Hospital building booms in 'burbs ("for the affluent and well-insured")

[rodeodance]

Related story:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-01-02-hospitals_x.htm
Posted 1/2/2006 11:59 PM Updated 1/3/2006 12:45 AM

Hospitals go where the money is
By Dennis Cauchon and Julie Appleby, USA TODAY

INDIANAPOLIS — First came the four new heart surgery centers. Then came the new orthopedic hospital. Then two new general hospitals.

"Like a hospital hidden in a grand hotel," the local newspaper said about the newest facility, Clarian North Medical Center, which opened last month in suburban Carmel, Ind.

An additional $1 billion in buildings is on the way: a children's hospital, a cancer hospital, a six-story tower of private hospital suites, and other projects.

Indianapolis is a part of a nationwide boom in hospital construction that is changing the nature of hospital care across the USA. Expensive, high-tech hospitals in the suburbs are replacing older, cramped buildings established mostly in downtowns during the 1950s and 1960s.

These grand new hospitals promise the most modern medical care, especially for the affluent and well-insured. Many have rooms as big as small studio apartments and sleep families, not just patients. They offer vastly expanded television choices, food service that is a step closer to room service and décor that resembles home or a nice hotel.......

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060103/ts_usatoday/hospitalbuildingboomsinburbs;_ylt=Aid3uloakhtst6a6u01GX3Ks0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-
Hospital building booms in 'burbs

By Dennis Cauchon and Julie Appleby, USA TODAY Tue Jan 3, 7:54 AM ET

The USA is in the middle of the biggest hospital-construction boom in a half-century, a development expected to increase the use of high-tech medicine and add fuel to rising health care costs.

The hospital industry has spent nearly $100 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars in the past five years on new facilities, up 47% from the previous five years, according to the Census Bureau. Spending was likely to reach a record $23.7 billion in 2005. (Related story: Hospitals go where the money is)

"We are replacing a generation of hospitals that are obsolete," says Kirk Hamilton, a hospital architect who teaches at Texas A&M University.

[woodsprite]

1. Just saw an advert. for "concierge" physician service today in

our paper. It said alot of stuff, but nothing about insurance coverage, medicare, etc. It's where one doc limits his clientelle to a number he can handle, has a number he can be reached at 24/7, schedules patients so they don't wait in the waiting room for hours and makes housecalls. Sounds like we've gone full circle here, but they're charging more for it.

[FlaGranny]

2. Some doctors around here have done the same.

A friend of mine had a doctor who did that. He asked her to join, and she told him he must be crazy to think she could afford it. It was hugely expensive and no insurance accepted. It's just for rich people and doctors who want to make more money. To be fair, though, most doctors are VERY frustrated with insurance companies.

[SmokingJacket]

3. So, so, so depressing.

Apparently there *is* plenty of money floating around the healthcare world -- just not enough to guarantee that everyone can go to a doctor if they need to.

I hate this country now.

[Sadie5]

5. Another Clairion in Avon

Where I live. After getting permission to build because they were asking for NO tax breaks, they suddenly found a loophole in the law which allowed them a million or so tax break. The taxpayers were simply thrilled at picking up the tab. This is the same as the one in Carmel. Too, American Health Network has this area sewen up with Drs offices inside the hospital. Somebody should check them out too.

[Misskittycat]

4. This makes me furious.

I'm one of the medically uninsurable. Whenever I hear about health care facilities, or advances in medicine, I am furious that I am totally left out of all of that. There is a parallel system in the health care arena -the haves and the have nots. (Well, actually it's the haves, the people who think they are haves but are really underinsured, and the have nots.)

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Misskittycat]

9. Unfortunately, you're right.

Although this is a huge problem that probably adversely affects the majority of Americans, we just can't seem to get it together to do anything.

My only hope -- actually I think this will happen -- is that the health care system in the U.S. actually implodes fairly soon. I help edit a medical business newsletter (irony: the editor and I are both strongly pro-universal health care), and clearly the system is on the brink of disaster. I believe the number of uninsured Americans is vastly understated; moreover, the ranks of the uninsured and underindersured are growing daily.

The private health care industry is so rapidly increasing premiums that more and more employers will cut their benefits, or eliminate them entirely. Non-group premiums are so outrageously high that I have trouble believing any average American family is actually paying them. My brother-in-law told me his family yearly premium is $22,000!

[William Bloode]

11. I hear ya.

When will we come to the realization letting people die because they are poor and cannot afford insurance is immoral and horribly wrong.

And don't i know of the costs. My family plan offer by one of my wives costs $162.50 a wk, and that excludes me. If it included me you could most likely double that due to my health.

Thank god i got approved for disability, and at least have medicaid, and medicare.

[Bridget Burke]

13. Quite a few of us do care.

If you manage to stay at DU a while, you might be surprised.

[AspenRose]

6. I think I'm going to be sick.

No pun intended.

:puke:

[LibertyLover]

8. Not just Indianapolis

When I moved to Annapolis, the local hospital, Anne Arundel Community Hospital was right downtown, two blocks away from Church Circle and right across the street from the county court and office building. It could be interesting getting to, as the street the emergency room was on was narrow. But it was convenient for many of the poorer residents and easy to get to for them without a great deal of expense or hassle. But a few years back AACH decided to relocate to the suburbs and built a brand new hospital out by the Annapolis Mall. While I have never had to go there for treatment, the same cannot be said of my husband, who has been in the ER for a dog bite (lesson learned - don't put your hand in the mouth of a Siberian Husky who is pissed off with you because you wouldn't let him eat the whippet); chest pains (lesson learned - you don't handle stress very well at all and adopting a kid is stressful); and stomach pain (lesson learned - when you feel something bulging out of the belly button is probably needs to be checked out pronto). He has also been hospitalized there for cardiac monitoring and the room was not bad at all. It was a single (I understand that all patient rooms are singles there now) and nicely decorated with a comfortable chair and love seat for visitors and all medical stuff hidden away or at least as unobtrusive as possible. Luckily we have decent health insurance and AACH still takes it. But with the relocation, the hospital and the ER are a much longer commute for the poorer citizens of Annapolis and it is a difficult place for them to get to. AACH was asked to leave at least a functioning triage center at the old location to serve the community, but I believe it has closed now. If AACH were to get more upscale than it is now, I don't think I would be able to go there as my insurance probably wouldn't let me.

[rodeodance]

10. The Fox Valley (mostly Repug) in WI has built several new hospitals last

year or two and a brand new one in Wausaw, WI. many say they were not needed.

[AnneD]

12. Another disturbing trend trend you won't see in the headlines,

but is well known in medical community are the 'specialty' hospitals. A specialty hospital does only those procedures that have a high profit margin that only the insured could afford. Have you noticed Cardio Specialty hospitals in your area. A full service or community hospital does a little bit of everything, making money on Cardio surgery and losing money in the ER but it averages out to something that can be sustained. Once these specialty buzzards pick the choicest parts, there won't be enough left to sustain Community or general hospitals. You will see more hospitals folding and rural health care folding. I say this with every med post I do...please support your Nurses. We have been fighting an uphill battle against poor practices and Doc's and community hospitals have been battling against Ins co. Health care is on life support now. An incident like the avian flu will cause a total meltdown.

[rainbow4321]

18. This pic sums it up....

[AnneD]

20. That is priceless...

and totally sums it up. A copy is going to work with me. We call them Nursemares...they are like nightmare but worse. You wake up from a sound sleep terrified that you did not do something at work then you can't get back to sleep. I think it is PTSD frankly. Thanks for the laugh.

[area51]

24. Nurses rock.

:yourock:

[kiteinthewind]

14. Sen. Frist's ex-HCA

Here in Kansas City Missouri HCA has swallowed up most of the hospitals. In Independence (Where I live) outside of KC, they bought up the only two hospitals in town, are closing them down, and opening a new 'state-of-the-art' hospital on the very southeast EDGE of Independence, to cater to the wealthy suburbs of Lee's Summit and Blue Springs, as well as the wealthy part of Independence. This will leave the HEART of Independence, where the elderly (many who have lived here all their lives) and the lower income residents live, high and dry with no hospital close by. There was a huge outrage, many of us going to Jefferson City to protest the 'certificate of need', but I am sure Frist's people paid off the committee. It makes me sick. You're right-It is being buitl specifically for the affluent and well-insured, at the expense of the rest of our lives.:mad:

[rainbow4321]

15. Our suburb/county has more hospitals than Starbucks

Cuz the county was built up in the 90's with high tech and dot com execs living in McMansions. Then it all went bust once chimp took over (outsourcing, layoff, companies shut down).

Then the county decided they were going to turn to the healthcare industry to help the economy...so every year we get at least 1 if not 2 new hospitals.

The GOOD news out of it all is that most of the new facilities are NOT HCA owned, so HCA is getting a **much** smaller piece of the financial pie. The more well off, insured patients are going to non-HCA places, leaving the HCA hospital with the lower income, uninsured, good-luck-getting-paid, population. It is well on it's way to becoming the "county hospital".
From a bedside nursing standpoint, I much prefer the latter population..much nicer, more down to earth, appreciative of any teaching you do with them, etc. Knowing that HCA is losing money just makes it even better.

[kiteinthewind]

16. I am a nurse, also

I work at the county health dept, not in the hospital tho. My insurance has almost exclusively HCA hospitals to choose from, but I go to the Catholic non-profit hospital in Blue Springs. They are much better staffed, nicer, and they match benefits so I only have to pay what I would pay at an HCA facility!:)

[Sadie5]

17. The new Clarion.AHN is really nice

The rooms look like hotel rooms, each are singles. Decor is beautiful. The AHN offices are inside the hospital, and they do take Medicaid but there are signs posted all over the walls concerning the paperwork for this. The run around you get concerning this paperwork would put anyone off going there. Besides the area in which it is located is affluent and Medicaid folks are unlikely to drive this far for health care.

[KamaAina]

19. So much for rebuilding the medical center in New Orleans, I guess

The few hospitals operating in the city proper offer only limited services at present; people, not to mention support staff, are just magically somehow supposed to teleport out to suburban Jefferson Parish.

Expensive, high-tech hospitals in the suburbs are replacing older, cramped buildings established mostly in downtowns during the 1950s and 1960s.

How much easier to accomplish this when the "older, cramped buildings" have already been largely demolished for you. :sarcasm: Prepare to add decent health care to the list of things like decent public education and decent shopping that are only available out in shiny affluent mainly white suburbia. :puke:

edit: acoomplish? Even Joyce might have balked at that one!

[knitter4democracy]

21. Not as much in Michigan.

It's in our constitution that all hospitals have to be non-profit and have to take everyone. Are people still given the shaft on the bill? Yes, but I've also never seen more social workers doing everything they can to get patients on some kind of aid program anywhere else.

That's what's needed, frankly. We need to force them to treat people.

Specialty hospitals are a horrible idea. Just horrible.

[ismnotwasm]

22. As someone who works at a state-funded teaching hospital

I would like to add my own:puke:
We get the uninsured at our emergencies departments, other hospitals transfer patients to us with the reason they can't handle the care. Which may or may not be true.
I worked at a nursing home for a long time in a affluent neighborhood, next to a affluent suburb. The nursing home was average, as nursing homes go, a for profit facility, that struggled as hard as any with funding, survey's, giving proper care etc.

May I tell you about what we started calling the "weekend dump" of Med A and B insured elderly or disabled? Or the times that hospital sent an obviously dying patient--never could figure that one out, their hospital was too good for someone to die in?

We had what we started calling "the ping-pong patients" The hospital would discharge a patient, most likely because of DRGS, to a nursing home. In the SNF part of long term care, they are dealing with sicker and sicker patients, but that doesn't mean we had the training or ability to care for them. I lost count of how many times we sent them BACK because they were just to ill to be in a SNF.

Meanwhile this particular hospital is expanding, rebuilding, remodeling, adding speciality services. I hold nothing against the hospital, although I swore I would NEVER work there, or the health care workers/ it's the underlying greed or need to scramble for dollars that disgusts me.
And who loses? To my mind everybody ultimetely, but certaintly the uninsured, and underinsured. In other words the poor and middle class, and anyone on medicare.

[AnneD]

27. You're preaching to the choir...

the only hospital in our town (rural NM) would dump these alleged "stable" patients. Due to Medicaid/Medicare laws... they have to be assessed by an RN once every 24 hrs. I would be the only RN among the LVN's in 24 hrs but not placed on the skilled wing. When I found out that I would have been responsible for their work and charting, even though there was NO WAY I could even get over there (forget trying to go to the bathroom or cram a little food down my throat), I left. I don't think I am eligible for rehire.
Those patients were too sick to be in a skilled NHF and we had neither the equipment or training to give adequate care.
And on the flip side-if we sent OUR elderly to the hospital, they were not supervised or assisted. One of our residents almost starved to death. She required assistance in eating. Meal after meal, they would take away her untouched tray and make a note. I went in to see her during a meal and almost crapped my pants. This thin woman lost 8 lbs and was so dehydrated. The hospital just doesn't staff for this. Needless to say I am glad I don't work there anymore. I laughed when the got cited by the state for the same problems I told them of before I left.

[3waygeek]

23. Atlanta leads the way?

A couple miles up the road from me two major Atlanta hospitals (Scottish Rite & Emory) built clinics a few years back. They both went up about the same time, opening within days of each other. A year or two later, they both closed; the Scottish Rite clinic was just torn down to make way for a Whole Foods market.

Meanwhile the local hospital is building a new facility a mile down the road, at a cost of many millions, starting the cycle all over.

[pro_blue_guy]

25. Yep

Go to the Cincinnati area and southwestern Ohio. Lots of suburban hospitals there!

[agincourt]

26. We had a health care debate in 1993

Shortly after Bill Clinton got in office. The nation blew it badly when they listened to the insurance companies and corporations. Soon we will have a health care system that only serves the affluent. Americans blew it again.

[AnneD]

28. It is not 'soon'.

We pretty much have that now..... Mortality stats have increased and the poor are increasingly at risk for death due to lack of access to health care. The many policymakers were shocked when those stats came out, but those of us healthcare workers on the front lines were not surprised. It will get worse-and that thought keeps me up at night.