Posted on 06/13/2009 9:20:25 AM PDT by fiscon1
Nearly two months ago, I featured a story about Dr. Andrew Agwunobi. I have been tracking Dr. Agwunobi for nearly two years and much of it has not been flattering. He's trekked through the medical system and he's recently wound up as the CEO of the Eastern Washington region of the Providence Health Care System. The Providence health care system is a non profit hospital system. That means it enjoys tax exempt status. It also means that there is no shareholders. To earn this tax exempt status the hospital must provide a benefit for the community. Here the law becomes murky because that's something that's difficult to define.
(Excerpt) Read more at theeprovocateur.blogspot.com ...
That would include Spokane’s Deaconess Hospital, methinks???
My perspective comes from being a physician on the active medical staff of all 4 hospitals in Spokane. My medical group is independent of any hospital.
I cannot comment upon what type of person Dr. Agwunobi is. I have never met him. His cuts are unpopular but unfortunately I think are necessary. The amount of charity/uncompensated care has increased substantially in the current economic environment. The situation is additionally exacerbated by Deaconess changing from nonprofit to for-profit status. Deaconess is slowly carving off money-losing services, such as trauma, leaving Sacred Heart the entire burden of providing these services.
In my opinion, this blog rant on Dr. Agwunobi seems unjust. The financial picture for hospitals will become far more bleak in the next 10 years when Medicare runs out of money. Sacred Heart Medical Center may have a lot of money now but that does not mean they should not conserve their financial resources for the future. Imagine what the financial situation of California would have been had they been more financially prudent starting 10 years ago.
Good points to me.
My wife was in the intensive care nursery at one of those hospitals . . . we lived a block away . . . I think for 20+ years . . . decided to marry her co-worker there. Dumped him after 9 years, too. LOL.
Should be interesting between now and Armageddon, alright.
however, you can not deny that "Andy" as he likes to be called has a very interesting employment history....
to my knowledge, saying that "Providence" is $9 million in the hole is a bit deceiving......its Sacred Heart that is $8 million in the hole and Holy Family that is $1 million in the hole.....interesting because a goodly number of cuts have been done to Holy Family Staff and not the much larger Sacred Heart...
of course, "Andy" wife is a physican at Holy Family....
The picture for hospitals may be bleak but we aren’t talking about hospitals but only this system. This system sits on nearly $2 billion in investments. So, why is a hospital system with that much just in investments in such dire straits that it needs to make personnel cuts?
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