Latest Blogs
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Kim and Todd Saxton: Go for the gold! But maybe not every time.
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Q&A: What you need to know about the CDC’s new mask guidance
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Carmel distiller turns hand sanitizer pivot into a community fundraising platform
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Lebanon considering creating $13.7M in trails, green space for business park
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Local senior-living complex more than doubles assisted-living units in $5M expansion
What health care really needs is a full-meal deal
Until doctors and hospitals make a whole lot more headway—or, perhaps, more accurately, are allowed to make more headway—in offering package deals, it’s hard to see major progress on containing out-of-control health care costs.
Think Obamacare will help hospitals? Think again
The typical hospital around the country will see its profits wiped out entirely by the changes coming from health reform and the aging of the population. But in Indianapolis, the hits will be cushioned by this region's fatter commercial reimbursements.
In Indiana, everyone makes big profits on health care
Indiana is the most profitable state for Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans in 14 states. WellPoint’s margin for Indiana in 2012 was 5.8 percent, 38 percent higher than WellPoint’s national average.
Indiana’s 10 (or more) most profitable health insurers
WellPoint’s commanding market share gave it a whopping $129 million in profit from its risk-based insurance products in 2012. But in percentage terms, WellPoint was not at the top of the heap.
Competition, not higher premiums, is biggest threat to Obamacare buyers
For consumers that get tax subsidies in the Obamacare exchanges, out-of-pocket premiums will remain steady even if insurers raise prices next year. But the subsidies could fall if insurers offer lower-cost plans.
Five things I learned from the Medicare doctor payments
From this week’s historic data dump, I learned who the top 20 recipients of Medicare payments are in Indianapolis (hint: mostly labs, ambulances and eye surgeons). But the real takeaway is that meaningful price information about doctors is still a long way away.
Lilly shares hit all-time high for the John Lechleiter era
Court win last week in a patent challenge to lung cancer drug Alimta pushed Lilly shares higher than they’ve ever been since April 2007. Since then, the company’s pipeline has produced more misfires than the villains in a James Bond movie
The Millionaire Doctors Club
The scramble for physicians by hospitals in recent years has led to more than a dozen physicians cracking a million dollars in compensation—and three dozen receiving at least a half million dollars. Hospitals, meanwhile, are recording big losses on their physician practices.
Do double-digit Obamacare rate hikes mean the law has failed? No, but …
For now, at least, the year-to-year price increases of individual insurance under Obamacare look a lot like they did before Obamacare. That’s not a failure, but it’s not a success either.
Where do hospital profits go?
When patients at Indianapolis-area hospitals pay their bills, they're not just funding their own health care. They're contributing to the care of Hoosiers in the rest of the state, too, especially care provided by hospital-employed physicians.
Medic! Early signal shows hospital profits plunged in 2013
Franciscan Alliance, always the first to report its year-end financial results, put out numbers that show a real decline in profit from operations of 58 percent.
Top 10 most profitable hospitals around Indianapolis
Based on 2012 data, 23 of 30 hospitals in central Indiana are generating profits from their operations of 10 percent or more. The Indiana Orthopaedic Hospital and St. Vincent's Carmel campus are on top. After that, there are a few surprises.
Can we, please, get a better name than ‘accountable care’?
Health care is going through dramatic change—but is doing so under some of the dullest names possible. So I’m offering a few alternatives that are more to the point. How about, ‘No-more-bankruptcy care’?
In one chart: Obamacare exchange has failed to expand coverage in Indiana
For 2014, at least, Obamacare's dreams of expanding individual insurance coverage in Indiana have simply failed. There's no getting around it.
Republicans needed to make Obamacare work
Obama’s latest delay of Obamacare insurance rules could sabotage the law’s exchanges. The president must be counting on Republican critics, like Indiana Insurance Commissioner Stephen Robertson, to stop him.
Health insurance brokers must change to survive
Employees, rather than employers, will soon choose their own health insurers—either through the Obamacare exchanges or through private exchanges. Does that mean health insurance brokers, the people who match up employers with insurers, will no longer be needed?
Hospital layoffs hardly dented employment growth
Even though the state’s three largest hospital systems–IU Health, St. Vincent Health and Franciscan Alliance–eliminated a combined 2,700 jobs, it created just a blip in the long-term run-up in hospital employment.