Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Is The Heart on Life-Support?....4/22

New rumor from Dallas--the Paris Heart program may be having its own problems. Specifically volume. For a hospital that is 'dedicated' as a heart center, the patient load isn't there.

When the majority of the insured patients go to Dallas or Tyler for treatment, and the remainder are high mix of self-pay/no-pay and have poor health and diet, we can see why.


What's even more confounding is that the hospital gives privleges to physicians that are referring patients right out the door to other hospitals.

Obviously, the emergency patients generally don't have a choice, but Advanced funnels a significant number of insured away.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sooooo.......the question is, how much money is PRMC making (or losing) on this venture? Or is it another money pit? It would seem that PRMC would need to stop allowing docs to refer heart patients elsewhere, but don't see that happening.

IIRC, Medicare/Medicaid doesn't pay much, so that cash cow is looking kinda bony- cadaverous, even.

Anonymous said...

One of the few things going in favor of this ill-starred venture is that the surgeon apparently doesn't have the "batting average" of his predecesor- that is, the patient returning to OR to sew up a bleeder or tighten a knot. With Dr. Lui, you got (in essence) two CABGs in one visit.