Healthcare
California company finalizes agreement to buy two KC-area hospitals
The operator of two local Catholic hospitals has finalized their sale to a for-profit company based in Ontario, Calif. Ascension, the nation’s largest Catholic health system, said in a statement Tuesday that it had reached a definitive agreement to sell St. Joseph Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo., and St. Mary’s Medical Center in Blue…
The University of Kansas Hospital: Patient admitted Monday does not have Ebola
UPDATE 10/14/14 4:10 pm: A man who was admitted Monday to The University of Kansas Hospital suffering from diarrhea and who worked recently near Africa’s west coast does not have Ebola, the hospital said Tuesday afternoon. Results of blood tests showed the patient has not contracted the virus, which has killed more than 4,000 people in the…
Kansas City-area hospitals are being fined for ‘excessive’ readmission rates
Twenty hospitals in the Kansas City area will be penalized by Medicare starting Oct. 1 for excessive readmissions, although eight of them will be hit with lower fines than in Medicare’s previous round of penalties.
Doctor running for lieutenant governor swears by ‘direct primary care’ model
Wichita physician Josh Umbehr has never understood the traditional model of health care reimbursement — the one in which doctors and hospitals fill out pages of forms to bill a patient’s insurance company for everything from a $3 test to a $30,000 surgery. “You don’t have car insurance for gasoline,” Umbehr said in a recent phone interview. “Why would…
Ex-employees of KC-area hospitals sold to Prime Healthcare sue over severance pay
Just days after Prime Healthcare Services agreed to buy two Kansas City-area hospitals, laid-off employees of two other area hospitals owned by Prime sued the company, claiming they were not provided with promised severance benefits. The suit seeks class-action status on behalf of other terminated employees. It says 49 workers were let go immediately after…
Company seeking to buy KC-area Catholic hospitals inspires condemnation, admiration
Update: Prime Healthcare Services now faces a lawsuit from employees laid off from two other Kansas City-area the company owns. Co-authored by Dan Margolies, health editor at KCUR, Kansas City Public Media. Prime Healthcare Services, the for-profit California health care company that has agreed to acquire two nonprofit Kansas City area hospitals, is no stranger to…
Carondelet Health Agrees To Sell Two KC-area Hospitals
A West Coast hospital company has agreed to acquire two hospitals and other related facilities as part of a deal with Kansas City, Mo.-based Carondelet Health, the parties announced Monday. The buyer is Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare Services, which has signed a letter of intent that includes the acquisition of St. Joseph Medical Center in…
Rural Kansas hospital bolsters recruitment by enticing “missionary” doctors
Though 25 percent of Americans still live in rural areas, only 10 percent of doctors do, according to the National Rural Health Association, and finding physicians and other medical professionals willing to work in the hinterlands remains a serious, growing problem in Kansas and other parts of the United States. But in Kearny County, on…
KU Hospital, others attacking problem of child deaths
Mike Sherry – The Hale Center for Journalism Chloe Robinson was about the size of a bag of frozen spinach at birth. Born 15 weeks early and weighing only 1 pound, she spent her first eight months in the neonatal intensive care unit at the University of Kansas Hospital. That was five years ago, and,…
Nurses’ push for independence from doctors stalls in KS Legislature
By Jim McLean – KHI News Service The ways of the Kansas Legislature are a frustrating mystery to Merilyn Douglas. The advanced practice registered nurse from Garden City is part of a group that is pushing for passage of a bill that would allow APRNs to practice independently from physicians. But that push has stalled….