The Accountable Care Consortium was envisioned as a vehicle through which the hospitals would eventually funnel all of their roughly $2.5 billion in annual contracts with health insurers and employers.
Before local hospitals slashed staff and expenses last year, they had been boosting the pay packages of their top executives faster than hospitals around the country. Seven of every 10 senior executives at the major hospital systems in Indianapolis saw their total compensation rise more than 10 percent from 2010 to 2012.
Indianapolis hospitals have begun to offer joint replacement surgeries to employers and insurers using “bundled prices.” That means, instead of billing piecemeal for each individual service and supply, the hospitals wrap everything needed from just before to just after surgery into a package deal.
If Indiana hospitals want an expansion of insurance coverage for low-income Hoosiers, Gov. Mike Pence thinks they should contribute toward the hundreds of millions of dollars it would cost.
Here’s just a sampling of the work found in its halls, lobbies and waiting rooms, making a visit worthwhile even if you are in perfect health.
Indiana University Health’s business deteriorated last year in nearly every area. But price hikes and a surge in outpatient visits to Indianapolis-area facilities mostly offset those problems.
UIndy would be the main tenant in the 134,000-square-foot building, which is expected to cost as much as $30 million.
Hospital company KentuckyOne Health, which employs more than 14,000 people in Kentucky and southern Indiana, says it has laid off about 500 people.
The Obama administration’s delays of Obamacare’s employer mandate penalties mean it will be another year or two before hospitals see the additional revenue the law was supposed to bring them.
The new two-year agreement gives UnitedHealthcare discounted rates retroactive to Jan. 1. Such discounts, which insurers negotiate with hospital systems, reduce prices 30 percent or more.
Jim Terwilliger had led IU Health’s two flagship hospitals since July 2012, when longtime executive Sam Odle retired. The CEO of Riley Hospital for Children will replace him temporarily.
A swine flu outbreak has prompted several central Indiana hospitals to restrict visitors to protect patients, families and staff from unnecessary potential exposure.
Jonathan S. Nalli, 39, has led Porter Health System in Valparaiso since 2007. He will take over the 22-hospital St. Vincent system on Feb. 1.
IU Health has decided to still give patients the same “in network” co-pays and deductibles that UnitedHealthcare had negotiated under the expiring contracts, keeping patients’ costs the same until a new deal is reached.
The pace of rule-making and decision-making was feverish in the year leading up to the Jan. 1, 2014, implementation of Obamacare.
After suffering for years with decrepit heating and ventilating systems, Wishard, the busiest hospital in the state, finally got a new home. And a new name.
Eskenazi admitted its first patients and the hospital it's replacing, Wishard Memorial, discharged its last Saturday as part of the transition between the two hospitals.
The new climate is a seismic change for many who got into nursing because for generations it had been a recession-proof career.
The new $754 million hospital is scheduled to begin accepting patients at 7 a.m. Saturday, which is one minute after Wishard Hospital will stop accepting patients.
For years, the county-owned hospitals ringing Indianapolis have watched warily as the city’s four major hospital systems used their superior size and resources to push ever outward into the suburbs.
