Longtime insurance agency acquired by local rival
Property-casualty and employee benefits firm MJ Insurance buys Mead & Co., which dates to the 1860s.
Health Care & Insurance
Articles
St. Vincent, Community team up, forming colossus
Three area hospital groups—St. Vincent Health, Community Health Network and Suburban Health Organization—have agreed to join forces to manage patients’ health and strike new kinds of contracts with employers and health insurers.
Small charity eases struggles of breast cancer patients
With volunteer leader Nancy Shepard at the helm, IWIN Foundation has distributed $875,000 in grants to breast cancer patients. Recipients have ranged in age from 18 to 90.
New Alzheimer’s unit stresses soothing elements
The 36-room wing at Hoosier Village Retirement Center includes antiques and minimizes confusing shadows among other design elements.
Wellpoint raises $1.35B in first convertible offering since ’99
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. sold its first convertible securities in more than 13 years with a $1.35 billion offering of 30-year bonds.
Amerigroup delays vote on $4.9B WellPoint acquisition
Amerigroup Corp. officials agreed to delay a shareholder vote on WellPoint Inc.’s $4.9 billion buyout offer to resolve investors’ claims they were being shortchanged in the deal, the company said in a securities filing.
WellPoint to add 100-plus local jobs for new Medicare contract
WellPoint Inc.’s National Government Services unit will add more than 100 jobs in Indianapolis beginning late this year or early next after the health insurance giant won a new contract with the federal Medicare program.
Former IU Health exec joining Bose Public Affairs
Sam Odle, who retired from Indiana University Health in July as chief operating officer, is joining the local lobbying firm as a senior policy adviser, representing clients in the health care and life sciences sectors.
Sledge’s exit will keep IU program mostly intact
The departure of Dr. George Sledge likely will sap the breast cancer research program at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center of about $500,000 in annual funding. But the program Sledge built over the past three decades mostly will remain intact.
Will Medicaid expansion actually work?
It would be “absurd” and a “travesty” for Indiana not to expand its Medicaid program, according to two local hospital officials. And yet other health care leaders do not expect expanded Medicaid coverage to provide nearly as much help to uninsured Hoosiers as hoped.
Appeals court strikes down Indiana’s Medicaid dental cap
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld a preliminary injunction that blocked the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration from enforcing a $1,000 annual limit on dental coverage. The agency had established it as a cost-cutting measure in 2011.
Some hospitals, doctors might be cut from health plans
With health insurance premiums continuing to outstrip inflation, some health insurers and hospital systems are considering bringing back an old strategy: limiting patient access to a “narrow” network of doctors and hospitals.
IU names new public health school in Indianapolis
The Fairbanks Foundation last year gave IU $20 million to help establish the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, which evolved from the Department of Public Health in the IU School of Medicine.
STORY: Health care rationing has already arrived
There will be health care rationing. The only question is who will do the rationing—the government, health care providers, or you and me. The odds are good there will be some rationing from all those sources
MORRISON: Obesity extracting huge cost in competitiveness
A friend recently asked me, “What’s the connection between healthy communities and economic development?” I set out to explain why no community can compete in today’s economy without healthy brainpower.
BRODY: Accountable care organizations improve health care
As we began looking at accountable care organizations, we clearly understood that this new model complemented our existing approach and had potential to significantly affect care, leading to better communication, better coordination of care, and better outcomes for patients.
HARVEY: Dearth of faculty leading to nurse shortage
The looming shortage of nurses and the faculty to educate nurses threatens Americans’ access to quality health care. As our population ages and health care becomes more extensive and complex, an increasing demand for highly educated nurses persists. This need directly influences the necessity for nursing faculty.
Hospital loyalty low among patients in central Indiana
Regenstrief study finds many visit two different facilities within year’s time.
WellPoint likely to go outside for chief
While WellPoint Inc. and its predecessors have a history of grooming new CEOs in-house, the next leader of the health insurance giant is likely to be an outsider, according to interviews with more than a half dozen former directors and officers of the company.
State drug fraud cases on the rise, study says
Federal and state prosecutors have collected more than $30 billion from drug companies for alleged fraud and illegal marketing over the last 20 years, according to a new report by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.