Quote:
Originally Posted by Choro&Swing
I can’t use the hospital or medical services here at The Villages because they use some proprietary insurance thing and don’t accept Blue Cross/Blue Shield. AdventHealth/Waterman in Tavares is rated #3 in the Orlando Area and #28 in the state, and that’s a mile above the hospital here. It’s 35 minutes from my house. AdventHealth/Waterman is tied to AdventHealth/Orlando, however, and U.S. News and World Report says that is the #1 hospital in Florida. However, it is also gigantic, while Waterman is new and cozy.
Here are the criteria used for the ratings: “ To help patients decide where to receive care, U.S. News generates hospital rankings by evaluating data on nearly 5,000 hospitals in 16 adult medical specialties, 10 adult procedures or conditions and 10 pediatric specialties. To be nationally ranked in a specialty, a hospital must excel in caring for the sickest, most medically complex patients. In most specialties, the top 50 hospitals are nationally ranked and additional hospitals may be recognized as high performing. Hospitals that do well in multiple areas of adult care may be ranked in their state and metro area. The ratings in procedures and conditions focus on typical Medicare patients and eligibility is based on the number of patients treated. See details for the quality measures that factored into each evaluation.”
If you go to AdventHealth doctors at The Villages, they can steer you to AdventHealth/Waterman if needed or get you into AdventHealth/Orlando if you have an especially difficult case.
One thing I want to make clear: the rating of the hospital is not based on the nursing care, or at least only partly, as when administration won’t hire enough nurses. In my experience, even hospitals with low rankings may have many really wonderful nurses and other staff, and the hospitals may be clean and modern and attractive. Hospitals that don’t treat thousands of the sickest or poorest patients, aren’t regional trauma centers, and don’t have a legion of interns and residents using patients as learning tools tend to have lower ratings. Yet most patients don’t need those things, and they may make a hospital more dangerous. Many excellent surgeons actually don’t want to work at a “teaching hospital” because the teaching takes a lot of time that could be used making more money. Few doctors get rich these days, so I can’t blame them for wanting more patients and not wanting to live in a big city.
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The statement at the beginning of this quote is not accurate. I have used The Villages Hospital twice since living in the Villages. On both occasions, they accepted my Highmark coverage.
Then after reading this today, I contacted my Highmark agent and was told that both UF Leesburg and UF The Villages accept the "Blues".
Don't rely on what people say - check it out yourself! My two cents.