The Observation Deck

On April 8, 2015, I met with Mayor Summers for 2 and 1/2 hours concerning Lakewood Hospital. I asked him a direct question about a meeting he had with the Clinic that made him decide to pursue a deal with the Clinic instead of Metro.

Mayor Summers said of the pivotal meeting with the Clinic:
1. "It was a very contentious meeting."
2. "I believe that I had them convinced that this was the way to go"--meaning a population based preventative healthcare model. The Mayor also told me he knows that the Clinic is not at the cutting edge of this type of model.
3. "I believed them."
4. "I know its risky."

In that same meeting, the Mayor said he and LHA didn't need any lawyers to help them on the plan.

In that same meeting as he handed me a 1 1/4 page vague Clinic explanation for millions of dollars Administrative Services that the Clinic charges LHA, he said that "our partner [the Clinic] is not being very transparent."

So we have a Mayor who ran a rubber business and then spent a couple of years studying Lakewood Hospital who thinks that he knows more than the Clinic and convinced the Clinic what to do for us without consulting with us. And the Mayor trusts the people for a new deal who are not being transparent with him on the current deal.

Does anyone think that the Mayor's beliefs should serve as the foundation for the future of our community needs?

Brian Essi wrote:On April 8, 2015, I met with Mayor Summers for 2 and 1/2 hours concerning Lakewood Hospital. I asked him a direct question about a meeting he had with the Clinic that made him decide to pursue a deal with the Clinic instead of Metro.

Mayor Summers said of the pivotal meeting with the Clinic:
1. "It was a very contentious meeting."
2. "I believe that I had them convinced that this was the way to go"--meaning a population based preventative healthcare model. The Mayor also told me he knows that the Clinic is not at the cutting edge of this type of model.
3. "I believed them."
4. "I know its risky."

In that same meeting, the Mayor said he and LHA didn't need any lawyers to help them on the plan.

In that same meeting as he handed me a 1 1/4 page vague Clinic explanation for millions of dollars Administrative Services that the Clinic charges LHA, he said that "our partner [the Clinic] is not being very transparent."

So we have a Mayor who ran a rubber business and then spent a couple of years studying Lakewood Hospital who thinks that he knows more than the Clinic and convinced the Clinic what to do for us without consulting with us. And the Mayor trusts the people for a new deal who are not being transparent with him on the current deal.

Does anyone think that the Mayor's beliefs should serve as the foundation for the future of our community needs?

Hello Brian,

When was the "pivotal meeting" with the Clinic?

Thank you,

Scott Meeson

Brian: As I mentioned when we met over coffee, I agree that managing the hospital is beyond the scope and capacity of any of our city's leaders. They just don't have the data, perspective or understanding of the larger regional issues to make big capital investments necessary to succeed. The Cleveland Clinic does have this capacity and the way they have punished us proves it. This proof tells me Lakewood needs to get out of the health care business before it is pushed out.

If the Cleveland Clinic has shown any mercy, it is that they've given our city's leadership an exit strategy that offers $50 million for a foundation and great upside to develop 5.7 acres in our city center in ways that serves us and provides new tax revenues.

Finally, our city leaders can put us in a winning position with the Clinic. Let's free to them to proceed.

Jim,

It is for our elected leaders to decide if we are going to abandon the most vulnerable among us and get out of what you call a "business".

If they decide to do that, we should close the hospital ASAP and sell the assets to the highest bidder rather than having someone hold us hostage and letting the Mayor and his BFFs divert the City money and control the new foundation for their needs and ends.

Jim,

You agree that certain of our leaders are inept and have caused us great damage, but you want to free them up to do more damage. This seems like double speak from a public relations guru.

The Mayor made an emotional and egotistical decision to turn from Metro and toward the Clinic. An important decision like our future healthcare for the underserved should be based upon fact, not emotion or ego. Don't you agree?

FYI, When sharks smell blood in the water, they show no mercy.

Brian, forgive me, but who are the underserved? And why are you convinced that their needs will be ignored? I'm not aware how anyone will be denied services. I know from my past when working at MetroHealth that the poor and uninsured relied on the ER for their primary care. The proposed new hospital will provide this care. If anyone arriving at the new facility needs greater service, they will have entered a portal that takes them to where that service is best delivered and not performed by someone who does it infrequently or on a part-time basis. In this situation, someone who was underserved in the past will now be better served. I like that. I'll defend it.

Jim,

Now you and I are getting some place.

Here is just one definition of the "underserved" that I quickly pulled from the internet:

A number of well-respected sources describe underserved populations in terms of “vulnerability.” According to the American Journal of Managed Care (2013), “Vulnerable populations include the economically disadvantaged, racial and ethnic minorities, the uninsured, low-income children, the elderly, the homeless, those with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and those with other chronic health conditions, including severe mental illness. It may also include rural residents, who often encounter barriers to accessing healthcare services. The vulnerability of these individuals is enhanced by race, ethnicity, age, sex, and factors such as income, insurance coverage (or lack thereof), and absence of a usual source of care. Their health and healthcare problems intersect with social factors, including housing, poverty, and inadequate education.” Within each local jurisdiction, there are unique segments of populations or geographical areas that may be underrepresented or underserved.

Lakewood Hospital Foundation, is a private charity that currently has about $30 million liquid that has supported and served the "underserved." You can call Kirstin Broadbent or Ken Haber for details as to how they defined the "underserved" and the programs they run to help people.

Lakewood Hospital Association (LHA), is a public charity that as of 3/31/15 had about $51 million in liquid investments to support Lakewood Hospital--per Subsidium LHA's other assets are valued at about $70 million (give or take).

The LHF and LHA assets combined (approx. $150 Million) together with LHA's approximately 1,000 employees/caregivers provide, among other things, millions of dollars each year in services to the underserved.

What you want to call the "new Lakewood Hospital" and CCF's Brian Donley and I call a "specialty referral center" will only employ about 150 employee/caregivers and will be 100% owned and controlled by CCF, a not so charitable business entity in my opinion. It can't hold a candle to what Metro is doing at it ER etc.

When the dust settles on the LOI, the "new foundation" will have less than $60 million in assets, and CCF will have some control over how it is spent on healthcare. The non healthcare nonprofits around town are drooling over Mayor Summers' dangling of a share of this money for these non profits' other needs. The Lakewood Recreation Task Force will be just one. There is great uncertainty as to who will control and get this money--but the plan insures that the City will not control it.

So Jim, you tell me how the needs of the underserved (who by the definition above are the least represented) will be better served. By my math you are over 800 caregivers short and you're an easy $120 million short of being able to help them--Summers/Madigan et al have proven that they want to control money, the information and the process and they have not guaranteed one nickel for the underserved. So please do tell me how you like that and how you like to defend that. I would love to meet with you, Summers, Madigan, Juris, Gable, Haber and Broadbent or any group of folks in control you can put together to help me understand how mistaken I am.

Brian: Please help me understand why you believe the underserved won't be cared for? The shifting of any resources to other community healthcare needs doesn't mean someone needs to suffer. In fact, with the current cash burn rate of $28k/day at Lakewood Hospital, these funds are in jeopardy of being lost forever. I get that you don’t trust anyone controlling that much cash, but I fail to see how this translates to the underserved suffering. Again, their reliance on ER will be well served by the new facility and while the cash needed to pay for them is preserved and earning dividends with a new foundation. I can defend that.

The wonderful Clinic is underserving this community right now! And not only the poor, but those with insurance and/or medicare. The Clinic is turning patients away at a record rate and should be ashamed of themselves. People who have lived here most of their lives, paid their taxes to keep everything nice, expect when they get sick to be able to stay in the town they love. But no, it just doesn't fit into Toby's "vision" or Mike Summers' "vision". How many more people have to "pay" (possibly with their lives) for that vision?
The $28k/day the hospital burns through would disappear if only the Clinic was actually open for business in Lakewood!!!

Mismanagement anyone?
Death by a thousand cuts anyone?

Jim Kenny,

You must make a lot of money in public relations--only a PR guy could ignore what I wrote above about 800 less caregivers and $120 Million less in assets with your question:" Please help me understand why you believe the underserved won't be cared for? The shifting of any resources to other community healthcare needs doesn't mean someone needs to suffer." That's like the knight is the Monty Python movie saying "it's only a scratch" after his arms and legs are cut off. Amazing humor.

On your post about inclusion, you agreed that if the Deck folks are right about Summers and Madigan, they should be indicted.

So I would assume that if the lawsuit proves that the $28K per day burn rate (your number) is being intentionally, recklessly or negligently caused by the Clinic, then they should be held accountable too? If the Clinic is accountable, then the funds aren't lost at all--the longer the burn the more they owe.

I understand that you don't want to believe that our politicians and the Clinic are capable of lies and deceit--after all, big corporations and politicians always act in the best interest of the people--right?

I just wish that I could get you to open you mind to the possibility that politicians and big corporations just might possibly be lying just once in a while.

Brian, the 800 caregivers aren't losing their jobs. They'll be reassigned throughout the region where they'll be ready to serve the underserved. In fact, the underserved without insurance are free to choose which hospital they attend. My insurance limits this choice, which is why 10 years have passed since I last enjoyed the benefits of Lakewood Hospital.

Good points

Those free and easy underserved really have a good deal going not being bound by that insurance and having such choices.

How about we "let them eat cake" while they ponder their choices on where to go and how to get transportation to get there.

It seems you've been deprived of Lakewood Hospital for ten years so its no loss to you.

In the "business" the Clinic is known as "the factory." I'm sure the 800 employees are just as confident as you are about being "reassigned" Sounds as comforting as Chaplin's "Modern Times."

BTW, I've now counted 96 times that you have changed the subject or failed to answer questions.

Brian Essi wrote:In the "business" the Clinic is known as "the factory." I'm sure the 800 employees are just as confident as you are about being "reassigned" Sounds as comforting as Chaplin's "Modern Times."

BTW, I've now counted 96 times that you have changed the subject or failed to answer questions.

Actually on half have jobs to move to within the Clinic, half are being offloaded to outsourcing
companies so employees lose benefits, seniority etc. Something I never personally enjoyed
myself but let's keep to known facts here.

Brian my neighbor said it was 93 times.

.

Brian: I shared with you my personal commitment to the health care needs of the underserved. You'll recall it's why I get my healthcare exclusively from MetroHealth, as it needs as many patients with payors as possible to cover its margins loss to caring for the less fortunate. When my family needs an ER, we travel to MetroHealth and wait behind prisoners, drug addicts and an occasional gunshot victim. They are part of my community. We spoke at length about this. I presumed that’s why you called me a gentleman in another thread. For you to poke fun at me with Monty Python and eat cake references and cast other aspersions does a disservice to those who participate in this forum.

I also shared with you when asked that I don’t work for the Mayor or represent him. I had hoped you would repeat it to others as you said many wondered. That didn’t happen either. I do understand what’s happening. I just had hoped for more after meeting you and sharing a part of me.

Jim Kenny,

It is too bad that LHA passed on the opportunity to be part of the MetroHealth Transformation. A Lakewood MetroHealth Hospital would likely have influenced other charitable individuals like you to sign up for insurance plans that would further offset the losses of caring for the less fortunate. Given the dramatic increase in Lakewood residents at the poverty level since 2000, more of those would likely be your neighbors. My impression from your posts is that you are a regionalist. I, on the other hand, am in the “charity begins at home but should not end there” camp. So when you say 800 jobs are not lost, just reassigned within the region, you are OK with it. I am not. Lakewood losing 800 good paying, skilled jobs with no known viable plan to replace them, is one reason why so many are fighting for the “bird in the hand.”

Thanks for being a part of the hospital discussion here.