tool in the fight against healthcare fraud. They also said they were working with providers and the federal government to reduce the paperwork and procedural burdens for physicians.
Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and its own in-house analysis, TFAH issues a biannual snapshot of obesity rates nationwide.
"These latest data shout that our national obesity crisis is getting worse," TFAH CEO and President John Auerbach said in comments accompanying the study.
"They tell us that almost 50 years into the upward curve of obesity rates we haven't yet found the right mix of programs to stop the epidemic," he said. "Isolated programs and calls for life-style changes aren't enough. Instead, our report highlights the fundamental changes that are needed in the social and economic conditions that make it challenging for people to eat healthy foods and get sufficient exercise."
The consequences of soaring obesity rates include increased risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and cancers, with an annual cost of about $149 million, half of which is paid for by Medicare and Medicaid, TFAH said.
Nine states had adult obesity rates at or above 35% in 2018, up from seven states at that level in 2017, an historic level of obesity. The nine states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and West Virginia.
Mississippi and West Virginia have the highest level of adult obesity in the nation at 39.5%, while Colorado has the lowest rate at 23%, TFAH said.
The pace of obesity appears to be accelerating. As recently as 2012, TFAH notes, no state had an adult obesity rate over 35% and from 2013 through 2018 33 states had statistically significant increases in their rates of adult obesity, TFAH said.
A second data source used in the report, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, also shows all-time high levels of obesity. In 2015-2016, the most recent available data, the national adult obesity rate was 39.6% and the national child obesity rate was 18.5%.
Nationwide, obesity has increased by 70% over the last 30 years for adults and by 85% for children.
As with other studies, the TFAH report shows the close link between obesity and socio-economic conditions. Lower-income people, and people of color, who are more likely to live in "food deserts" and neighborhoods that discourage physical activity, and who are the target of junk food marketers, are also at elevated risk.
As of 2015-2016, 47% of Latino adults, 46.8% of Black adults were obese. White and Asian adults were 38% and 12.7% respectively. Childhood obesity was highest amongst Latino children at 25.8%, while 22% of Black children, 14% of White children, and 11% of Asian children were obese.
The report cites a number of initiatives that could help bend the obesity curve, including:
Expand access to WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children) food packages.
Increase the price of sugary drinks through excise taxes and use the revenue to address health and socioeconomic disparities.
Make it more difficult to market junk food to children by ending federal tax loopholes and business costs deductions related to the advertising of such foods to young audiences.
Strengthen and expand school nutrition programs beyond federal standards to include universal meals, flexible breakfasts and eliminate all junk food marketing to students.
Enforce existing laws that direct most health insurers to cover obesity-related preventive services at no-cost sharing to patients.
Cover pediatric weight management programs and services in Medicaid.
Primary care physicians complain about a lack of access to CKD clinical information systems, insufficient patient education materials.
The federal government's efforts to reduce by 25% the number of people developing end-stage kidney disease in the next decade may be hobbled the lack of knowledge and support tools made available to primary care physicians.
That's according to a new study in PloS ONE, which suggests that more resources will be needed to achieve the goals set in July by the Department of Health and Human Services.
"If we hope to reduce the personal and financial toll of chronic kidney disease and end-stage kidney failure, primary care physicians must be key players, said John Sperati, MD, associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of the school's Nephrology Fellowship Training Program.
"And we as kidney specialists need to form better partnerships with PCPs, and need to offer more training and resources to them," he said.
Sperati and colleagues at Johns Hopkins heard from four focus groups comprised of more than 30 primary care physicians across the nation, and found that many of them don't have the knowledge or the tools to identify and manage patients with chronic kidney disease, especially in the early stages of the disease.
An estimated 37 million people, about 15% of the nation's adult population, are believed to be affected by CKD, with high blood pressure and diabetes being major contributors to the disease.
Medicare costs for CKD in 2016 were $79 billion, and another $35 billion for end-stage renal disease, According to the U.S. Renal Data System. HHS hopes that by identifying those at risk of CKD in its early stages, lifestyle adjustments, medications, and disease management can delay expensive, invasive countermeasures, such as dialysis and transplants.
To reach that goal, primary care physicians will be a key player, Sperati said, because there is a nationwide shortage of nephrologists, with only about one kidney specialist for every 2,000 patients with CKD. Those specialists, he notes, focus on the 8% of CKD patients in advanced stages with multiple complications or end-stage kidney failure.
That means that PCPs will have to provide the care for CKD in its early stages. Despite how prevalent this disease is, Sperati believes that, if managed early on by PCPs, some patients can avoid advanced stages.
Almost 85% of the PCPs in the researchers' focus groups said they felt comfortable managing patients with early-stage CKD, but not comfortable managing specific complications such as anemia (44%), bone disorders (72%) and excess metabolic acid in the body that damages the kidneys (69%), the researchers found.
Most of the docs complained that they lacked access to clinical information systems and insufficient patient education material about CKD. They also complained about the lack of time they had to spend with patients, along with system-level barriers such as poor reimbursements for delivering care to complex CKD patients.
The PCPs identified patient barriers to management, such as limited understandings of the implications of CKD and the costs associated with meds, tests and other costs.
To improve early diagnosis of CKD, the focus group physicians called for: more access to automatic estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) reports to screen for low levels of GFR clear; guidelines for treatment; better education; and improved insurance coverage and physician reimbursement for services and care.
"This is very helpful information in identifying what primary care physicians see as barriers but also as potential solutions," Sperati said.
This study was funded by the National Kidney Foundation and no author declared any conflict of interest.
The owner of Video Doctor USA admitted that he took kickbacks and paid bribes for inducing healthcare providers to bill Medicare for unneeded orthopedic braces.
The owner/operator of several telemedicine companies in the United States has pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks in exchange for billing $424 million to Medicare for medically unnecessary orthopedic braces, the Department of Justice said.
Federal prosecutors described the scheme led by Lester Stockett, 52, of Medellin, Colombia, and 24 coconspirators as one of the largest healthcare frauds ever investigated.
Stockett was the owner of Video Doctor USA and Telemed Health Group LLC, and was the CEO of AffordADoc. On Friday, he pleaded guilty to two related counts of accepting kickbacks and money laundering. Sentencing has been scheduled for Dec. 16 in a federal district court in New Jersey, DOJ said.
As part of the plea agreement, Stockett will pay $200 million in restitution and forfeit assets and property traceable to ill-gained proceeds. Stockett's sentencing is set for Dec. 16 before U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo of the District of New Jersey, who accepted his plea today.
"The extent of Mr. Stockett's fraud and money laundering, literally, knew no bounds," Special Agent in Charge Gregory W. Ehrie of the FBI's Newark Field Office, said in a media release.
"From the U.S. to Latin America, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic, the FBI followed the trail of ill-gotten gains back to Stockett and his conspirators. They stole precious federal funds earmarked to assist the elderly," he said.
Under the plea deal, Stockett admitted that he and his codefendants solicited and received kickbacks and bribes from patient recruiters, pharmacies, brace suppliers and others in exchange for arranging for doctors to order medically unnecessary orthotic braces.
The Medicare beneficiaries were contacted through an international telemarketing network that lured hundreds of thousands of elderly and/or disabled patients into a criminal scheme that crossed borders, involving call centers in the Philippines and throughout Latin America, DOJ said.
Stockett admitted that he and his codefendants at Video Doctor Network paid kickbacks and bribes to providers to order medically unnecessary braces for Medicare beneficiaries. Many of these orders were written after a short telephone call.
The scheme billed Medicare for more than $424 million in false claims, and Medicare paid these brace suppliers in excess of $200 million.
The schemers hid the kickbacks and bribes from federal auditors using nominee companies and bank accounts in the United States and the Dominican Republic, DOJ said.
In addition, Stockett admitted that he and other owners and executives of the Video Doctor Network schemed to defraud investors and others by making false and fraudulent representations that the Video Doctor Network was a legitimate telemedicine enterprise that made revenue of "$10 million per year" and "20% profit" from payments by beneficiaries who enrolled in a membership program and paid for the telemedicine consultations.
On the money laundering charge, Stockett admitted that from 2016 through 2019, he and his codefendants transferred about $10 million in kickbacks from a bank in the U.S. to the account of Droneza Consulting, a corporation in the Dominican Republic.
To hid the kickbacks, Stockett admitted that the schemers then then transferred more than $9.8 million from a Droneza Consulting account back to bank accounts of AffordADoc in the United States, DOJ said.
Creaghan Harry, 51, of Highland Beach, Florida, and Elliot Loewenstern, 56, of Boca Raton, Florida, were also indictment in the scheme. They await trial.
The United Kingdom-based drug maker wooed doctors with lavish dinners and entertainment.
Mallinckrodt ARD LLC will pay the federal government $15 million to resolve whistleblower allegations that the United Kingdom-based company wined and dined physicians to induce them to write prescriptions for the company's pricey H.P. Acthar Gel, the Department of Justice said.
The alleged False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute violations occurred from 2009 to 2013, when the company was known as Questcor Pharmaceuticals Inc., DOJ said.
"The Department of Justice will hold companies accountable for the payment of illegal kickbacks in any form," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Jody Hunt said in a media release.
"Improper inducements have no place in our federal healthcare system, which depends on physicians making decisions based on the healthcare needs of their patients and not on or influenced by personal financial considerations," Hunt said.
Mark Casey, general counsel for Mallinckrodt, said the drug maker was "pleased to have conclusively resolved and put this Questcor matter behind us."
"Where we can resolve legacy legal matters in a reasonable and manageable way, we will continue to do so," Casey said.
Acthar is used to treat multiple sclerosis, and rare and potentially fatal infant spasms.
The allegations in the settlement stem from two whistleblower lawsuits cases, and those plaintiffs will share $2.9 million of the payment.
In June, DOJ intervened inanother whistleblower lawsuit in Philadelphia alleging that between 2010 and 2014 Mallinckrodt (then Questcor) used a foundation as a conduit to pay kickbacks in the form of copays to patients using Acthar.
DOJ said the alleged scheme allowed Mallinckrodt to market the drug as "free" to doctors and patients while hiking its price astronomically, noting that from 2001 through 2014, Mallinckrodt raised the price of Acthar from $50 to over $32,200 per 5 milliliter vial.
The kickbacks to patients were funneled through three funds that Mallinckrodt's foundation set up to pay only Acthar Medicare copays. The subsidies were used to stymie doctor and patient concerns about the drug's high cost and to market the drug as "free."
Pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 live births for black, American Indian and Alaska Native women older than 30 were four to five times as high as they were for white women.
Minority women are as much as three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, and most of these deaths are preventable, according to research published this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The disparity worsens as the women age, CDC found. Pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 live births were four to five times higher for black and American Indian / Alaska Native women age 30 or older than for white women of the same age.
The disparity exists even in states with the lowest pregnancy-related mortality ratios and among women with higher levels of education, suggesting that the factors surrounding pregnancy-related death for black and AI/AN women "is a complex national problem," CDC said.
About 700 women die every year in the United States from pregnancy-related complications, according to CDC estimates.
The findings were published this week in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), and suggest that the disparity observed in pregnancy-related death for black and AI/AN women is a complex national problem, said study lead author Emily Petersen, MD, medical officer at CDC's Division of Reproductive Health.
"These disparities are devastating for families and communities and we must work to eliminate them," Petersen said. "There is an urgent need to identify and evaluate the complex factors contributing to these disparities and to design interventions that will reduce preventable pregnancy-related deaths."
An earlier CDC report in May looked at data from 13 state Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs), which estimated that 60% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable, mostly through access to better care.
That study also found that each pregnancy-related death saw contributing factors, including access to appropriate care, missed or delayed diagnoses, and lack of knowledge among patients and providers around warning signs.
This week's CDC study, based on analysis of national data on pregnancy-related mortality from 2007-2016, found that:
Overall PRMRs increased from 15 to 17 pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 births.
Non-Hispanic black and non-Hispanic AI/AN women experienced higher PRMRs (40.8 and 29.7, respectively) than all other racial/ethnic populations. This was 3.2 and 2.3 times higher than the PRMR for white women – and the gap widened among older age groups.
For women over the age of 30, PRMR for black and AI/AN women was four to five times higher than it was for white women.
The PRMR for black women with at least a college degree was 5.2 times that of their white counterparts.
Cardiomyopathy, thrombotic pulmonary embolism, and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy contributed more to pregnancy-related deaths among black women than among white women.
Hemorrhage and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy contributed more to pregnancy-related deaths among AI/AN women than white women.
Disparities were persistent and did not change significantly between 2007-2008 and 2015-2016.
CDC said hospitals and health systems can help to reduce these disparities by implementing standardized protocols in quality improvement initiative, especially at hospitals that disproportionately serve these minority women.
CDC also called for hospitals to identify "implicit bias" in their healthcare delivery to improve patient-provider relationships, and communication, and ultimately outcomes.
Researchers suggest that the NICU growth over the past three decades may be driven more by hospital competition than by medical need.
Nearly half of all newborns admitted to the nation's neonatal intensive care units are of normal birth weight, according to a new study from The Dartmouth Atlas.
This is happening, the researchers found, while at the same time 15% of very low birth weight babies (less than 1500 grams/3.3 pounds) don't get care in Level III or IV NICUs.
"We should not spare a dollar in providing the best care for newborns. But spending more doesn't help infants if they could receive the care they need in a maternity unit or home with their mothers," said principal author David C. Goodman, MD, of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice.
“It is very troubling that such a valuable and expensive health care resource is not distributed where it is needed," he said.
Three decades ago, most NICU newborns were of low birth weight. In 2017, normal birthweight babies accounted for 48% of NICU admissions, the researchers found.
From 1995-2013, the number of NICU beds across the nation grew 65% from 1995-2013, and the numbers of neonatologists increased 75%, even as the numbers of newborns remained stable.
The researcher said the increasing numbers of NICU beds and neonatologists has led to increasing numbers of lower risk newborns being admitted to NICUs.
The Dartmouth study suggests that the "high-margin" NICU boom may be driven more by hospital competition than by medical need.
The researchers cited a 2013 March of Dimes study which found that hospitalization costs average $54,000 for preterm infants. They also cited a 2010 article in Managed Care magazine which reported that NICUs account for 75% of all dollars spent for newborn care.
"This is a strong financial incentive for further building and expansion of NICUs and for keeping those beds full, potentially leading to overuse of services, especially in lower-risk newborns," the researchers said.
Even with the proliferation of NICUs, however, access to specialized neonatal care has been uneven. The researchers found that the growth of NICU beds has lagged in areas that most need those services.
"Regions of the country with a high proportion of premature newborns, or other factors related to newborn illness, such as maternal education level or the rate of cesarean sections, are not the regions with higher supply of NICU beds or neonatologists," they said.
"Regardless of the infant population we studied, newborn and NICU care varied markedly across regions and hospitals," the researchers said. "Little of the variation was explained by differences in newborn health needs. The care that similar newborns receive is strikingly different in one hospital compared to another."
In addition to being a poor use of resources, the Dartmouth researchers said that the unnecessary use of NICUs poses potential threats to low-risk newbornds.
"Those with less severe illnesses have less to gain from intensive care yet are still exposed to the possible adverse effects of a hospital setting designed primarily for critical care," the report states.
Heart of Florida Regional Medical Center in Davenport and Lake Wales Medical Center are renamed AdventHealth Heart of Florida and AdventHealth Lake Wales.
AdventHealth has expanded its footprint in Central Florida with the addition of two hospitals.
Effective immediately, 193-bed Heart of Florida Regional Medical Center in Davenport and 160-bed Lake Wales Medical Center will join the health system as AdventHealth Heart of Florida and AdventHealth Lake Wales, Altamonte Springs, Florida-based AdventHealth said in a media release.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
The acquisitions include each hospital's businesses, clinics and outpatient services. The 1,200 employees from the two hospitals will become AdventHealth employees, and the dozens of employed physicians at the two hospitals will join AdventHealth Medical Group.
The two hospitals will operate from within AdventHealth's Central Florida Division.
"Polk County is one of Florida's fastest growing regions and it's important that healthcare services keep pace so the communities we will serve there can also be amongst the state's healthiest," said Daryl Tol, president/CEO for AdventHealth's Central Florida Division.
Brian Adams has been named market CEO for the two hospitals, having previously served as senior vice president of new markets for the AdventHealth Central Florida Division – South Region and president/CEO for AdventHealth Tampa.
"AdventHealth has a long history of bettering the regions we serve and where our team members live, work and play," Adams said.
Non-profit AdventHealth operates 48 hospitals in nine states.
