Tag: NJ Hospitals

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NJ hospitals: Obamacare repeal would slam us

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Jonathan Gruber Obamacare architect said last year that a “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” helped Congress approve ObamaCare

Michael L. Diamond , @mdiamondappPublished 5:02 p.m. ET Jan. 26, 2017

New Jersey hospitals would be hit hard by the repeal of Obamacare if Congress doesn’t replace it with a law that would include similar levels of insurance coverage, their trade group said Thursday.

Hospitals  would lose money from both private insurance and Medicaid reimbursements. They would need to treat more consumers who lose their coverage in emergency departments. And both would put a strain on their bottom line, officials said.

https://www.app.com/story/news/local/new-jersey/2017/01/26/nj-hospitals-obamacare-repeal/97078816/

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Anti Catholic Sentiment from Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield?

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NJ hospital group asks for delay of new referral list

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015    LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY MARY JO LAYTON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

A group representing Catholic hospitals in New Jersey is asking the state to delay the rollout of a plan by New Jersey’s largest insurer, saying it excludes nearly 90 percent of Catholic hospitals.

The president of Catholic HealthCare Partnership of New Jersey said Catholic hospitals could be forced to close their doors – resulting in the loss of health care access for uninsured residents – if the proposal by Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield goes into effect.

The concerns raised Tuesday by the group and by Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, D-Englewood, add to the backlash over a plan to create a tier system that would funnel patients to select hospitals.

Patients could use other hospitals, but their out-of-pocket costs would be higher.

“Insurance companies should not be able to dictate which of our state’s hospitals succeed and which ones fail,” said Sister Patricia Codey, president of the Catholic HealthCare Partnership of New Jersey, whose members include nine acute health care systems, specialty hospitals and other facilities.

“Horizon’s decision will undoubtedly make it more difficult for Catholic hospitals to continue our mission of providing access to health care for New Jersey’s poor and underinsured citizens,” Codey said.

After the plan was made public this month, executives at hospitals left off the list of the select group known as “Tier One” questioned how the list was formed.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/health-news/nj-hospital-group-asks-for-delay-of-new-referral-list-1.1421509

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As investors buy struggling hospitals, big change comes to New Jersey health care

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As investors buy struggling hospitals, big change comes to New Jersey health care

AUGUST 23, 2014, 8:38 PM    LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2014, 7:05 AM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

Bayonne Medical Center wasn’t just bragging about efficiency when it posted a big digital clock on a highway billboard a few years ago to show the real-time waits in its emergency room. It wanted patients to come to its ER. Lots of patients.

Big change comes to New Jersey health care

It didn’t matter if the hospital was in the patient’s insurance network. On the contrary, to the businessmen who had recently purchased the medical center, those “out-of-network” patients held the key to reversing Bayonne’s fortunes.

These owners, who bought the hospital in bankruptcy, had found an unintended — and very profitable — consequence to a state regulation that was designed to protect patients with urgent medical needs. While the regulation required insurance companies to pay for emergency treatment at hospitals where their coverage wasn’t normally accepted, it did nothing to control the size of the bills the hospitals could submit to those insurers.

And that loophole enabled Bayonne, which had ended its contracts with some of the state’s largest insurers, to charge those higher out-of-network rates. The result was striking: The strategy contributed to a $17 million operational profit within two years of its 2008 takeover.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/as-investors-buy-struggling-hospitals-big-change-comes-to-new-jersey-health-care-1.1072639#sthash.PllalMQW.dpuf

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As Healthcare Paradigm Shifts, NJ Hospitals Face Uncertain Future

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As Healthcare Paradigm Shifts, NJ Hospitals Face Uncertain Future

New Jersey hospitals are in a bind. Some of them may close in the next few years, experts say, unless they find a way to transform themselves into healthcare systems that focus on keeping patients healthy in an outpatient setting, while dealing with the reality that most revenue is still based on in-hospital services they provide.

Hospitals must have cash reserves and an operating margin of at least 3 percent or they may face a financial crisis, according to current and recent hospital executives.

“If you’re not in a system that has that financial foundation, I don’t know how you manage the next three to five years,” said Judith Persichilli, recently retired president of Catholic Health East-Trinity Health, a national hospital system.

The hospitals that survive this transition period will look very different from the hospitals of the recent past. They will have fewer beds, more links with primary-care and medical specialty providers, and more partnerships with other hospitals in which each hospital only provides specific services.

That was the verdict of a panel assembled yesterday by the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute in Ewing.  (Kitchenman/NJSpotlight)

https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/14/05/29/as-healthcare-paradigm-shifts-nj-hospitals-face-uncertain-future/