Advocate Establishes Another Beachhead in Centegra Country

Advocate Health System selected the Walgreens in McHenry to spotlight its take over of the drug store chain’s health clinics. Advocate, of course, operates Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington. 52% of Good Shepherd’s patients come from McHenry County. Advocate also … Continue reading

Financial Problems Facing Centegra

Lakewood bond analyst offers the following take on Centegra’s desired affiliation with Northwestern Memorial Healthcare (joint press release here.) Centegra built a big new hospital in Huntley in order to stave off competition from Mercy Hospital. But building more beds … Continue reading

Local Hospitals’ Five Star Ratings

Chicago Crain’s Business has hospital ratings by HealthGrades. There are a number of categories which were judged. In descending order from a score of 22 Five Star ratings for Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, the list descends to … Continue reading

Proposed Crystal Lake Mercy Hospital Makes Jacob Kiferbaum’s Plea Agreement as Another Rob Blagojevich Scandal Winds Down

In the pleas agreement between the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Jacob Kiferbaum appears the following: Planning Board/Mercy Hospital [Stuart] Levine solicited a kickback of approximately $1.5 million from [Jacob] Kiferbaum relating to the construction of Mercy Hospital’s Crystal Lake facility. … Continue reading

Obamacare Penalizing Local Hospitals for Medicare Hospital Readmissions

Bill Baar’s West Side blog led me to the story of how the Obama Administration is penalizing hospitals it judges to have too high readmission rates, for Medicare patients. Fox News explains, “Starting in October, Medicare will reduce reimbursements to … Continue reading

Hospitals at Risk for Paying Property Taxes

McHenry County’s biggest employer is Centegra Health System. It operates two hospitals as not-for-profit enterprises. Yesterday, discussions were undoubtedly being held at Centegra and Mercy Health Systems (operators of the Harvard Hospital) concerning the revocation of the property tax exemption … Continue reading

NW Herald Uses Channel Two Approach to Covering Hospital Application Rejections

I thought CBS Channel Two had the best coverage of the Rod Blagojevich verdict reading. An employee was texting from the courtroom. Viewers could see in real time what the talking heads saw. In covering the Health Facilities Planning Board … Continue reading

CL Chamber Backs $200 Million CL Mercy Hospital

A press release from Mercy Health System: Local Business Leaders Support Crystal Lake Hospital Plan Two groups unanimously back $200 million proposal, job creation Mercy Health System recently received the backing of two influential business groups that support the building … Continue reading

Readmission Rates at Area Hospitals

Yesterday we looked at death rate comparisons for Medicare patients for heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia at Barrington’s, McHenry’s and Woodstock’s hospitals. Today, we look at readmission rates for those three problems. For heart attacks the Barrington, McHenry and … Continue reading

Death Rates at Area Hospitals

One of the data sets issued by Medicare cuts to the chase. It’s about mortality. Death rates to the rest of us. When I was managing state employee benefits (my consolation prize after running against Roland Burris for State Comptroller … Continue reading

Medicare Statistics Raise Questions about McHenry & Woodstock Hospitals’ Use of Medical Imaging

The Federal government has released data showing the use of medical imaging for hospitals across the country. The data base allows the comparison of three hospitals on one page, so I selected Barrington’s, McHenry’s and Woodstock’s. Taking a look at … Continue reading