Hospital filings offer a look at LifePoint
By Jon Jimison, The Wilson Daily Times, N.C. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Company leaders haven't discussed the financial breakdown with The Times but did say
The annual report filing listed the risk factors the company faces.
"We may have difficulty acquiring hospitals on favorable terms," the report said.
It noted in recent years that the legislatures and attorneys general of several states have become more interested in sales of hospitals by tax-exempt entities.
"This heightened scrutiny may increase the cost and difficulty, or prevent the completion, of transactions with tax-exempt organizations in the future," the report said. "We may be unable to timely and effectively integrate any hospitals that we acquire with our ongoing operations. We may experience delays in implementing operating procedures and systems in newly acquired hospitals. Integrating an acquired hospital could be expensive and time consuming and could disrupt our ongoing business, negatively affect cash flow and distract management and other key personnel."
The report clearly states the company believes in investing in technological upgrades at its facilities. In addition, the risk factors are pretty much the same for all major health care companies.
"If we do not continually enhance our hospitals with the most recent technological advances in diagnostic and surgical equipment, our ability to maintain and expand our markets may be adversely affected," the report said. "Technological advances, including with respect to computer-assisted tomography scanner (CTs), magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) and positron emission tomography scanner (PETs) equipment, continue to evolve. In addition, the manufacturers of such equipment often provide incentives to try to increase their sales, including providing favorable financing to higher credit risk organizations. In an effort to compete, we must continually assess our equipment needs and upgrade our equipment as a result of technological improvements. We believe that the direction of the patient flow correlates directly to the level and intensity of such diagnostic equipment."
The report notes the Duke LifePoint partnership, "which combines our operational resources and experience with
The company had about 28,000 employees at the end of 2012 and 6,565 beds at the end of 2013.
"We believe that growth at our hospitals also is dependent in part on the quality of care provided in our facilities, adding new service lines in our existing markets and investing in new technologies desired by physicians and patients," the report said. "The quality (both actual and perceived) of health care services provided at our hospitals is an increasingly important factor to patients when deciding where to seek care, to physicians when deciding where to practice, and to governmental and private third-party payers when determining the reimbursement that is paid to our hospitals."
Focus areas for the company's business strategy include:
--Measurement and improvement of quality of patient care and perceptions of such quality in communities where hospitals are located;
--Targeted recruiting of primary care physicians and physicians in key specialties;
--Retention of physicians and efforts to improve physician satisfaction, including employing a greater number of primary care physicians as well as physicians in certain specialties;
--Retention and, where needed, recruitment of non-physician employees involved in patient care and efforts to improve employee satisfaction;
--Targeted investments in new technologies, new service lines and capital improvements at our facilities;
--Improvements in management of expenses and revenue cycle;
--Negotiation of improved reimbursement rates with non-governmental payers;
--Strategic growth through acquisition and integration of hospitals and other health-care facilities where valuations are attractive and the company can identify opportunities for improved financial performance through management or ownership; and
--Developing strategic partnerships with not-for-profit health care providers to achieve growth in new regions.
In effort to rein in costs,
"We believe this model of sharing centralized resources to support common business functions across multi-facility enterprises provides us efficiencies and is the most cost-effective approach to managing these non-clinical business functions," the report said. "We fully implemented our payroll processing function in 2011. We expect to complete the implementations of the supply chain management and revenue cycle functions by the end of 2014."
As
That total included his
It's not unusual for CEOs of large for-profit health companies to receive large compensation packages. He ranks fifth overall for major for-profit, acute-care hospital company CEOs, according to Becker's Hospital Review.
In a recent quarterly meeting, Carpenter said the acquisition environment continues to be very active with a strong set of potential hospitals.
"We really think we are very well-positioned, both financially and alongside our quality partners to take advantage of this in what I believe is a differentiated way for
He talked about recent and potential acquisitions.
"Bell and Portage in the
Those are the things, more than the financial needs. Although, they are significant for standalone rural hospitals. So, that's what we are seeing, and we are really pleased that we've been able to position the company in order to take advantage of that."
The 2012 annual report talked about the Duke LifePoint joint venture.
"Not only has our first-of-its-kind joint venture with
The report said Duke LifePoint hospitals benefit from greater access to valuable resources and expertise plus the prestige and reputation for excellence associated with the Duke brand.
"Patients and payers benefit from a partnership that fortifies the quality of care and its delivery in the most appropriate and cost-effective settings," the report said.
[email protected] -- 265-7813
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