Company news

Little Star Center will absorb the Verbal Behavioral Center for Autism into its Carmel location. The Verbal Behavioral Center, which opened in 2003, will close its facility at 96th Street and Keystone Avenue by April 30. Little Star, which opened in 2002, also now has locations in Bloomington and Lafayette. The consolidation will add up to 22 employees to Little Star Center’s staff. Breanne Hartley, current clinical director at the Verbal Behavioral Center, will join Little Star, as will 21 other employees from the Verbal Behavioral Center. Providers of autism therapy known as applied behavior analysis have been under financial pressure in recent years after the state’s largest insurer, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, cut its reimbursement rates for the therapy by 40 percent.

The top five executives at Eli Lilly and Co. took home 5 percent to 10 percent less in cash, stock and perks last year than the year before, but changes to how Lilly accounts for its executives’ pensions boosted the overall value of four of the executives' compensation by roughly 30 percent. CEO John Lechleiter received $10.1 million in cash, stock and perks last year, down by 9.7 percent from 2013. But his pension rose nearly $4.4 million, pushing up the overall value of his compensation by 29 percent last year to $14.5 million. Lilly’s proxy statement, filed Monday with U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, said higher pension values reflected an extra year of service with the company, but even more so, a change in actuarial assumptions. The actuaries that calculate the value of Lilly’s pensions are now assuming longer life spans—so more years of pension benefits—and are using a different assumed interest rate to account for future inflation.

Indiana would have a three-year moratorium on construction of most new nursing homes under a proposal the state House by a vote of 52-40. According to the Associated Press, the proposed moratorium through June 2018 would largely prohibit the Indiana State Department of Health from giving licenses for new nursing homes, except for counties with occupancy rates greater than 90 percent. It wouldn't prevent construction of about two dozen new facilities that have already submitted plans to state agencies, nor would it prevent construction of assisted living centers. Opponents of the proposal say it violates free-market principles and will cost the state nursing home and construction jobs. The Senate voted 35-14 in favor of the moratorium proposal last month. The bill now returns to the Senate for consideration since the House pushed back the deadline for new nursing home projects to move forward from the end of 2014 until March 1. Passage of the construction moratorium would be a reversal from last year, when then-House Speaker Pro Tem Eric Turner worked in private meetings of House Republicans to defeat proposal.

The Indiana General Assembly gave final approval March 19 to a bill that would give patients access to treatments that have cleared the safety-testing phase of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval process. The "right-to-try" bill now awaits Gov. Mike Pence’s signature. According to the Associated Press, the proposed law mirrors rules already in place in eight states, including Michigan, Missouri and Arizona. About two dozen other states are considering such laws this year. Patients must be terminally ill with no other comparable treatment option to be eligible.