Private equity’s local health-care grab | Philly Health Insider
And Pa. attorney general asks for state control of Crozer Health
Good morning. This week, we take a hard look at the scope — and impact — of private equity in our area. The topic hits especially close to home with yesterday’s breaking news that our region’s highest-profile case study in private-equity impact, the financially beleaguered Crozer Health, may be placed under state control.
Plus:
Sorry, nope: Which insurers had Pa.’s highest claim denial rate last year among Obamacare plans? (The answer is below.)
A biologist’s bad behavior: Penn State issues an unusual indefinite ban from research for a prominent scientist
Sick or treat? Tips to protect kids from weed edibles, allergens, and other threats on Halloween
📮 Are you concerned about the role of private equity in health care? For a chance to be featured in this newsletter, email us back.
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— Alison McCook, Inquirer health reporter, @alisonmccook
Pop quiz: How many local health centers are backed by private equity?
The answer: 900.
That’s according to our deep dive into a new report by an advocacy group that is opposed to the practice. Our reporter Harold Brubaker unpacks the findings, meant to show the scope of private-equity investment in health care in a region that knows the risks. (Think Delaware County’s Crozer Health, whose former private-equity owner loaded the system with debt in 2019. Two of its hospitals have closed since 2022, and Crozer continues to struggle financially — to the point where Pa.’s attorney general has now taken the unprecedented step of asking a court to give the state control of the health system.)
Read on to see the reach — as well as the supposed pros and cons — of private-equity investment in our region’s health care, and find out which provider types are linked most often to PE. (Hint: It’s between behavioral health, dental care, and physical therapy.)
The latest news to pay attention to
If you guessed that IBX’s Keystone Health Plan East denied the most claims last year out of all plans sold on Pennie, then you are correct. Out of 4.5 million claims, the health plan denied more than 20%. The overall denial rate in Pa. was 13.8%, compared to the national average of 18.1%. Click here to see how other Pennie health plans compare.
Here’s something you don’t see every day: Penn State, in a rare move, disclosed that it has “indefinitely” prohibited a biomedical engineer from conducting research, following an investigation that found that several of her papers contained “unreliable data.” Deb Kelly — former president of the Microscopy Society of America — also cannot apply for grants, submit papers, or make presentations on behalf of the institution.
When it comes to the dangers of Halloween, it turns out most are coming from inside the house. Philly poison control centers are warning that they’re getting more calls about kids who’ve mistakenly eaten cannabis edibles, which can be packaged like candy, and are most often swallowed at home, not secreted into a trick-or-treat bag. Click here for tips on how to keep everyone safe this season.
This week’s number: 17.4%.
That’s the readmission rate for Jefferson Stratford Hospital in South Jersey, calculated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which tracked 30-day readmission rates for traditional Medicare patients 65 and older. The second highest readmission rate — 16.3% — was seen at Jefferson Abington Hospital.
Overall, readmission rates for most hospitals in the Philadelphia region were about the same as the national average — except for nine of Jefferson’s 12 local general acute-care hospitals, which performed below the national benchmark in 2023. (Of these, eight hospitals operated under three shared licenses, meaning the performance of each set is reported together.)
Want to see readmission rates for your hospital? Check out our interactive tool.
Speaking of issues at Crozer Health, this week’s inspection report has a lot to note: Between February and July, state health inspectors visited Crozer-Chester Medical Center and its sister facility, Taylor Hospital, a dozen times. In one incident at Taylor, inspectors cited the hospital for failing to properly monitor a behavioral health patient who left the hospital barefoot and without a cell phone, and was missing for six days.
Click here for the full details of the other 11 incidents that affected the two Delaware County facilities.
A 16-year-old girl comes to your ER with severe abdominal pain that’s been going on for several days. It started in her belly button then moved to her right lower abdomen, which is extremely tender. Now she is vomiting, and can’t sleep or even sit up straight. Her period is two weeks late, and her fever is 103 °F.
What is your diagnosis? (Hint: It’s more than one.)
Click here to check your answer.
Each week, we bring you news of who is moving where around town. This week, the story is about an entire organization — one that closed up shop on Monday after almost 140 years.
The nonprofit Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Philadelphia, founded in 1886, has shut its doors after a rocky few years. In 2022, the organization became part of Philadelphia’s Public Health Management Corp. after losing money for several years. But that wasn’t enough to save the VNA, and its 114 employees, who cared for patients in their homes, often in their final days.
Working with animal models, Penn scientists have modified the mRNA vaccine that saved millions of lives during COVID-19 to fight off Clostridioides difficile, the nasty bacteria known as C. difficile or C. diff. (You know, the one that causes half a million infections and kills roughly 30,000 people in the U.S. each year.)
After mice received 20 times the lethal dose of C. diff, all unvaccinated animals died within two days, while all vaccinated mice survived, remained alert and active, and exhibited only mild symptoms. The mRNA vaccine even appeared to protect mice against a second infection six months later.
Still, we’re a long way from a clinic-ready version of the C. diff shot, and the path is not certain. Sanofi discontinued its C. diff vaccine candidate in 2017, and a 2024 report showed a C. diff vaccine made by Pfizer failed to prevent infections in a Phase 3 clinical trial.
📮What’s the next health scourge you expect will be tackled by mRNA vaccines? For a chance to be featured in this newsletter, email us back.
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