Baton Rouge Advocate political reporter Elizabeth Crisp has reported that Gov. John Bel Edwards is in the process of renegotiating the state’s contracts with private partners that have taken over operations of the state’s system of charity hospitals. http://theadvocate.com/football/neworleansprepfootball/15861820-123/state-renegotiating-public-private-hospital-contracts
It’s too bad Crisp’s story was published when it was—last Saturday, May 21. Typically, stories published on weekends don’t get the attention they deserve and this was one of those cases.
You may remember the Jindal administration, working through its rubber-stamp LSU Board of Supervisors, inexplicably approved a contract for transfer of state hospitals in North Louisiana which contained 50 blank pages. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/05/04/jindal-lsu-board-civil-service-commission-must-share-the-blame-for-lsu-hospital-debacle-but-legislature-not-culpable/
That was way back in 2013—three years ago—and despite Jindal’s and his Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols’ insistence that everything was all right and that the 50 pages would be “filled in later,” things have only gotten worse.
Much worse.
First of all, predictably, lawsuits were soon filed of operation of the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport and E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe by the Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana (BRF). Who saw that coming?
It’s not that LouisianaVoice didn’t try to call attention to the obvious: that a contract isn’t a contract without a few specific provisions. https://louisianavoice.com/2013/06/04/lsu-board-of-stupevisors-gives-away-store-with-improbable-blank-contract-for-private-operation-of-four-state-hospitals/
Edwards, who as a state representative, was in regular contact with LouisianaVoice over the status of the approval or rejection of the deal by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), now says as Governor that a savings must be achieved.
To that end, the administration is taking a hard look at the public-private partner contracts that Jindal touted as a savings of millions of dollars to the state. That quite simply, has not happened and the private partners recently testified that they are not making money off the state.
In what would appear to be a classic understatement, Edwards said the deals “were too hastily put together.”
And while Crisp wrote that most people agree that health care services have improved under the partnership but Rep. Lance Harris (R-Alexandria) says financials of the partners were never reviewed going into the deal. Harris says the state should be questioning the profit margin for the hospitals.
But a news story that never got any play anywhere in Louisiana has revealed that all is not well at LSU Medical Center in Shreveport or Lake Charles Memorial Hospital.
It’s bad enough that some now say the formerly state-run medical school no longer is considered among the nation’s elite. But Becker’s, an online news service geared to the hospital industry, released a story from the Leapfrog Group way back last Oct. 30 that listed 34 hospitals nationwide that received a grade of “F.”
http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/where-are-the-34-leapfrog-f-hospitals-103015.html
Four of those are in Louisiana and two of those four are University Hospital in Shreveport and Lake Charles Memorial. University is being operated by BRF and Lake Charles Memorial took over operations of Moss Regional Hospital, formerly one of the state-run charity hospitals.
The grades were provided by the Leapfrog Group and calculated by patient safety experts and are peer-reviewed.
Leapfrog, founded in 2000, is a national nonprofit organization that collects and reports on hospital performance. The Leapfrog Safety Score, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents and infections.
Leapfrog, which releases safety score updates twice a year, said “D” and “F” hospitals have a 50 percent higher risk of avoidable death than those with a grade of “A.”
Approximately 33,400 lives could be saved if all hospitals had the same level of performance as “A” hospitals, Leapfrog says. http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/a-grades-up-f-grades-down-in-updated-leapfrog-hospital-safety-scores-5-things-to-know.html
Perhaps those contract renegotiations should be stepped up a bit.
Louisiana Voice 
Really, I’d really like to know the success of rate booby’s behind closed door schemes. Booby and the repub legislators have been hell bent on destroying then privatizing. One thing just stands out above everything else. If their ideology and financial prowess is spot on, then why are the southern red states the most uneducated, most unhealthy, most welfare and poorest section of the country. I would tend to think this section would be rocking and rolling on all cylinders.
Tom: do you remember I attempted to call ourselves into a special session three years ago to discuss the privatizing of hospitals? Do you recall who led the fight with me to collect signatures? I would ask you to make a request of the Clerk’s office to get a copy of the list of those who actually signed and who did NOT. You should mention this at lunch thursday; Im sure I will. dee
I do not recall who helped obtain signatures but I do know that Rep. Richard fought Jindal on several issues but was consistently ignored by his colleagues in the House who were all too willing to do the bidding of Jindal and/or campaign contributors. Richard and a handful of others—among them Rogers Pope, Butch Gautreaux and Dan Claitor—always voted in the interest of their constituents and not the paid lobbyists.
What are the options at this point?
It sure would be nice if the local mainstream media would regularly cover the goings-on in the Legislature instead of re-playing you-tube videos of people in Chewbacca masks. Perhaps then more legislators would be motivated to better represent the interests of their constituents instead of those of themselves. Thanks, Rep Richard for being in that tiny minority that tries to do the right thing.
It is interesting that this same organization lists the Ochsner hospital in New Orleans as one of the top 100 hospitals in the U. S. This would indicate it is possible to get things right in Louisiana.
From this post: “…Crisp wrote that most people agree that health care services have improved under the partnership…”
Then consider this letter in today’s ADVOCATE touting the economic development potential of making New Orleans a medical treatment destination:
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/15878520-154/letters-destination-health-care-is-finally-here
Note, in particular, these excerpts from that letter:
“LCMC Health, the nonprofit partner of the state at UMC, has done its job running a world-class facility. Now, it’s time for legislators and the state to do theirs by fully funding UMC.”
There is no doubt the contracts were rushed into and of questionable legality given the blank pages, but the more important questions about this whole utterly confusing situation as we sit here today are:
– Have the quality of healthcare and access to healthcare improved or declined overall in Louisiana since the partnerships were initiated?
– Have some of the partnerships improved services and others resulted in a clear decline?.
– Have any of the partnerships actually saved money without reducing service levels, i.e., have some not been adequately funded already?
Is it unrealistic to expect definitive answers to at least some of these questions?
If anyone truly believes that jindal’s privatization scheme provided the indigent better access to medical care, they are drinking the wrong flavor Koolade. Please see the LA Voice post on the link above, including the comments, concerning patients being turned away from OLOL for lack of funds, insurance, or MEDICAID coverage. One can surmise that the same would be true all over the state, not just in Baton Rouge.
For those who have actually received care, perhaps the medical services were “better” in some way than the care provided by state employees and med students, but I sincerely doubt that those patients have been receiving more compassion and true concern. In fact, there have been news stories about the poor being subjected to substandard care and poor attitude by medical staff in those private hospitals.
Now, as for the fraudulent contracts with all those blank pages, when are the feds going to indict jindal, kristy nichols. kliebert, et al, for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud, fiduciary irresponsibility, and sheer chicanery, since almost all the money involved are federal dollars? Where is the FBI Public Integrity Unit when we need it? All in Virginia looking into the governor’s campaign funding? Speaking of which……
http://www.thenewsstar.com/story/news/local/2016/05/24/trafficking-discriminate/84886080/