Category: Health Care
-
An Agenda for High Quality Primary Care
by James C. Sherlock I have written columns here and in various newspapers across the state for a number of years supporting health enterprise zones (HEZ’s) in underserved areas of Virginia. I drafted and Republican Attorney General candidate Jason Miyares sponsored legislation of that title in the General Assembly. It lost. Like night follows day,…
-
Layne Going to the Dark Side
I do not know if this is good news or bad news for Jim Sherlock’s campaign, but Aubrey Layne, currently the Secretary of Finance, will be joining Sentara on July 1. (This is about the time during an administration that Cabinet members start jumping ship.)
-
Paul Marik: COVID Quack or Pandemic Hero?
by James A. Bacon Across the state of Virginia, the fatality rate for COVID-19 patients entering hospitals has been 37.7%. Put another way, nearly two of every five patients died, according to Virginia Department of Health data. But in Norfolk, only 25.8% died. What accounts for that disparity? One possibility is that the dominant hospital…
-
As COVID Recedes, Focus on the Other Epidemic
by James A. Bacon From the Fauquier Times: According to Virginia Department of Health data, the number of Virginians who died from drug overdoses in 2020 increased 41% the previous to to 2,297. Local officials attributed the surge to the COVID-19 lockdown. “The pandemic has had a devastating impact,” said Jan Brown, executive director of…
-
Vertically Integrated Health Providers/Insurers – Weak State Oversight But New Federal Authority
by James C. Sherlock In the contest between Virginia’s disorganized attempts to oversee vertically integrated health care and health insurance businesses, Sentara being the most prominent example, and Virginia’s regional monopolies’ defenses against effective regulation and legislation, the monopolies have won. This piece discusses Virginia’s failed legislative and regulatory oversight structures. I will recommend structural…
-
Tech Prof Corrected WHO, CDC on COVID Spread
by Steve Haner Wired has chronicled a one-year struggle by a Virginia Tech teacher and researcher, working mainly with other non-physicians, to convince the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization they were dead wrong on COVID. The kind of dead wrong that made more people dead. The battle was quietly won when on…
-
The Ballad Merger V: the Pandemic
by Carol J. Bova The nursing shortage was a top issue for Ballad Health from the moment the health system was created in 2018 from a merger of Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System. The new health system, which served far Southwest Virginia and neighboring parts of Tennessee, laid out a plan in…
-
Ballad Merger IV: Has Quality Improved?
by Carol J. Bova As a condition of the merger between Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System in 2018, the combined entity, Ballad Health System is required to periodically update Virginia regulators on health metrics for its far Southwest Virginia service territory. Those quality measures and actual performance must be accessible to the…
-
The Ballad Merger III: Reshuffling, Reconstruction and Repurposing
by Carol J. Bova When Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System merged to create Ballad Health in 2018, the healthcare companies justified the consolidation with the argument that the ability to cut costs and rationalize delivery of health services would yield tangible benefits to patients in Southwest Virginia and Northeastern Tennessee. The previous…
-
The Ballad Merger II: Cuts and Consolidations
by Carol J. Bova Upon the merger of Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System in 2018, the first order of business for the newly created Ballad Health was shoring up its finances. If Ballad wasn’t successful at this, it would not have the resources to invest in the new services, facilities, programs, and…
-
The Ballad Merger — A Leap of Faith by Two States
by Carol J. Bova In April, 2015, two Tennessee-based not-for-profit hospital organizations with a 75% market share in Southwest Virginia said a merger would allow them “to address the serious health issues affecting the region and to be among the best in the nation in terms of quality, affordability and patient satisfaction.” The merger would…
-
Virginia Hospitals Rank High in Safety
Half of all Virginia acute-care hospitals scored a “safety rating” of A, the fourth highest percentage of the 50 states, according to the latest Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade rating. Leapfrog bases the rating on 27 performance measures, some developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and some from supplemental data sources. These…
-
Chesapeake Regional Medical Center Sues Sentara – Again
by James C. Sherlock A tip of the hat to my friends at Checks and Balances Project for alerting us to a new civil suit filed April 27 against Sentara by Chesapeake Regional Medical Center (CRMC). I will comment on Sentara’s response to the suit when it is available. The complaint alleges various instances of…
-
End the Emergency Orders. Now. Every One.
by Steve Haner There is no more COVID emergency. Every single emergency order issued by Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam should be lifted immediately. Not relaxed or revised, ended. For the millions of Virginians now vaccinated, this is all just virtue signaling, “pandemic theater.” For the millions of Virginians who have made conscious decisions not to…
-
Hospitals 1, Patients 0
by James C. Sherlock Since January 1 of this year, after a court battle won in late December 2020 by the Trump Justice Department, the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS) has required hospitals to post median payer-specific negotiated rates. I figured the fix was in when most hospitals in Virginia still haven’t complied. The Virginia…