Louisiana Voice

The next time you are a patient in a hospital, check your bill closely to see how much you’re charged for incidentals such as tissues, Tylenol, etc.

I say this because the Louisiana Illuminator ran an interesting story earlier this month about how so-called nonprofit hospitals are plowing literally millions of dollars into naming rights for stadia and arenas across the country.

And right here at home, the Illuminator pointed out, Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center in Baton Rouge has offered to pony up (hold on, wait for it)… A COOL $50 MILLION to slap its name on LSU’s proposed new basketball arena.

You think medical costs are through the roof? Consider that that proposed $50 million would come from a nonprofit hospital. Think what a for-profit could afford!

The article quoted a spokesperson for Clemson University as saying that branding a stadium or arena “can improve a hospital system’s name recognition…”

Really? Does a single warm-blooded individual residing in the Baton Rouge metropolitan area seriously believe Our Lady of the Lake, known colloquially simply as OLOL, actually needs better name recognition?

But wait. Let’s take a jaunt about 20 or so miles down the ol’ Mississippi River to the Ascension Parish town of Donaldsonville.

In Donaldsonville, the median income is about $24,000, compared to $32,400 for the state of Louisiana and about $40,000 for the U.S.

In Donaldsonville, approximately 42.9 percent of the town’s 7,000 residents live below the poverty line. That’s more than double the state average of 18.9 percent and nearly three times as high as the state level of 16 percent and almost four times as high as the U.S. average of 11.1 percent.

Donaldson also was (with emphasis on was) the home of Prevost Hospital, operated by Ascension Parish. But as of March 2023, OLOL entered into a cooperative agreement with the parish whereby the parish would pay OLOL (again, hold on) $360,000 per month for the first 12 months – after which time the monthly payment was scheduled to be “renegotiated.”

That comes to just north of $4.3 million per year – and the agreement was for 10 years. Do the math. That’s almost enough to underwrite the total cost of slapping OLOL to the roof of the new LSU basketball arena.

The two parties further agreed, according to terms stipulated in the cooperative agreement, that “in the event the monthly payments plus contractor billing collections (did I mention that the agreement also gives OLOL the right to bill patients and insurers for all services?) are not sufficient to meet the costs of services provided by the contractor (OLOL), such that total expenses exceed monthly collections, contractor (OLOL) will reduce services to fall in alignment with the cost of services…”

So, what does OLOL agree to provide on its part, other than giving itself an option to “reduce services”?

Well, for one, it was supposed to provide a mental health clinic for the parish.

Oh, and it was also supposed to provide drug counselors for the parish.

More than two years down the road, neither has been forthcoming. Maybe those were the services that had to be “reduced” if the hospital operated at a deficit.

Looks like a pretty one-sided deal from this vantage point – one-sided heavily weighted in favor of OLOL.

But the question that continues to hang heavy over the entire subject is why would a major nonprofit medical facility run by the Franciscans want to paste its name all over a sports arena? is that what the Franciscans are about, name recognition?

Of course, there’s the perk of OLOL board members getting cushy box seats at sporting events for their generosity…

Well, there’s also this: remember when a guy named Jindal went on a privatization rampage a few years back? Remember how the decision was made to close Big Charity Hospital in New Orleans following Katrina? That was a godsend for Repugnantcans in their drive to privatize and to reward their friends with lucrative contracts (see: private prisons).

Remember how Earl K. Long charity hospital in Baton Rouge was shut down by Jindal? He also privatized charity hospitals in Monroe and Shreveport. But in Baton Rouge, who do you think took over the EKL caseload?

The nonprofit OLOL, that’s who. They got all those state payments for caring for Medicaid patients, including state prisoners. That’s a pretty good windfall. Could it be that OLOL was told it was going to kick in that $50 million and that the LSU arena thing could be considered payback?

Check your itemized hospital bill carefully. You might have purchased a basketball jersey somewhere in there.