Iowa news
On With Life signs letter of intent to acquire New Horizons in Ankeny
On With Life, an Iowa-based neurorehabilitation program, has signed a letter of intent to acquire New Horizons, a center in Ankeny that provides adult daytime care. The acquisition will expand On With Life’s home and community-based rehabilitation services for people with neurological injuries or conditions and is scheduled to be finalized by Monday, July 1. “New Horizons and On With Life were founded by people with a strong passion for supporting the rehabilitation needs of the community, and both have an unwavering people-first philosophy, making it a great culture fit,” said Jean Shelton, CEO of On With Life. (Business Record)
Dallas County Hospital awards health care scholarships to Perry High School students
Dallas County Hospital recently awarded Perry High School students health care scholarships, which will be awarded at Senior Awards Night Wednesday, May 15. Perry High School was gifted $5,000 from the Iowa Hospital Education and Research Foundation, a subsidiary of the Iowa Hospital Association. According to Dallas County Hospital, IHERF specializes in scholarships for health care students. The check will allow students to enter health care programs next school year. The hospital said the award will help one or more students as it will make its presentation at Perry High School’s Sen. (KKRF-FM)
Trinity Health cuts operating losses by 85% in first half of 2024
Trinity Health increased operating revenues by 11.3% during the first six months of fiscal year 2024 compared to the prior year. Nonoperating income, including investment gains, boosted the system to an excess of revenue over expenses of $669.1 million. That’s compared to a deficiency of $70.5 million in the prior year period. Acquisitions and outpatient services revenue primarily drove Trinity’s revenue growth. Trinity attributed most of its operating revenue gain to three acquisitions of MercyOne in Iowa, North Ottawa Community Health System in Michigan and Genesis Health System in Iowa and Illinois. (Yahoo Finance)
National news
UnitedHealth restoring Change Healthcare services
Change Healthcare expects to have its crucial system functionalities restored by mid-March. The company’s electronic payment platform will be available for connection starting March 15. Its medical claims network and software are expected to begin testing and connectivity reestablishment on March 18, and the company will work to restore that service throughout the week. UnitedHealth Group urged its provider and payer clients to continue using the applicable workarounds established as it restores the systems. Change Healthcare’s pharmacy electronic prescribing became fully functional with claim submission and payment transmission on March 7. (Business Wire)
Payer trends health systems should watch closely in 2024
Health system leaders focused on the daily needs of their organizations can sometimes need to catch up on key developments in other health care sectors. But in an interconnected health care ecosystem, understanding the trendlines their payer counterparts face is essential. Although some health system leaders might think payers still ride the highs of early pandemic profits, the outlook is not rosy. According to data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, health insurers’ profit margins fell to 3.3% in the second quarter of 2023, well below the pandemic heights of 5.3% in the second quarter of 2020 and the 4.5% pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter of 2019. (Kaufman Hall)
Why health care cyberattacks last so long
The cyberattack on Change Healthcare that has caused disruptions across the industry has entered its fourth week. But why do these outages last so long? It’s a combination of ensuring that the hackers are no longer in the system and securing the vulnerability that allowed them to breach it in the first place. So, it’s not uncommon that IT interruptions persist weeks into a ransomware attack. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago must restore its MyChart patient portal following a Jan. 31 hack. The Joint Commission and AHA previously told health care organizations to plan for a month of downtime following a cyberattack. But it could take even longer to recover fully. In the me. (Becker’s Health IT)