Build Lakewood Whistles a Happy Tune

[Jim Kenny]

Dan: My understanding is UH declined. I’m unsure of how they communicated it. I never asked because they were too anxious to exit Lakewood in 1996.

With regard to HealthSpan, I’m sure you know that it’s a rebranded Kaiser Permanente, which has always struggled in this market.

With regard to MetroHealth, its finances are improving compared to when Jenn Pae evaluated these. The bigger concern I have is their focus, as they scramble to be relevant during a time when government entities are reducing or eliminating subsidies. Its growing commitments and expansions into saturated markets are putting demands on cash, which limited what they could offer Lakewood. That’s why discussions ended. And that’s why MetroHealth declined to propose after the formal invitation from the Mayor.

[Bridget Conant]

"MetroHealth has spent considerable time and effort in response to the [request for proposals] and has set a deadline of October 1 for conclusion," Boutrous wrote Oct. 3. "Since this date has passed, please accept this as confirmation of our withdrawal from the selection process."

They did not decline to propose. They declined to continue to deal with Lakewood after the PROPOSAL was ignored.

[c. dawson]

I'm curious about the statement "UH walked away from Lakewood" just because according to the PD, Lakewood Hospital may have walked away from UH ... Lakewood Hospital was an early member of University Hospitals Health System, and UH even wanted to buy Lakewood Hospital. Interesting ... if that had happened, all of this would likely be moot.

The article below is also interesting, because the conditions described in the article in 1996 are still true today.


3 HOSPITALS CONSIDERING PARTNERSHIP
Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH) - Saturday, February 17, 1996
Author: LOU MIO PLAIN DEALER REPORTER
Three West Side hospitals are discussing a partnership to put them in a better competitive position, a possible first step toward a merger with a larger hospital group in Greater Cleveland.

Talks have been going on for months among Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights, Fairview Health System in Cleveland (which includes Fairview and Lutheran hospitals), and Lakewood Hospital, all not-for-profit facilities.

"The purpose [of a partnership] is so the three hospitals are in a better position to compete with the larger for-profit hospitals entering the market," said a spokesman for Lakewood Hospital.

Tom George, a Lakewood Hospital trustee, said nothing less than survival is at stake for smaller hospitals. He compared it to the mom and pop corner grocery stores trying to stay in business against the supermarkets.

"The days of the local, independent full-service community hospital are diminishing, and they are doomed," said George, a Lakewood councilman. "The larger systems in Cuyahoga County are a Cleveland Clinic-based system, maybe a Blue Cross-based system or a University Hospital-based system.

"The health care reality is you have to be part of one of those [larger] systems to survive," George said. "If you don't, you're not going to get the [health insurance] contracts. You're going to wither on the vine. This is one step towards a bigger merger with a larger northeastern Ohio entity."

The three hospitals would have a total of about 1,400 beds, which would be an advantage in bargaining better rates with health-care providers.

"As a block, we can go to Blue Cross, Emerald or Aetna and say, `We have this many patients ... and we can guarantee you this much business,' George said.

A spokeswoman for Southwest General declined to comment. A Fairview spokesman did not return calls.

Each of the three hospitals would retain its board of trustees, but a key decision yet to be made is the makeup of a combined board of trustees.

"Essentially, the board makeup is control," George said. "The board will make secondary decisions, like do we keep birthing units open at Lakewood and Southwest, or do we consolidate at Fairview? And what do we do with cardiac? Do we make a cardiac center out of one of these three? The board makeup is essential here."

Another item under discussion is possible consolidation of services, such as accounting and finance.

Lakewood had been in close negotiations earlier with University Hospitals , which wanted to buy the facility. Southwest General had been talking to the for-profit Columbia/HCA, which recently purchased half of the assets of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine, including St. Vincent Charity and St. John West Shore hospitals.

And Fairview General and Lutheran hospitals had earlier signed a letter of intent to merge with St. Vincent and St. John West Shore before the sisters decided to pull out and ended up doing business with Columbia/HCA.

"There have been talks between and among virtually everybody in town as to who your dance partner is going to be when it's all over," George said.

Trustees for Lakewood Hospital and the Fairview Health System could vote on a partnership agreement this month. Southwest General trustees plan to take it up later in the spring.



LAKEWOOD HOSPITAL, CLINIC MAY LINK
Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH) - Wednesday, May 8, 1996
Author: DIANE SOLOV PLAIN DEALER REPORTER
Lakewood Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation said yesterday they signed an agreement to pursue some kind of partnership over the next four months.

All options, including an acquisition or merger, will be discussed, said Dr. John Clough, chairman of the Clinic's Division of Health Affairs.

"We're in partnering discussions, and we don't know what the final form of the relationship will take," Clough said.

The Lakewood Hospital Association, which operates Lakewood Hospital under a lease agreement with the city of Lakewood , said it signed the agreement after evaluating proposals from several for-profit hospital chains., including Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. and Primary Health Systems - both of out-of-state chains that are actively assembling networks of health care providers in northeast Ohio.

Before making the agreement with the Clinic, Lakewood Hospital also had recent discussions to possibly join Fairview Health System and Southwest General Health Center in creating a joint operating company. Lakewood also talked with University Hospitals System, which wanted to buy it.

As a first step, Lakewood Hospital joined the Cleveland Health Network, an affiliated group of area hospitals led by the Clinic.

[Jim Kenny]

[quote="Bridget Conant"][quote]"MetroHealth has spent considerable time and effort in response to the [request for proposals] and has set a deadline of October 1 for conclusion," Boutrous wrote Oct. 3. "Since this date has passed, please accept this as confirmation of our withdrawal from the selection process."[/quote]

They did not decline to propose. They declined to continue to deal with Lakewood after the PROPOSAL was ignored.[/quote]

With all due respect, you've taken one quote out of many from MetroHealth's Akram Boutrous and ignored many others. You're not alone as many other SHL faithful suffer the same problem, which prompted Mr. Boutrous to write a letter on June 18, 2015 to Mayor Summers where he said multiple factions pulled MetroHealth "into the maelstrom," and he hoped MetroHealth's issuing a statement outlining its current position would "help the Lakewood community to move forward." That position was and remains, "we (MetroHealth) have moved forward with developing strategies for the physical transformation of our health system. These plans do not include an inpatient facility in Lakewood."

This was reported by Plain Dealer's Bruce Geseilman on June 19: http://www.cleveland.com/lakewood/index ... erest.html

Bruce shared Boutros' letter too: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentclo ... -19-15.pdf

Mr. Boutros wants us to move forward. Please let's honor MetroHealth's efforts by doing as they've asked. Please join me in moving this issue forward for the benefit of our neighbors.

[Bridget Conant]

Mr Kenny
All you have done is twisted what happened to suit your narrative.

So AFTER Lakewood IGNORED Metro, basically making a fool of them, and AFTER it was clear that the Clinic could sue Metro for interfering because THERE WAS NEVER A RELEASE GRANTED, Boutrus bowed out. That is all your quote references and/or proves.

The FACT remains that the city and LHA/CCF DID NOT attempt to find another provider.

So we are back to where we started. The city kowtowed to the Clinic and let them call the shots, and left every other potential provider out of the process.

NO, I will not "get behind" this "deal" because it stinks to high heaven no matter how hard you try to twist the facts to make yourself feel better about it. It's phony, it leaves us poorer and less safe, and it will trigger the decline of the city. Get behind THAT?

[Jim Kenny]

[quote="Bridget Conant"]Mr Kenny
AFTER it was clear that the Clinic could sue Metro for interfering because THERE WAS NEVER A RELEASE GRANTED, Boutrus bowed out. That is all your quote references and/or proves. The FACT remains that the city and LHA/CCF DID NOT attempt to find another provider. [/quote]

Ms. Conant: What's so clear? The Clinic did formally notify MetroHealth's Boutrous that he was free to submit a proposal. You can see the letter for yourself:

http://bit.ly/1n70IMc

I'm afraid your narrative is the one in question. Please, let's move forward.

[Bridget Conant]

Why the twisting and distortions must make you positively DIZZY!

Mayor Summers DENIED there even was a proposal. Only after it was exposed, after Metro knew their proposal wasn't even seriously considered, and there was public outrage, only then did the mayor and the Clinic pretend to ask for a proposal. They knew full well it was already over and Metro wouldn't play the game anymore.

So you go ahead and "move along," because you seem to have a higher tolerance for lies and bullshit than other people do. I'm NOT going to accept that this was the best we could do and I'm not giving up on doing the RIGHT thing.

[Lori Allen _]

Although I can't confirm, I was told by a credible source that CCF's Toby Cosgrove had a meeting with Metro's CEO, Boutrous, and threatened him with torturous interference if he continued to interfere with the CCF deal. Can anyone actually confirm this?

[Brian Essi]

Jim Kenny,

Everything you have written above is false.

Sincerely,

Cousin Vinny

[m buckley]

Mr. Kenny, I thought about posting this response on your "safe thread" but then I realized no one was paying any attention to it .
So I post here.
Bridget Conant is absolutely correct when she states that Summers stiffed Metro. It's the bloating dead elephant in the room.
Having stated that, I encourage You to move forward, hand in hand with your Big Daddy, Mr. Summers, but PLEASE don't expect me to follow.

[Bill Call]

Mike, thanks for sharing. I was pleased to learn, as Jenn reported, that: "Any additional development on the hospital site, building permit fees, and property tax revenues are above what the City would have received if the status quo continued until 2026."

Of course, that is simply not true.

The City will receive no property tax revenue on any land owned by the Cleveland Clinic or any parking lot or structure owned by the City. That's about 50% of the available land.

The 4 acres or so that are left were originally slated to be the site of the new City owned recreation center. No taxes there.

Don't be surprised to see those plans resurrected. The Mayor and his supporters lied about every aspect of this deal from day one and they are lying now.

[Bill Call]

Hello Brian: How are facts checked, yet others ignored?

The hospital, on average, has been losing 5% inpatient stays annually since 2005 and 8% last year. This trend began well in advance of any decanting plan. When losing patients at such a compounded rate there's increasingly less need for labor and less labor translates to increasingly less payroll taxes.

Knowing statistics, as I'm confident you do, we both know trends continue unabated without a disruptive force. And knowing this trend line as we now all do, we can understand how easily tax revenues from "Any additional development on the hospital site, building permit fees, and property tax revenues are above what the City would have received if the status quo continued until 2026."

That's complete balderdash!

Total unrestricted revenue in 2009 $135 million.

Total unrestricted revenue in 2014 $140.5 million.

Total revenue was rising even after the Clinic and LHA Board began its secret decanting plan. How much more would they have risen if the LHA was not trying to destroy the Hospital?

The problem for Lakewood Hospital was the amount of charity care and uncollectable accounts. That was driven by two main factors:

1. Since Lakewood Hospital was a City Hospital it was REQUIRED to treat all patients regardless of their ability to pay. Cleveland Clinic is under no such obligation. The Clinics charitable care is virtually non-existent.

2. The Clinic routinely routed non paying customers to Lakewood Hospital. This drove up the cost to Lakewood and drove down the cost to the Clinic.

Both of those costs could have been partially controlled with the expansion of Medicaid and the slowly improving the economy. Of course, since the LHA was interested in sabotaging the Hospital they never even tried to take action to lessen that expense.

Ohio continues to lose people, Northeast Ohio continues to lose even more people than Ohio and Cuyahoga County continues to lose more people than both. The Mayors plan to move 1,500 high paying health care jobs to Lorain County will do great harm to the City. Selling City assets to paper over the loss will work for a short time and then the deluge.

Just as an aside: The Lakewood owned facility in Westlake on Columbia was a real money maker for the Hospital. In 2009, THE AFTER THE DECANTING PLAN WAS PLOTTED, the Hospital received a distribution of $5.5 million from that center. By 2012 that Center returned only $300,000. Did the need for medical care collapse in Westlake or did the Clinic transfer the business elsewhere as part of the decanting plan? Take a ride out there and you will see the Clinic is starting to make major investments in the facility that the Mayor called outdated and useless.

Just one more: Lakewood Hospital assets include the Foundations share of STIP. The Hospital earned $4.3 million in 2012 from those investments. The deal agreed to by the Council transfers the Hospitals beneficial interest in the Foundation and all of its assets and income to an entity controlled by the Cleveland Clinic.

The Happy Tune is just Whistling Past the Graveyard.

[Brian Essi]

Bill,

Thanks for exposing a bunch of the Leader's of the Bleeders lies. I would help but I'm on the ski slopes away from files I could upload to counter each and everyone of the faux "facts".

Example, Mr. Kenny knows that there were 2 separate Metro proposals--he is just parroting Summers' lies about Metro that are belied by financial facts that are public. Metro was more profitable and delivered more charitable care per dollar of revenue than Lakewood Hospital or any other CCF hospital during the relevant period. Metro breaks even at Medicaid while CCF loses money because Cosgrove, Donley and the other CCF bigwigs get paid millions at the expense of the underserved.

BTW. Kenny ignores the $147m loss while he juggles Pae's pennies to hide from the truth of his moral responsibility for his own leadership of the Bleeders' cause.

Sincerely

Cousin Vinny

[Bill Call]

It is hard to "move on" as Mr. Kenny suggests when he and others at Build Lakewood continue to spread the false narrative.

Metro made two proposals.

The second proposal suggested a lease or purchase or other arrangement to operate Lakewood Hospital.

The proposal named its negotiating team.

The Mayor told Metro " I will only deal with the Clinic".

The Mayor denied the existence of the second proposal.

The Mayor only released the proposal after threats of court action to force the release.

The Clinic refused to offer any release for any proposal for Lakewood Hospital. They Clinic maintained that stance from January of 2014 until July of 2015 when it issued a perfunctory release to ONLY METRO HEALTH. We will never now how much political and economic pressure was applied to Metro to get them to withdraw the offer but it must have been substantial.

Metro breaks even on Medicaid rates.

Medicaid accounts for about 11% of Hospital revenue. Metro would have broke even on 11% of revenue and made money on the balance. How much? About $25 million per year.

Here is the proposal from Metro that the Mayor denied existed:

[Lori Allen _]

I would like to ask the members of the "Save Lakewood Hospital Private Chat Room", what are all of you doing to help save the hospital? I don't feel that bringing up old threads and bullying everyone that has a different opinion other than yours is a solution. Ideas can be presented without bullying people. This is a prime example of why so many people have left the Save Lakewood Hospital Group. I remember when this all started and I thought that the Build people were mean. It appears now that SLH has taken over the number one spot. I am for saving the hospital, but, I think at this point with the behavior of some here on the Deck and the SLH leadership, that I don't know whether or not I want to continue helping them with the cause. Behavior as it is displayed at times here on the Deck does not help the community. It just separates it even more. FWIW