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As investors buy struggling hospitals, big change comes to New Jersey health care
Re-post from NorthJersey.com | Written by Lindy Washburn
Bayonne Medical Center wasn’t just bragging about efficiency when it posted a big digital clock on a highway billboard a few years ago to show the real-time waits in its emergency room. It wanted patients to come to its ER. Lots of patients.
It didn’t matter if the hospital was in the patient’s insurance network. On the contrary, to the businessmen who had recently purchased the medical center, those “out-of-network” patients held the key to reversing Bayonne’s fortunes.
These owners, who bought the hospital in bankruptcy, had found an unintended — and very profitable — consequence to a state regulation that was designed to protect patients with urgent medical needs. While the regulation required insurance companies to pay for emergency treatment at hospitals where their coverage wasn’t normally accepted, it did nothing to control the size of the bills the hospitals could submit to those insurers.
Read rest of article here and how this topic relates to NJ Appleseed’s work.
Do surface parking lots detract from a city’s stability and sustainability efforts?
Our recent policy articles have asked this question. New Jersey Appleseed is currently involved in a case that is working it’s way through the NJ Court System whereby the answer to this question from a group of concerned citizens in Newark is a decided “no.”
To read the appeal of City of Newark’s Zoning Board of Adjustment’s 13th d(l) use variance for a parking lot at 28 McWhorter Street, filed by Renee Steinhagen on behalf of group of concerned citizens click here.
Hoboken Refuses to Recognize Public Petition
Written by Cheryl Fallick
On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Hudson County, Docket No. L-2375-11. Victor A. Afanador argued the cause for appellants/cross-respondents James Farina and City of Hoboken (Lite DePalma Greenberg, LLC, attorneys; Mr. Afanador, of counsel and on the briefs; Marissa L. Quigley, on the briefs).
Charles X. Gormally argued the cause for appellants/cross-respondents Mile Square Taxpayer Association 2009, Inc. and Gina DeNardo (Brach Eichler, L.L.C., attorneys; Mr. Gormally, of counsel and on the briefs; Sean A. Smith, on the briefs).
You can read the full ruling here
New Jersey’s Vanishing Non-Profit Hospitals
Starting this year, New Jersey nonprofit hospitals are set to be sold to out-of-state, for-profit entities at an alarming rate. New Jersey is already home to for-profit hospitals in which profitability seems to rest largely on complicated sale-leasebacks of their land and buildings, patient admissions through the emergency room that allow for excessive charges for “out-of-network” care, and other predatory practices.
These for-profit models appear to be in direct contrast to the goals of health reform, which call for reducing unnecessary treatment, increasing patient satisfaction and ensuring that all Americans have access to primary and preventive care in community settings, while reducing expensive emergency room use.
Continue reading New Jersey’s Vanishing Non-Profit Hospitals
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