Ask Your Doctor
 

I try to make it a point to stay up-to-date on the status of healthcare here in The Villages by asking my doctors or other healthcare providers.

Today I asked one of my doctors.about the status of the announced plan to make The Villages Regional Hospital a teaching hospital, training 24 new residents per year, beginning in 2024. It turns out that plan has been either tabled or scrapped altogether. UF Health has been unable to attract enough doctors and nurses to the area to operate the hospital, let alone train residents. They have had an ongoing national recruiting campaign for over a year, with almost no results. The responses to the recruiting campaign has been that younger doctors and those with school-age families don’t want to relocate to central Florida or The Villages.

But the biggest news from the docs was that UFHealth has withdrawn from the partnership with The Villages developer to build a larger teaching hospital in the south end of The Villages. It’s obvious that if the existing hospitals can’t be properly staffed, it would make little sense to build another even larger hospital in the same service area. The developer has begun to approach national chains to build the new hospital. But the national chains are likely to be aware of potential problems attracting enough doctors and nurses to staff a larger, new hospital.

I was left wondering, if UFHealth can’t properly staff The Villages Regional Hospital, how much longer will they remain committed to it’s ownership?

Don’t ever expect to read any of this in The Villages Daily Sun. Ask your doctors!

Wow. Wonder when we will read about this in the Sun. As you said above never.

Another reason why I go to a real hospital when I need one.

It was inevitable.

I think the trend is a shortage in a lot of the professions.

NOT just in Florida! Family members experienced a debacle (teaching hospital too) up north , yesterday. It was unspeakable what they went through with people dropping the ball and worse. It's not going to get better.

No need to throw shade at the developer, as this problem is occurring all over the country. Our daughter is a nurse practitioner, working at a large teaching hospital "up north." They have had staffing issues for years, and it's only getting worse. Covid sure didn't help. Plus, many young people today are rethinking the prospect of getting into the health provider profession. The prospect of going to school for 10 years, amassing huge amounts of debt, and entering a field where you are not in control over what your "product" is worth has cast a lot of doubt on their prospects for the future.

I recently had an outpatient procedure done on a knee at a local Orthopedics office. The bill for that procedure exceeded $4,000. With Medicare and secondary insurance payments all in, the doctor's net was less than 600 bucks. Again, this is something going on all over the country...not just here in the bubble.

The Villages Health is also having trouble with getting doctors and the ones they get never seem to stay.
TVH is like a stepping stone for healthcare workers.

I know hospitals that closed up north because the number of people they were treating had no insurance or were not eligible for Medicaid.

Forgot the Daily Sun no media discusses the healthcare shortage we have in America.

My husband is with The Villages Health and he was recently assigned his 3rd primary care doc. The other two left or retired. The Sun has been running for several weeks large 1/2 or full page adds for docs.

Agree, not just The Villages, all over the country.

Hospital being built in the south end by the turnpike will be larger , plus housing near by.. teaching will come..but first America needs to educate the children to want to..
Better yet.. keep yourself healthy..

I was told they are not allowing nurses from the Philippines to come to the US but people can walk across the Southern border. We could get nurses from Asia & they are great in their profession Why?

Where did you hear that the UF hospital near Spanish Springs was going to be a teaching hospital?

I’ve also heard that Medicare doesn’t pay enough and their ratio of Medicare to private insurance is not good

So, with limited amenities for young families, lower income potential and jobs available in other parts of the country; the odds are against the Villages Health.

I have seen doctors who operate in Orlando opening up satellites in the villages that might be a business model Villages Health can support.

Teaching hospitals are some of the best. Unfortunately a retirement community that has a population on Medicare will never attract doctors, especially young ones who have enormous debt from their years of medical school. Medicare simply does not pay what private insurances pay for the same services. It is no wonder that residents don’t want to land here to continue learning. It is no difference here than in areas like Naples, etc where most are insured by Medicare. Unless we as a nation work to give incentives to those people wanting to become physicians, the long waiting times for appointments and surgeries will continue..here and everywhere. IMHO

Good thing about old age, it doesn’t last long!

Maybe not some much shade, but lack of updated information about the medical facilities they were going to build down South. Seems to be anything that would negatively affect new home sales doesn't see the light of day. I remember when they used the southern hospital as a pawn in the whole impact fee fiasco.

UF Health details plans for growth, new hospital | News | The Villages Daily Sun | thevillagesdailysun.com

In addition to a general workforce shortage, efforts by healthcare providers to reduce the cost of healthcare is driving care down to the lowest (seemingly) qualified level. Rather than see MDs patients are now being routed to Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, Licensed Practical Nurses, etc. Hospital Residents are paid much less than MDs and having a lot of them around would seem to be yet another cost cutting move. Stay tuned; ideas are hard to put down where there is money to be saved, quality of care be damned.

The plan to make TVRH a teaching hospital training new doctors was announced in The Daily Sun over a year ago.

My original post in this tread was not an attempt to throw shade at the Developer. It was UFHealth which withdrew it’s support of the new, larger teaching hospital, not the Developer.

I agree with other posters here—the healthcare problem in the U.S. is getting worse. It can’t improve until we begin training enough new doctors to replace those leaving the profession. Last year 114,000 doctors retired or left practice for other reasons. But U.S. medical schools only graduated something like 76,000 new doctors. The shortfall will have to be made up by doctors trained in foreign medical schools who choose to emigrate to the U.S..

I do not think we are supposed to remember that about the southern hospital.

Agree!

During Covid many health care workers hours were drastically cut, or were furloughed. Many decided when they were called back, retired instead.

At my old facility, of 125 in the pre/post op and OR, 31 highly experienced MD’s, MDA’s, PA’s NP’s, and CRNA’s choose to retire. It’s hard for facilities to come back from such a mass exodus.

Long read (sorry...)
 

How ignorant to describe UF Health The Villages Hospital as ‘not real.’ No, it’s not the Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston), Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center (New York City), Mayo Clinic (Rochester MN and other locations); by comparison it’s a small local hospital where I recently took my son for emergency surgery, and the care he received was outstanding.

The elephant in the room is largely unaddressed in this thread; I refer to the insurance industry that has a huge bearing on US medical care. Up north I had two specialists in completely unrelated areas who had both joined existing practices and eventually became the senior members as the older doctors retired.

The one hated so much what was happening with the insurance dictates and controls in the medical field that he convinced his daughter not to become a physician (meaning one doctor less); instead, she went to veterinary college, thus remaining in medical care; and he himself retired early. Before doing so, he had joined his practice with that of the other unrelated specialist to create a corporate structure. I asked both why, and both gave the same answer: to have at least the illusion of having some power and control, since insurance dictates prevented them from practicing medicine as they had been trained. Sad.

Why can one buy the same Eliquis made by Pfizer from a Canadian mail-order pharmacy, where a three-month supply costs as little as $78 plus $10 shipping, while to use our Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plan one would have to pay over $400? Check it out yourself at Drug Price Comparisons & Online Pharmacy Safety | PharmacyChecker.com. One need only to look at how—and when—Part D was created to realize that it’s a great bonanza—to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries—not especially to seniors.

I’m a dual citizen (US/Canada), and over the years I’ve heard Americans bash the Canadian system of universal health care by citing the waiting periods some have to endure. My Canadian relatives could certainly have afforded to buy private insurance to supplement their provincial plans, but none felt the need to. Many Americans have no understanding of the meaning of ‘triage’—treatment based on urgency rather than time of arrival. Our hospital emergency facilities are treated as primary care by those who are uninsured, and while perhaps an exaggeration (or perhaps not…), it’s been asked in ER waiting rooms (likely not in these words): ‘Why is that possible stroke victim who just arrived being taken ahead of me when I’ve been here for hours with this sprained ankle?’ Am I exaggerating?...

Not a good policy for people to settle there.

I recently spoke to a young physician at The Villages Health. All the seniors here in TV do the happy dance. You see this as Nirvana. But think of a doctor and his family coming to live in Central Florida. Just think about it. I don't want to be derogatory about this area. There is not a lot for them in our surrounding area. The only plus is the Charter school. Certainly minimal cultural events. He has spent many years and a huge sum of money to end up here? I wonder what picture was painted to attract him here.
Regarding the nursing shortage. I was a Cerified Critical Care Registered Nurse in NJ. I rose through the ranks and was eventually promoted. I was in Nursing Administration for years. There has always been a nursing shortage, but Florida was always worse. Low, low wages, high patient assignments, poorly trained ancillary staff. In 1987 our hospital went to the Philippines and recruited Registered Nurses. Offered them housing, good pay. They had to be fluent in English both spoken and written. It took dedication from everyone for this transition to be successful. And it was. The Philippine nurses saved the nursing profession on the east coast of the USA beginning in 1987.
The powers that be at TVRH need to step up and think out of the box.

To echo what others have said: the inability to attract and retain medical professionals is a national problem. I work (remotely) for a major university in the Midwest and staffing for our teaching hospital has become increasingly difficult, despite being in a major metro area and offering a variety of bonuses and pay increases.

The WHOLE HEALTHCARE problem could be easily solved by National Health Care like all the OTHER CIVILIZED countries in Europe and Asia. But, then the POOR Insurance executives would be forced to live in poverty........at a lowly $300,000 per year

Yes, yes, yes - 10 years of tough University training and a Doctor becomes a worker-bee SLAVE like in the middle ages. Slaves to the Insurance Companies' GREEDY EXECUTIVES. That IS why the US needs National Health Care just like the REAL non-GREEDY countries of the world.
.........The US pays the MOST in the world for Health Care and the results are ludicrous......we are in the bottom half for RESULTS / OUTCOMES for 1st world countries !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those statistics speak volumes for THEMSELVES.
........It seems like countries get the Health Care that they deserve.

Primary education where I came from (up North) was 1st class back in the (literally) old school days. I had a GREAT Physics teacher, geometry teacher, advanced math, and a Spanish teacher in High School. We did NOT have to go to a Private school to get a good education. In fact, they did NOT even exist - only a Catholic high school which was OK quality-wise.

Maybe overcrowding, too many people for the existing infrastructure and resources. Why NOT have the US make up its mind and get a REAL Health Care System (like other countries) that PAYS Doctors and healthcare staff better and encourage people to enter those fields - the money is draining away to the Insurance CEOs (blood -sucking SQUIDS) - and the best of the best College graduates are orbiting toward BUSINESS, where the big-BUCKS are made. Society IS getting the Health Care that they DESERVE !

Agreed, nice post !

I can comment on bringing in good professional nurses and doctors. My elderly aunt was in hospital and when she found out the nurse was "not white" she would not let her get anywhere near to her. She was not alone in her thinking. Maybe things have changed greatly since that time, but elderly people still have a problem with foreign care givers.

Immigration - the cheap and dirty solution to ALL US problems. Don't do the RIGHT thing......always do the EASY thing. And then complain because the roads are too crowded. Well, yes there are more people using them. And just invite unskilled workers to come through our Southern sieve so-called border.........that WON'T be a problem.
......Don't build more University medical teaching facilities - just bring them in from foreign countries - that IS the cheap and dirty method - and disregard the US citizens that served in US wars.......their children that would like to have gone into the medical professions.

Quixote made an excellent point regarding the cost of drugs. Both my husband and I are using Eliquis. My cardiologist recommended that we purchase from Pharmstore a Canadian company, which we do. But I am also on a very expensive BP med. One month of this is over $48, but I can buy 100 pills for about $60 from Canada. In my opinion this is disgraceful. If I can buy it at that price, why is my drug store having to charge so much more. It is a racket

Good post. The Canadians have National Health Care because they DESERVE it as opposed to US citizens that suffer through this crapola that the US calls a healthcare system that benefits only the upper executives in the Insurance RIPOFF Industry. WE get what we DESERVE because we don't complain about or even UNDERSTAND the US system. WE are like mushrooms being fed cow DUNG.

Possible solution - how about taking the excessive salaries of the Insurance Companies CEOs and overpaid staff and splitting that up among the young Doctors and nurses to encourage them to work in Fl hospitals and other states where needed? US society deserves better than the current situation.

Ask your Doctor
 

UFHealth never said they were making UFHealth The Villages Hospital a teaching hospital. The initial plan was to build a hospital campus that included a medical school with a residency program and a nursing school in the south of Sumter County. The location was moved to Lake County because of the a major tax increase proposed by the "new county commissioners"....Gary Search and Orin Miller.

One of the most profitable areas of healthcare right now are the Medicare Advantage plans. They take in huge sums of money and do this by limiting access and finding “sicker” patients by over testing. They are then allowed to charge more for these “sicker” Medicare patients than their regular reimbursement from Medicare. The hospitals and doctors get squeezed and the insurance companies, by their shrewdness, make billions.

Don't forget that the construction of two hospitals have already been announced. Each will have a different focus - one, acute care; the other, rehabilitation.

Two stories from the online news site:

1. Construction expected to begin in 2023 on hospital at Trailwinds Village
October 29, 2022
Construction is expected to begin in 2023 on a 60-bed acute care hospital at Trailwinds Village, owned by HCA Healthcare which already owns a free-standing ER at Trailwinds Village.

2. 50-bed inpatient rehab hospital to be built south of State Road 44 in The Villages
October 2, 2022
Encompass Health Corp. has announced it plans to build Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Wildwood, a freestanding, 50-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital. The hospital will be located south of the Meggison Road and Warm Springs Avenue intersection.

i'd say you're lucky, i've had my worst experiences @ teaching hospitals, & would never consider using 1 again