Ridgeview Hospitals with Robert Stevens
Posted by Steve Frazier
on Oct 18, 2011
Our Program on October 18th was a presentation by Robert Stevens, the president of Ridgeview Hospital in Waconia. His talk was about the changes and trends in the business of medical care.
His first comments were about the consolidations and mergers that are taking place. Because of the reduced level of reimbursements by health insurers, especially Medicare, and because of the increase of costs for equipment and personnel, many of the individual practices, clinics, and hospitals are being forced to align with the "big guys". He sees this trend continuing. He also commented on Ridgeview's new "212 Health Center", which is owned by Ridgeview but which has incorporated other major providers in the building.
Patient health was another topic. Currently, medical care is billed on a fee for each element of service provided. This drives the costs up, and does not necessarily provide the best medical care. The trend is toward capped payments by the insurers for specific diagnoses.
The third area he discussed was the conflict between group insured, individually insured, the insurers, and the care givers. He stated the 20% of the costs in medical care are because of "defensive medicine" - things which are done by doctors and hospitals to "PYA" and not really necessary to treat the patient.
His first comments were about the consolidations and mergers that are taking place. Because of the reduced level of reimbursements by health insurers, especially Medicare, and because of the increase of costs for equipment and personnel, many of the individual practices, clinics, and hospitals are being forced to align with the "big guys". He sees this trend continuing. He also commented on Ridgeview's new "212 Health Center", which is owned by Ridgeview but which has incorporated other major providers in the building.
Patient health was another topic. Currently, medical care is billed on a fee for each element of service provided. This drives the costs up, and does not necessarily provide the best medical care. The trend is toward capped payments by the insurers for specific diagnoses.
The third area he discussed was the conflict between group insured, individually insured, the insurers, and the care givers. He stated the 20% of the costs in medical care are because of "defensive medicine" - things which are done by doctors and hospitals to "PYA" and not really necessary to treat the patient.
(Story by Tad Shaw and photo by Steve Frazier)