The Cleveland Clinic - The Image

[Bridget Conant]

Here's an interesting article about the Cleveland Clinic. The Clinic cares deeply about its image and goes to great lengths to hone and protect it.

This debacle is NOT sitting well with them. The question is, who will pay?

http://www.dplindbenchmark.com/seriously-cleveland-clinic/

[Bill Call]

Here's an interesting article about the Cleveland Clinic. The Clinic cares deeply about its image and goes to great lengths to hone and protect it.

This debacle is NOT sitting well with them. The question is, who will pay?

http://www.dplindbenchmark.com/seriously-cleveland-clinic/

You won't read that in the Plain Dealer.

In 2013 the Cleveland Clinic had $171 million in charity care, about 2% of net patient service revenue.

In 2013 Lakewood Hospital had $7.4 million in charity, about 5.7% of net patient service revenue.

Part of the Clinics "String of Pearls Strategy" is to move more of its activity out of Cuyahoga County and leave the charity care behind. If the Clinic was a for profit entity and provided NO charity care we would all be better off.

The Clinics desire to avoid charity care played a part in the crafting of the LOI.

According to Councilman Juris the Second Foundation would serve the needs of Lakewood and surrounding communities. According to the Mayor one of the purposes of the new Foundation would be to serve North Coast Health. I suspect that a lot of the Second Foundations money will be used to provide the charity care that the Clinic once provided.

North Coast Health is a fine organization but is it the responsibility of the taxpayers of Lakewood to fund its needs? Will it be the responsibility of the taxpayers of Lakewood to pay for the charity care of the citizens of Lakewood and surrounding communities with the money from the Second Foundation?

Is the true purpose of the Second Foundation to fund the charity care once provided by the Cleveland Clinic? Are the other promises mere window dressing?

[Bridget Conant]

That article has a lot of important information. The Cleveland Clinic is NOT the best hospital out there, but I'm sure many who have "enjoyed" their services already realize this.

What was more important is how aggressive they are in creating and maintaining their image. No expense is spared to suppress negative publicity and reports. You can only imagine how annoyed they are by this controversy, that was supposed to be "a done deal." Unfortunately for them, private citizens are harder to control than our elected leaders. They only have one target for their wrath. Glad I'm not in that group!

[Marguerite Harkness]

NY Times article, March 18, 2015: Moody's bond analyst: The Cleveland Clinic knows they have to become as good at primary care, as they are at complicated heart valve replacements. The Cleveland Clinic's chief strategy officer responds, "We're so far behind [on primary care], that's a good thing."

Everybody deserves World Class Care - - somewhere else . . .