Author: P Hasselbacher

One Last Non-Update on UofL Medical Merger.

Are we there yet?

I have to give the University of Louisville credit for their incredible skill in keeping all the rest of us in the dark regarding their ongoing plans to secure outside help in rescuing the hospital it has starved over the years. Of course, understated sub-agendas of this initiative have always been to obtain additional money for the University’s commercial research initiative and to keep Jewish Hospital afloat. It just sounds better if you claim you are doing it all to help the poor. If the University is still on its schedule for an announcement for later June, the veil may soon be rising.

This success has come about through a combination of non-disclosure agreements, internal loyalty, and probably even the same employee fear and perceived threats reported to me during last year’s go-around. Who knows, perhaps the University even cleverly used some dis-information to confuse the rest of us. The best measure of the University’s success in keeping its negotiations under cover is that several of my contacts (all claiming reliable sources) are quite sure they know who the putative partner will be, but that several different names are still being put forward. Perhaps wishful thinking underlies the whole matter. Here is a brief summary of the known or possible players. Continue reading “One Last Non-Update on UofL Medical Merger.”

University of Louisville Hospital Threatens To Let Patients Die!

Tell Me It Isn’t True!

On yesterday’s Courier-Journal Website was a report of a presentation made by officials of University Hospital to the Metro Council urging them to increase the amount of money that the Mayor’s budget targeted to the QCCT fund for indigent care by $2.8 million more that the University actually received last year.  I have written before about this longstanding and less-than-forthwright deal between the City and the University.  Now it is coming back to bite them!  This is one of the consequences of transparency and accountability.  Sometimes when  the bright light gets shined on you, you get caught, and sometimes even have to give money back, as in the Passport scandal in which the University had also played fast-and-loose with public finds.  I am quite confident that we have not yet heard all the stories out there.

I have heard enough threats from the University about what they will or won’t do unless it gets its way again.  Patients are to be served, not held as hostages.  The University of Louisville and the Hospital it controls have put themselves in a position where the appropriate community posture is “trust, but verify.”  If the University says it does not have enough money to do the job we have asked of it, then it must open up its books and prove it to us.  Neither the recent Kentucky State Auditor’s Examination, nor the just-released blockbuster state review of Passport, nor even the University’s own Ad Hoc Internal Review were true financial audits designed to “follow the money.”  I have read them all.  On their face they do not justify the University’s claims.  The public which provides this money deserves full disclosure before we and our elected officials drink the Cool-Aid again. Continue reading “University of Louisville Hospital Threatens To Let Patients Die!”

Final Meeting of UofL Ad Hoc Hospital Operations Review Committee

Presentation to Hospital Employees and the Public

Ad Hoc Committee Members on Stage

Because the presentation was essentially identical to that of May 9th, I refer you to my discussion of that meeting which is still on point, and to my final comments in that article which I still hold true.

This final presentation was held in the auditorium of the hospital. The room was appropriately well filled with hospital employees. These were the people who worked with and were interviewed by the consultants, Dixon Hughes Goodman. (DHG). I can’t say there were many members of the general public, if at all. I recognized two other members of the press.  A handout with most the slides used is available on the KHPI website (4.8 MB). Some slides, including financial trend information, were used in the presentation but not included in the handout and are available here. An earlier slide comparing University Hospital market share with that of other Louisville hospitals was not presented at all. Continue reading “Final Meeting of UofL Ad Hoc Hospital Operations Review Committee”

UofL President Ramsey’s Request for the QCCT Audit

I was able to obtain a copy of the communication sent by UofL President James Ramsey to State Auditor Adam Edelen that the University believes initiated the Auditor’s review of the University’s use of the QCCT supporting indigent care at University Hospital. Some of us believe that this audit was inevitable and that the University simply wanted to put their best face on a potentially threatening situation. Why stand in front of a freight train? [Of course, this analogy seems not to work with respect to the University’s claims that its Hospital, various boards, foundations, and other units are private!] Here follows the text of the facsimile sent to Frankfort. Continue reading “UofL President Ramsey’s Request for the QCCT Audit”