Franciscan Health undecided on reopening Chesterton urgent care
Franciscan Health hasn't decided yet whether to reopen its ExpressCare in Chesterton, although a state senator said he cleared the way legally in recent legislation to support restarting the operation.
The Franciscan Health building at 770 Indian Boundary Road houses the Emergency Department and doctors' offices.
ExpressCare also operated inside the facility until Jan. 1. The closing occurred because House Bill 1004, passed in 2023, required health care providers to charge ambulatory rates for urgent care services, making it too expensive for Franciscan to continue Express Care.
Under the prior arrangement, ExpressCare — the only urgent care facility in Chesterton — operated 24 hours a day and worked closely with the Emergency Department. The setup allowed patients who came in with non-emergency needs to the Emergency Department to be seamlessly transferred to ExpressCare within the same facility, said Lauri Keagle, a spokeswoman for Franciscan Health.
Since Franciscan ExpressCare in Chesterton was open around the clock, there were higher operating costs, Keagle said. It had been the only Franciscan Health in Northwest Indiana where they operated an Emergency Department and ExpressCare at the same site. The ExpressCare signs outside the building are now covered up.
State Sen. Rodney Pol, D-Chesterton, said he worked with Franciscan officials to include language in House Bill 1004, the 2025 version, to fix the issues that caused the closure of ExpressCare.
However, Franciscan hasn't made a decision yet.
'We are currently evaluating the new language with our legal team and advisors,' said a statement prepared by Keagle.
Pol said he would be surprised if a legal issue is blocking the reopening of ExpressCare. He said there may be another issue involved.
The amendment that Pol was able to include created an exemption to allow for an urgent care facility to operate in a community with less than 20,000 residents, qualifying Chesterton.
'This was an issue I had to fight painstakingly for, fueled in large part from the outrcy from the community that did not know it (the closing) was coming,' Pol said.
Pol talked about the issue with the Chesterton Town Council at its May 12 meeting. Councilwoman Erin Collins, D-2nd, called what Pol had done 'a significant win for Chesterton and surrounding communities.'
House Bill 1004 in 2025 was 'very contentious' because it pitted the intent of lowering costs at nonprofit hospitals versus the impact on hospitals that serve the most Medicaid and Medicare patients and the viability of those facilities, Pol said.
'Trying to get support for an amendment that saves just the Chesterton facility from the prior 2023 legislation was no easy task as the battle raged on within the respective caucuses and out on the Senate floor,' Pol said.
Keagle, in a reply from Franciscan, stated: 'We thank Sen. Pol for his tremendous effort to assist both Franciscan and his constituents with this legislation. Due to the complicated nature of the topic, we're evaluating the legislative language with our legal team and advisors to determine if it allows us to reopen.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Medscape
35 minutes ago
- Medscape
Home Healthcare Common for People With Dementia
The use of home healthcare services is common among people with dementia, especially for community-initiated care, a new analysis of Medicare data showed. Between 2010 and 2019, use of community-initiated home healthcare increased by 17%, while use of home healthcare for postacute care rose by 21%. Use decreased after 2020, which investigators said could be linked to staffing shortages in the home healthcare industry. METHODOLOGY: Researchers conducted a cross-sectional analysis, including over 13 million older adults (mean age, 79.4 years; 60% women; 86% White individuals) who were enrolled for traditional Medicare and received home healthcare between 2010 and 2022. The frequency and duration of home healthcare spells were analyzed and compared between individuals with dementia (28%) and those without dementia (72%). Postacute care was defined as home healthcare instituted within 14 days of discharge from a hospital, nursing home, or other facility. All other home healthcare use was classified as community-initiated. TAKEAWAY: Between 2010 and 2022, there were 30,998,653 home healthcare spells (mean, 2.2 home health spells per beneficiary). Individuals with dementia used community-initiated home healthcare more frequently than postacute care (54% vs 46%). Among individuals with dementia, the number of community-initiated care spells increased from 35.4 to 40.2 per 1000 beneficiaries and that of postacute care spells increased from 28.9 to 35.1 per 1000 beneficiaries (2010-2019) and then fell to 33.6 and 28.5 per 1000 beneficiaries by mid-2022, respectively. Between 2010 and 2019, the number of community-initiated care spells among individuals without dementia decreased by 20%, while postacute care spells decreased by 21% in this population. Home healthcare spells were consistently longer for individuals with dementia than those without it (47-52 days vs 44-50 days for community-initiated care and 40-43 days vs 32-34 days for postacute care). IN PRACTICE: 'Despite increasing use of home health care during this time period, people may receive incomplete support for their home healthcare needs through Medicare, which is centered on needs for skilled care, or Medicaid, which entails strict asset and income tests. Decreasing rates of home healthcare use since 2020 in this high-need population point to a need for ongoing monitoring of service use and outcomes for people with dementia,' the investigators wrote. SOURCE: The study was led by Rachel M. Werner, MD, PhD, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. It was published online on May 16 in JAMA Network Open . LIMITATIONS: The study relied on claims data for dementia diagnosis. The COVID-19 pandemic may have disrupted healthcare utilization, potentially leading to underdiagnosis of dementia toward the study's end. Additionally, the study only included traditional Medicare beneficiaries as those enrolled in Medicare Advantage typically use home healthcare at lower rates and for shorter periods, which may have influenced the observed trends. DISCLOSURES: The study was funded by the National Institute of Aging. One author reported receiving personal fees from City Block Health and Trinity Health outside the submitted work.
Axios
4 hours ago
- Axios
Exclusive: HHS watchdog finds more than $16B in health savings
The Department of Health and Human Services' watchdog identified more than $16 billion in overpayments, fraudulent billings and possible cost savings in health programs over a half year spanning the Biden and Trump administrations, including more than $3.5 billion to be returned to the government. Why it matters: The semiannual summary, first shared publicly to Axios, comes as the Trump administration says it's prioritizing government efficiency and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. It reflects growing concern over federal payments to Medicare Advantage plans, along with enforcement actions like McKinsey agreeing to pay $650 million to settle charges that its advice caused Purdue Pharma to submit fraudulent claims stemming from the opioid crisis. The report was sent to Congress late Friday. By the numbers: The HHS Office of Inspector General identified $16.6 billion in real and potential savings from October 2024 through March of this year. The office's investigations identified $3.5 billion in funds due back to the federal government, and its audits found another $451 million that the government will recoup. More than $12 billion in potential cost savings were identified if HHS makes recommended policy changes. The office issued 165 recommendations over the six months. In one example, OIG found that Medicare could have saved $7.7 billion if it lowered payments for swing beds at critical access hospitals so that they match skilled nursing facilities. The change would require action from Congress, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it didn't agree with the recommendation. Nearly 400 civil actions, including settlements, resulted from OIG's work during the period. OIG says its work returned $11 to the federal government for each $1 invested in its office. "Whether it's us, whether it's [the Government Accountability Office], whether it's DOGE, whether it's state auditors, there's always a need for program integrity and oversight," said John Hagg, assistant inspector general in the IG's office of audit services. Zoom in: OIG over the six months covered in the report continued its investigations that raise concerns over improper payments in Medicare Advantage. OIG found that many patient diagnoses reported by privately run Medicare plans were supported only through health risk assessments. That allowed plans to be paid more to care for sicker, more expensive patients without enough supporting documentation, raising questions about their validity, per OIG. OIG recommended that Medicare further restrict plans' abilities to get higher payments based on diagnoses reported only on in-home health risk assessments in order to save an estimated $4.2 billion for Medicare. The office plans to do more work on Medicare Advantage in the near future, Melicia Seay, assistant inspector general in the office of evaluation and inspection, told Axios. "There's a lot of areas in terms of Medicare Advantage that we're exploring, whether it is the payment policy related to the program, the service delivery, quality of care," she said. Catch up quick: President Trump in January abruptly fired several agency inspectors general, including longtime HHS watchdog Christi Grimm. He claimed that"some were not doing their job."
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Absolute Disaster:' Senate Dems Take Aim At Trump's Tax Bill
Senate Democrats laid into President Donald Trump's sweeping tax bill on Sunday, emphasizing the impact it is poised to make on millions of Americans on Medicaid. 'This Republican budget bill is an absolute disaster for the country, in particular for middle-class and poor people,' Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said in an interview on CNN's State of the Union, noting that it seeks to pay for tax cuts by curbing spending on social programs. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) echoed these concerns in an interview on NBC News's Meet the Press, stressing that 'Republicans are trying to push forward this big ugly bill that's going to literally cut as many as seven million Americans off of their healthcare.' Murphy and Warnock's statements come as Republicans' massive tax and spending bill heads to the Senate, where it's likely to face staunch Democratic opposition as well as GOP dissent. The bill slashes spending on social programs like SNAP and Medicaid, while proposing trillions in tax cuts and billions in investments to strengthen border security. According to an initial analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, it would push 7.6 million people off Medicaid, in part by making it more difficult to qualify for the program. One way it does so is by imposing a new work requirement, which would force many able-bodied recipients to prove that they've worked, volunteered or attended a training program to obtain Medicaid coverage. Warnock stressed that a similar policy in Georgia has added new barriers for people in need of healthcare. This 'work reporting requirement is very good at kicking people off of their health care,' he said. 'It's not very good at incentivizing work at all.' Earlier this May, House Republicans narrowly passed the bill by just one vote. It'll take a simple majority – which Republicans have – to advance again in the Senate, though some GOP lawmakers have said they'd like to make changes of their own to tax and Medicaid provisions. GOP Senators like Rick Scott (R-FL) have also raised concerns about how the bill could add to the federal debt, an issue Murphy alluded to as well on Sunday. 'It's just unreal the amount of gaslighting this administration is doing,' Murphy said, while referring to the White House's claims that the legislation won't alter the deficit at all.
