From re-branding to Medicaid expansion, Memphis CEO charts path for Regional One Health

March 02--When Dr. Reginald Coopwood arrived in 2010 from Nashville to become the chief executive officer of a Regional Medical Center at Memphis in the midst of a financial crisis, one of his first goals was to get the hospital out of the headlines.

Last week -- after four years of work by its board, management team, physicians and some 2,200 employees on issues stretching from business processes to building new facilities -- Coopwood invited the media to reintroduce more than the hospital.

It's a health system, he said, with services ranging from outpatient clinics to a new outpatient surgery center and new rehabilitation hospital with private rooms.

And all of its parts have a new brand name: Regional One Health.

As far as the financial crisis he faced when he arrived, Coopwood told reporters that the health system's condition is now stable.

Coopwood, 54, a surgeon by training, sat for an interview last week about the re-branding, which cost about $200,000, not including the cost of upcoming advertisements.

Following are excerpts from the conversation with Coopwood, edited for brevity.

Brand strategy

We felt that since we are bigger than just a hospital, we needed to make sure that we brand ourselves and re-brand ourselves that people know a couple of things: One, we're the regional leader in trauma, regional leader in burn, we're the regional leader in perinatal services, without any competitors in those areas.

We have historically filled a need within the community of taking care of individuals within our community who did not have access to care if they were uninsured. That has always been a big part of who the Regional Medical Center has been.

None of those things are we turning our back on. We're proud of all those things, but we also are reintroducing ourselves to the community as a facility of choice.

Funding

(Tennessee's "disproportionate share" (DSH) federal payments for hospitals that serve a large number of Medicaid and low-income uninsured patients are still up in the air. The Regional Medical Center has received about $12 million a year.)

So we are still working with our delegation in Washington and at multiple levels, mainly through the Department of TennCare, the state, and the Tennessee Hospital Association to get our DSH payments reinstated. They timed out Sept. 30. And I feel confident we'll get some movement here in the next month or so.

Reimbursements

On Medicare reimbursements and readmissions

Medicare rates haven't significantly changed. Medicare has had a focus of reducing readmissions (within 30 days of leaving a hospital) and making sure that Medicare recipients get the right stages of care.

We've had significant work in reducing readmissions, as most hospitals have. Our Medicare percentage is low. So for us to focus on doing the right thing is not a negative from our standpoint, in making sure that we treat them correctly the first time and reduce their readmissions

Medicaid expansion

The Affordable Care Act has many different components. I think the biggest component that we need and this community needs is Medicaid expansion.

And we're still waiting on the state of Tennessee to get a plan approved in Washington and ultimately in Nashville so that we can move the population in Memphis and Shelby County who are eligible for the expansion to give them coverage ...

Through our subsidies and through the things that we've done internally, through the re-branding and to diversify our payer mix, we're doing what we need to do as an organization to offset the burden of taking care of those individuals who are uncovered.

So not expanding Medicaid is not an immediate injury to Regional One Health. But if you don't expand Medicaid and you cut the subsidies, then it starts to be a problem.

So our goal is to continue to impress upon Nashville, impress upon Washington, the need to find a way to expand before there is any definitive process in the reduction in subsidy.

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Long a health care provider for Memphis residents without health insurance, the Regional Medical Center has launched a new brand name, Regional One Health, as part of a campaign to attract more patients covered by insurance.

Here's a look at the hospital's mix of payers, as a percentage of gross revenue, for budget year 2012.

Self-pay/other 28.6%

TennCare 24.7%

Medicare 15.8%

Commercial insurance 14.1%

Managed care 11.5%

Medicaid (out-of-state) 5.3%

Source: Regional Medical Center

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