Bad nurses!! Good Physicians!

The Valley Health System directors say they don’t want to sell the district, but their creditors are forcing them to take this position. But keep in mind many creditors are the local physicians.

Well, if you sell something don’t you try to maximize the gain? Most of the VHS directors said, that is not their objective. They have a commitment to keep the hospital open. They want what’s best for the community.

They listened to the creditors about first a “dual track” than the focus on a sale of the assets. In July, they agreed to give the local docs an exclusive right to negotiate for 90 days.

During the discussion, one of the physicians arguing for the exclusivity explained that one of his children had won the Riverside Spelling Bee while attending Hemet High School. This proof of his commitment to the community because he could have sent his child to private school.

So is the gift a spelling bee champ worth the insider’s track on a multi-million dollar hospital deal?

Here’s what those same creditors have to say about the hospital’s finances.

• “The District’s historical indicators from FY 2006 through FY 2009 demonstrate a steady decline in financial and operational performance”
• “Acute inpatient volumes at the Hemet and Menifee hospitals have been steadily declining for many years”
• From FY 2008 to FY 2009, the District acute inpatient discharges fell significantly — 13.3 % at Hemet Valley and 9.8 % at Menifee Valley
  

Ask yourself who controls which hospital you might go to? Does you doctor recommend a facility or do you get on line and research it?

Have patient volumes been declining because VHS doesn’t have enough bargains! how about an appendectomy and gall bladder laparoscopy for one price! Or half off a caesarian section!

Patient volumes are in the hands of doctors who have been sending patients to other hospitals, forcing a bargain basement sell-off, but with little capability to keep the doors open after they buy.

The July volume at Hemet Medical Center were slightly worse than June while Menifee showed improvement it is about 1/3 the size of Hemet.

• The picture is no brighter for the District's consolidated outpatient service lines. On a consolidated basis, outpatient surgeries declined 20 %
• Inpatient surgeries decreased by 14.3 % in the past year.
  

If patient volumes have been declining for more than two years, why will they change now? Steven Wade. Attorney for Physicians for Healthy Hospitals, says the local docs now realize their incomes may be at risk if the hospital closes.

"A precipitous drop in both inpatient and outpatient surgeries gives me cause for grave concern," says Martin L. Cohen, financial adviser for the bondholders.

He also opines that the district and certain members of the medical staff are battling for control of the hospital revenue streams and ability to determine which physicians have local privileges.

Notice nobody asks about the patients, but staff, nurses and aid staffing has been significantly reduced in the past two months. Must be their fault patients don’t come to VHS. Doctors spend long hours treating patients, too bad they don't get paid. so many are near homeless.

VHS Director Vinay Rao summarized the situation for the board when they gave the doctors the exclusivity agreement.
"We are community leaders. Our charge is to community … an important part of community is the physicians. We have criteria."

Well have you seen the criteria, have the leaders felt like sharing with you? But they gave the criteria to PHH.

Even Judge Peter Carroll, the bankruptcy judge, asked Gary Klausen, the VHS bankruptcy attorney, if PHH had the financial ability to close if the hospital were sold in the vicinity of "fair market value". Klausen had to reply, "not yet! There is some internal interest and some external, but no ability to close sale yet."