Category: Health Care Reform

KentuckyOne Health: Expansion at Dupont Circle Medical Center.

New home for UofL Faculty Private Private Practices?

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Genealogy hobbyists will tell you that while much information is available on the internet, eventually you have to get your feet dirty and go out into the real world for information. Taking that advice to heart, I played Hardy Boys last weekend and went out to walk the property of the medical facilities at the Jewish Hospital/Norton Suburban medical centers on Dutchman’s Lane and Dupont Circle. There was much to see and insights to gain. It appears to me that KentuckyOne Health already has enough land to build a major new medical facility and/or renovate and construct several smaller ones. A newly acquired office building might house a battalion of KentuckyOne and University of Louisville faculty physicians. A single additional acquisition will give the company a massive piece of contiguous land on which build nearly anything, including possibly another hospital. It is clear to me where KentuckyOne must have its sights set and I am not alone. I prepared a map showing the corporation’s current known holdings. Photographs of the properties can be seen here.

Continue reading “KentuckyOne Health: Expansion at Dupont Circle Medical Center.”

Will Jewish Hospital Abandon Downtown Louisville Altogether?

jewish-eastI have not heard any good news about Jewish Hospital lately. KentuckyOne Health and its partner, the University of Louisville remain characteristically silent about their plans. What I have heard only confirms my perception of ongoing serious problems or even frank chaos. The least troublesome news available to me was that the senior administration of KentuckyOne Health will now be located in downtown Louisville. I was quoted as saying that keeping the headquarters of this state-wide organization in Louisville was not a surprise because running University Hospital and implementing the partnership with UofL was likely to be the major challenge for the company. While keeping headquarters and a few very high-paying jobs downtown must have been appealing to the city fathers who applauded the partnership, it seems to me that everything else points to a major withdrawal of clinical actives from downtown and the southern county in favor of the East End suburbs. Let me explain how this revelation occurred to me and outline the logic of why, in my opinion, such a move is a major priority for KentuckyOne Health and UofL’s joint strategy. For the sake of discussion, I predict that Jewish Hospital will shift a major portion of its clinical activity and even beds from Jewish and St. Mary’s Hospitals to new hospital facilities at its Dutchman’s Lane and Dupont Circle locations, and turn its downtown facility over to University control or even ownership. Continue reading “Will Jewish Hospital Abandon Downtown Louisville Altogether?”

Hundreds of Lawsuits Against KentuckyOne Health’s St. Joseph London.

Bad and getting worse– but not without precedent
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The matter of “Angioplasty Abuse” at St. Joseph London Hospital has now truly gained national attention. I have been reporting on the lawsuit against the hospital and some of its physicians and analyzing medical utilization data in this Policy Blog since last December. It was alleged that for several years that doctors at the hospital were performing invasive cardiac procedures on patients who had no need for them, and that the hospital should have known this. On Sunday, Courier-Journal reporter Andrew Wolfson published an in-depth, front-page article that was reprinted by USA Today and further commented upon in Forbes.com. Other news outlets are now also following the story more closely– a story that gets worse as it grows. Continue reading “Hundreds of Lawsuits Against KentuckyOne Health’s St. Joseph London.”

Passport Medicaid Health Plan Winning Majority of Medicaid Beneficiaries.

reg3-enrollfeb-graphRegion 3 of Kentucky’s Medicaid system, comprising Jefferson and nearby counties, is in the throes of a major reorganization. Beginning January 1, the previous monopoly to provide Medicaid services held by a consortium of providers organized by the University of Louisville was withdrawn. State contracts were offered to three additional Medicaid Managed Care Organizations (MCOs). The timing of this major change was not the most felicitous, given that the statewide Medicaid managed care system newly put in place January 2012, could be said sympathetically to be in chaos. Medicaid managed care has been operational in Region 3 for several years and was providing acceptable clinical services, albeit under a cloud of abusive if not illegal management by its UofL-controlled financial administration. (One might say it was used as a slush fund. No one went to jail, but people lost their jobs and a major reorganization was demanded by the state.)

Given that the new contracts and procedures in Region 3 are essentially the same as those now used statewide, it is instructive to see how things have been going in the rest of the state. Alas, the precedents are not rosy. “Medicaid-Meltdown” is a term that is frequently being used. The rocky start may be one of the reasons the state is withholding its approval of expanding the Medicaid program under the new federal Accountability and Affordability Act to provide more Kentucky individuals health insurance coverage. In that regard, an interim report funded by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky and prepared by the Urban Institute and the University of Kentucky is receiving much attention nationally and is relevant to Region 3’s future. (Click the “Medicaid” category link in the left column of the Blog home page for available earlier comments.) Continue reading “Passport Medicaid Health Plan Winning Majority of Medicaid Beneficiaries.”