Thanks for this article!!!

Went to the ER in March and treated by a phycian's assistant and not a doctor. Received a statement from the insurance company and the hospital charged me $779.00 for being looked at by a phycian's assistant. God only knows what the bill might have been if I was treated by a doctor! :22yikes:

I certainly hope they get new management when this expansion takes place, otherwise I fear it will be more of the same.

I know there are nurses available and actually prefer this seasonal work, but I'm wondering if that has crossed over to PAs or Nurse Practioners. I can't imagine a doctor leaving his practice for a "season" but I guess you never know.

i don't recall bringing on add'l physicians - not as easy to do what with admitting privileges - ya know? our main concern was to insure that services such as the er and floor care were at optimum staffing levels.

and when i was with the hospital - we still employed lpns and cnas! rns were just beginning to run lpns out of the hosptal and the other titles you mentioned were still considered inflated ways to promote rns who had reached the top of the pay scale! to this day i'd prefer to have an lpn administer any shot i might need! ;)

Let's try and be grateful that SOMETHING is being done. The ER was and remains at this time a mess. Who's to blame? I don't know, but I do care that new facilities will be built and we don't need to go to Ocala, Leesburg, Tampa, or Gainesville to be seen and helped with whatever problem exists. My one gripe: lack of parking.

Health Care Facility Expansion is Highly Regulated
 

No health care facility which serves the general public may not add / open even 1 more bed without the approval of several Federal and State Regulators .

Any institution which accepts Medicare / Medicaid must jump through numerous approval " hoops " before they can expand an ER , add an additional OR or add new beds . Approval is even required for the additional of certain high tech diagnostic and / or treatment equipment .

Therefore one can certainly and accurately conclude that the Villages Hospital expansion was a long time in planning and must have made a very convincing
case for need or this would have not gotten past the wishful thinking stage .

Today it is nearly impossible for a hospital to be able to add anything to existing physical plant . It is far more common for regulators to force hospitals to cut back on the number of beds or offering certain services . Most hospitals in the States and Cities in the north are being forced into consolidation and sharing expensive high tech equipment .

One of my good friends here in the Villages was just told that he has cancer and the recommended form of treatment is something called " Proton Therapy ". The closest machine to provide the recommended treatment is located in Jacksonville . It will require 6 to 8 weeks of daily treatments so he has to find a place to live in Jacksonville for 8 weeks .

Interesting point most of us have not even considered. Thank you for sharing that.

hospitals need a CON cert of need..you can buy beds from another hosptial, but you can not generate new beds on your own..so to build a new hospital near brownwood, beds in the area hospital would have to be given up...one example is to make a two bed room into a private room...emergency rooms do not generate new beds...

So in reality.....government regulations are in place to thwart COMPETITION!

Before anyone declares the "need" for proton beam therapy right here in TV where thousands of people are doing well after the usual cancer treatments available here and across the country, please read this article. This subject has been discussed for a few years as to whether the astronomical cost of the machinery is that much better than state of the art targeted radiation treatment:

Prostate Cancer Therapy Too Good to Be True Explodes Health Cost - Bloomberg

Again I have to go with Gracie
 

At all of the General Staff meeting I attended as an employee of TVRH I have been told much the same thing as Gracie described. The major problem is not building new facilities but in staffing that facility. Since we are a seasonal area it is not possible to keep adequate good staff during the down periods.
I shared with you last year that plans for the Brownwood expansion were no longer in effect. In fact, the certificate of need expired over a year ago.
Since the hospital is 84% Medicare dependent, and Medicare is or has been cut 17% to the hospitals that means that they have lost 17% of their remuneration for 84% or their patient. That is well over a million dollars.
When we hear of medicare cuts we have to realize it is not just us that the new healthcare mandates effect but also the hospital's.
Since I live down south it seems that a larger percentage of the new people moving in are full timers. This will impact the hospital in good and bad ways. Unfortunately the bad may precede the good.
As far as the ability to staff the hospital adequately goes the demographics in this area works against us. There just aren't that many working age people living in this area. With the price of gas it makes it easier for those in outlying towns to work closer to home.
I have never been to Watermann hospital in Tavares but I do know that the two medical systems in Ocala are good. I also know that due to the inpatient remuneration problem the hospitals are focusing on outpatient expansion more than inpatient.
I was never given the opinion that Morse was financing the hospital so that makes it a business and makes it important for them to watch the bottom line. This is just a fact of life. We may have to wait patiently for relief from this problem, in the meantime we do have other options for inpatient health care.

:BigApplause::BigApplause::BigApplause::BigApplaus e::BigApplause:

They can make the hospital as big as they want, but if they do not improve the practice and process of how the deliver healthcare their quality ratings will remain in the dumper.

..
not so much about competition, as about how many beds can be filled...most surgery is done as an outpatient, even total joints are out in two to three days...hospital are pairing down due to lack of business in many states..some working full tilt on some days and have days with only half staff on other days...its the new way to run hospitals and make a profit another hospital would be convient for south of 466a but unless you had a mass triage you would have empty beds and that equals 0 dollars in, many dollars out..Doctors are now using more PAa and NPs than ever..just think one doctor sixty patients and he may only see a few of the sixty the rest are seen by PA or NP its the new wave of medical office visits, you still pay the same amount but never see the Dr