Friday, August 27, 2010
Great News From AZHI and Lifegaurd
Guess What???? I just spoke with Teresa and AZHI and Lifegaurd are Happy to announce that they are billing insurance!!!!!! However if your insurance does not cover it you will be responsible. If you are on my or Teresa's list or both you should have received an information packet via email that should be filled out and returned to AZHI/ Lifegaurd then you will be contacted for an appointment. They will treat you same day if your tests show blocked veins. We have come a long way people, but we are here. They have already treated 10 people this week! So get your packets in and any questions regarding packets or appointments should be referred to Lifegaurd. You will find there contact info in the post below this one on Tisas Ms Liberation Blog. Yeah!!!! I hope you are all as happy as I am!!!!
Friday, August 13, 2010
Here it is Cost for testing and treatment
From: Carroll, Sue
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 12:01 PM
To: 'Tisa McCay'
Cc: Capriotti, Teresa
Subject: MS Statement on your site
Tisa…we appreciate your feedback. We have made changes to our program and will begin sending letters out today. When you have time, if you can change your site to reflect the wording below we would appreciate your help.
VIP for MS Patients
LifeGuard at the Arizona Heart Institute has established the Venous Impairment Program (VIP) to diagnose venous abnormalities that may be associated with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Diagnostic testing and intervention, if necessary, is offered to patients with a neurologist’s diagnosis of MS.
The cash price for the diagnostic testing is $2,700. If your studies indicate venous abnormalities, a venogram with venous angioplasty will be offered at the cash price of $7,000. At the present time, insurance is not accepted for this program. We are happy to give you a statement which includes procedure and CPT codes for services rendered. You may use this to submit a claim to your insurance provider on your behalf to determine if you are eligible for reimbursement of any of your expenses. Any payment by insurance should be sent directly to you, the patient. If you are interested in this program, please contact us at VIP@Lifeguardclinic.com.
Also the original list is still in effect. If you are on it you will receive an email in the next 3 working days. you can still email Teresa to check your spot on the list
Thanks,
Sue Carroll
LifeGuard Executive Director
2632 North 20th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85006
602-707-3535
Fax 602-707-3536
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 12:01 PM
To: 'Tisa McCay'
Cc: Capriotti, Teresa
Subject: MS Statement on your site
Tisa…we appreciate your feedback. We have made changes to our program and will begin sending letters out today. When you have time, if you can change your site to reflect the wording below we would appreciate your help.
VIP for MS Patients
LifeGuard at the Arizona Heart Institute has established the Venous Impairment Program (VIP) to diagnose venous abnormalities that may be associated with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Diagnostic testing and intervention, if necessary, is offered to patients with a neurologist’s diagnosis of MS.
The cash price for the diagnostic testing is $2,700. If your studies indicate venous abnormalities, a venogram with venous angioplasty will be offered at the cash price of $7,000. At the present time, insurance is not accepted for this program. We are happy to give you a statement which includes procedure and CPT codes for services rendered. You may use this to submit a claim to your insurance provider on your behalf to determine if you are eligible for reimbursement of any of your expenses. Any payment by insurance should be sent directly to you, the patient. If you are interested in this program, please contact us at VIP@Lifeguardclinic.com.
Also the original list is still in effect. If you are on it you will receive an email in the next 3 working days. you can still email Teresa to check your spot on the list
Thanks,
Sue Carroll
LifeGuard Executive Director
2632 North 20th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85006
602-707-3535
Fax 602-707-3536
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Good News
Hey everyone, I had a meeting with Dr. d and Teresa today, and shared all of your comments of disappointment. They are now revising the cost and including treatment immediately following testing if needed. They really want to help. Tomorrow they are sending me a revised version of cost and a statement to confirm they will be treating as well. I will post it as soon as I get it. Still working hard for all of you. T
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
From Teresa
LifeGuard Website and Tisa’s Blog/Facebook
VIP for MS Patients
LifeGuard at the Arizona Heart Institute has established the Venous Impairment Program (VIP) to diagnose venous abnormalities that may be associated with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). At the present time, only diagnostic testing is offered to patients with a neurologist’s diagnosis of MS. We anticipate adding an interventional program to treat venous insufficiency once sufficient studies are done to confirm the correlation between venous disease and MS. Diagnostic studies offered include:
Bilateral internal jugular and vertebral venous duplex ultrasound
Multislice venous CT of the head and neck
If preliminary testing suggests venous insufficiency, venograms are an option for further diagnosis
The cash price for the diagnostic testing is $3,000. The optional venogram would be an additional $4000. At the present time, we do not accept insurance. If you are interested in this program, please contact us at VIP@Lifeguard.com.
Sue Carroll
LifeGuard Executive Director
2632 North 20th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85006
602-707-3535
Fax 602-707-3536
VIP for MS Patients
LifeGuard at the Arizona Heart Institute has established the Venous Impairment Program (VIP) to diagnose venous abnormalities that may be associated with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). At the present time, only diagnostic testing is offered to patients with a neurologist’s diagnosis of MS. We anticipate adding an interventional program to treat venous insufficiency once sufficient studies are done to confirm the correlation between venous disease and MS. Diagnostic studies offered include:
Bilateral internal jugular and vertebral venous duplex ultrasound
Multislice venous CT of the head and neck
If preliminary testing suggests venous insufficiency, venograms are an option for further diagnosis
The cash price for the diagnostic testing is $3,000. The optional venogram would be an additional $4000. At the present time, we do not accept insurance. If you are interested in this program, please contact us at VIP@Lifeguard.com.
Sue Carroll
LifeGuard Executive Director
2632 North 20th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85006
602-707-3535
Fax 602-707-3536
Thursday, August 5, 2010
I missed Teresa's Call, but will talk to her tomorrow
However her message did say to tell all of you that they will be sending patient information packets out on Monday to everyone on the list and that they are still moving ahead at full speed.
Answers
So Everyone is asking what does this mean? (about the merger with AZ heart) It was done to better help the hospital move forward in innovative procedures. Is is going to slow things down? No way. Spoke with Teresa this morning. They have a 3 pm mountain standard time meeting today about whats happening. She promised to call me after and let me know what is happening. So stay tuned. I will write a new blog with Answers from Teresa after 3 when ever she calls me. And stay positive people please. I do everything in my power, and will keep doing so.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
News About AZ Heart; Dr. Diethrich did this on purpose to move foward with new procedures. It says right here
Amid mounting debts, physician-owned Arizona Heart Institute files for bankruptcy as part of acquisition deal
August 4, 2010 | Shelley Wood
Phoenix, AZ - In what may be a sign of the times, one of the oldest physician-owned heart institutes in the US has filed for bankruptcy as part of an acquisition agreement with a for-profit healthcare management company. The Arizona Heart Institute and Abrazo Health Care, a subsidiary of Vanguard Health Systems, announced the deal late Monday; the affiliated Arizona Heart Hospital, almost half of which was once physician-owned, is also in discussions with Vanguard.
World-renowned cardiovascular surgeon Dr Edward Diethrich is the medical director of both the hospital and the institute, which he founded nearly 40 years ago. He explained to heartwire that the institute filed the bankruptcy petition only after the agreement with Vanguard was in place, allowing Vanguard to buy the institute's assets free and clear of liens and other claims under what's known as a 363 asset purchase agreement.
News of the Arizona Heart Institute's bankruptcy petition and Vanguard agreement comes as physician-owned specialty hospitals, as well as independent cardiology practice groups, struggle for survival in what is seemingly an increasingly hostile healthcare environment for both types of institutions.
In the red
In the institute's bankruptcy petition, the number of unsecured creditors is listed as between 200 and 999, while the institute's assets are listed as being between $10 million and $50 million and liabilities at $1 million to $10 million.
Among the list of creditors holding the 20 largest unsecured claims in the bankruptcy petition are GE Healthcare, with an unsecured claim of more than $780 000 for the lease of ultrasound and other equipment, plus a second claim of almost $200 000 for repair and maintenance services. VAS Communications, a medical marketing company, is listed with a claim of $470 400 for "services." Two separate lease claims, one for the Casa Grande office and another for the Surprise office, total over $250 000. The remaining unsecured claims listed in this top-20 list range from $36 000 to $150 000. There are 62 additional pages of creditors listed in the petition.
Mary Wheeler, a spokesperson for the institute, emphasized that a 363 sale is part of the reorganization plan, decided upon prior to filing the petition by both the buyer and the seller. "The buyer, Vanguard, purchases the Arizona Heart Institute, and the proceeds from the purchase are then redistributed toward our outstanding debt owed to our creditors, including vendors, as determined and directed by the courts," she explained to heartwire. "Our voluntary decision to pursue this reorganization, along with the execution of the Vanguard definitive agreement, was strategic and in everyone's best interest, including the institute's employees and physicians, vendors, and most important, our patients."
A solution? Not soon enough for some
Dr Fredric Klopf, who with Dr Murli Raman left West Valley satellites of the Arizona Heart Institute in June to join the competing physician-owned practice group Cardiac Solutions, told heartwire they showed up for work June 1 at the institute's Peoria office to find they'd been evicted for not keeping up on the rent. According to Klopf, the Arizona Heart Institute owed almost $100 000 in lease payments at that specific location dating back at least six months. Klopf and Raman actually were minority owners of the building at the time but were not part of the decision to evict the Arizona Heart Institute branch, Klopf said.
According to Klopf, the institute's arrears at the West Valley satellites included unpaid bills for medical transcription, cleaning, laundry services, and answering services, as well as salaries that weren't paid according to contracts. In fact, fearing the worst, Klopf said he and Raman, aware that the satellite offices were in dire financial trouble, had been in discussions with Vanguard for months about ways to salvage/reopen the clinics, including an offer from Vanguard of back pay to make up the shortfall in their wages over the previous two years, an amount ranging from $500 000 to $1 million each, depending on the calculation used. The proposed temporary solution was for Klopf and Raman to continue to see patients out of the downtown Phoenix offices after the satellites were shuttered, until the Vanguard acquisition was finalized and the debts paid off, something Klopf says was not a reasonable solution, even temporarily, for their largely elderly clientele, "who don't like to drive five miles, let alone 20," Klopf said.
Exactly what kind of debts will now be settled as a result of the bankruptcy filing and acquisition agreement, and to what extent, remains to be seen.
Wheeler could not discuss the institute's outstanding debts, saying only that "the courts [will] determine how the proceeds from the sale are redistributed among our outstanding debts to creditors." Without addressing any of the debts specifically, Wheeler added that at no time was patient care affected in any way.
Lisa Levi, a spokesperson for Vanguard, also declined to discuss the extent of the institute's debts, but noted that the 363 bankruptcy filing is "in essence, a prepackaged bankruptcy filing in which Abrazo was represented as the intended purchaser subject to the judge granting a sale order."
The winds of change
For the physicians remaining at the Arizona Heart Institute, almost all of whom also work at the hospital, the Vanguard acquisition may offer some stability for the beleaguered institute, which has closed a number of other satellite facilities over the past year. There are 15 physicians who work at the downtown offices, Diethrich said. None of the physicians who have an ownership interest in either the hospital or the institute have made dividends from either business, he added.
Over at the Arizona Heart Hospital, the majority owner is Medcath Corp; according to Wheeler, physician ownership of the hospital is now just 28%, down from a high of 49% in the past. Any decision on whether the hospital will also be sold to Vanguard remains MedCath's, Diethrich said, adding that he expects an announcement this week.
According to Diethrich, having a single owner of the institute, the hospital, and ideally the affiliated Arizona Heart Institute Translational Research Center as well, would "make sense" from a business perspective. Over the past few years, he said, MedCath has "felt challenged" by the increasing legislation limiting physician-owned hospitals: section 6001 of the recently passed Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act prohibits physician-owned hospitals that see Medicare patients from expanding (as of March 23, 2010) and bans any new physician-owned Medicare hospitals that are not certified as Medicare providers before the end of the year.
In the current healthcare environment, says Diethrich, MedCath has also "by necessity" become increasingly uninterested in supporting activities beyond clinical care.
"All of that has been very hard for us here at the Heart Institute, because as the philosophy of the hospital environment changes . . . it changes the orientation of your program," Diethrich explained. "We've been very involved in research, education, cutting-edge technologies, and being on the leading edge . . . but when your hospital partner becomes less interested, is a public company, and is not sharing the enthusiasm for the expenditures for research and education that we have, the institute has had to take over this [expense] more and more," he said.
"Very, very costly"
Over the past three years, the institute has "spent an exorbitant amount of money" building new labs and investing in imaging and other state-of-the-art technology, Diethrich told heartwire. "It was very, very costly to us: big expenditures without much help from our hospital partners. As time went on, it was pretty clear to us that we'd have to make some different kinds of relationships."
Vanguard's Abrazo group, which already owns five other hospitals in the Phoenix area, "is the best fit," Diethrich is quoted as saying in a press release, which also notes that the acquisition of the Arizona Heart Institute is the first independent cardiovascular specialty physician practice Abrazo has added to its local network.
Diethrich believes some of the pressures his institute has faced are also being felt by physician groups around the nation. "I do think that we're going to see a reduction in physician-owned hospital practices, and on the other hand, you're going to see an accelerated number of physician groups going with the hospital and working for the hospitals under contracts."
Physicians are "very nervous" about the changes going on in US healthcare, he continued. "[There's] a lot of angst about this, and I think physicians are unsure what the direction is going to be, and what kind of practice they are going to have if they are alone and solo; a lot of things are very scary. You see this happening already, all over the US, where entire groups have now joined a hospital and work for the hospital."
Other factors behind woes
Klopf, however, who witnessed firsthand many of the changes taking place both within and outside of the Arizona Heart Institute, says the blame does not rest solely with a changing healthcare environment. While he spoke glowingly of Diethrich and his vision, calling him "a great guy and a great, innovative surgeon who has really built a great institute," Klopf believes the era of "extravagant" investment in specialized institutes is probably over.
He points to a decline in the number of referrals to specialized institutes like Arizona Heart for the big money-making procedures, as regional practices and hospitals have expanded to include more open-heart and complex interventional services; an increase in the number of high-cost/low-reimbursement procedures by institute physicians; and its expensive international development arm, which sought to open a heart hospital in Singapore, known as Arizona Heart International.
"It's not a secret that [the Arizona Heart Institute] has accumulated a lot of debt over the years," Klopf told heartwire. "I think their problems have much less to do with the changing climate in terms of physician-owned hospitals and subspecialty hospitals and more to do with the debt they've accrued over the years, and the fact that they had to file bankruptcy in order to reorganize. There are really a lot of bigger issues that are independent of the broader healthcare environment."
August 4, 2010 | Shelley Wood
Phoenix, AZ - In what may be a sign of the times, one of the oldest physician-owned heart institutes in the US has filed for bankruptcy as part of an acquisition agreement with a for-profit healthcare management company. The Arizona Heart Institute and Abrazo Health Care, a subsidiary of Vanguard Health Systems, announced the deal late Monday; the affiliated Arizona Heart Hospital, almost half of which was once physician-owned, is also in discussions with Vanguard.
World-renowned cardiovascular surgeon Dr Edward Diethrich is the medical director of both the hospital and the institute, which he founded nearly 40 years ago. He explained to heartwire that the institute filed the bankruptcy petition only after the agreement with Vanguard was in place, allowing Vanguard to buy the institute's assets free and clear of liens and other claims under what's known as a 363 asset purchase agreement.
News of the Arizona Heart Institute's bankruptcy petition and Vanguard agreement comes as physician-owned specialty hospitals, as well as independent cardiology practice groups, struggle for survival in what is seemingly an increasingly hostile healthcare environment for both types of institutions.
In the red
In the institute's bankruptcy petition, the number of unsecured creditors is listed as between 200 and 999, while the institute's assets are listed as being between $10 million and $50 million and liabilities at $1 million to $10 million.
Among the list of creditors holding the 20 largest unsecured claims in the bankruptcy petition are GE Healthcare, with an unsecured claim of more than $780 000 for the lease of ultrasound and other equipment, plus a second claim of almost $200 000 for repair and maintenance services. VAS Communications, a medical marketing company, is listed with a claim of $470 400 for "services." Two separate lease claims, one for the Casa Grande office and another for the Surprise office, total over $250 000. The remaining unsecured claims listed in this top-20 list range from $36 000 to $150 000. There are 62 additional pages of creditors listed in the petition.
Mary Wheeler, a spokesperson for the institute, emphasized that a 363 sale is part of the reorganization plan, decided upon prior to filing the petition by both the buyer and the seller. "The buyer, Vanguard, purchases the Arizona Heart Institute, and the proceeds from the purchase are then redistributed toward our outstanding debt owed to our creditors, including vendors, as determined and directed by the courts," she explained to heartwire. "Our voluntary decision to pursue this reorganization, along with the execution of the Vanguard definitive agreement, was strategic and in everyone's best interest, including the institute's employees and physicians, vendors, and most important, our patients."
A solution? Not soon enough for some
Dr Fredric Klopf, who with Dr Murli Raman left West Valley satellites of the Arizona Heart Institute in June to join the competing physician-owned practice group Cardiac Solutions, told heartwire they showed up for work June 1 at the institute's Peoria office to find they'd been evicted for not keeping up on the rent. According to Klopf, the Arizona Heart Institute owed almost $100 000 in lease payments at that specific location dating back at least six months. Klopf and Raman actually were minority owners of the building at the time but were not part of the decision to evict the Arizona Heart Institute branch, Klopf said.
According to Klopf, the institute's arrears at the West Valley satellites included unpaid bills for medical transcription, cleaning, laundry services, and answering services, as well as salaries that weren't paid according to contracts. In fact, fearing the worst, Klopf said he and Raman, aware that the satellite offices were in dire financial trouble, had been in discussions with Vanguard for months about ways to salvage/reopen the clinics, including an offer from Vanguard of back pay to make up the shortfall in their wages over the previous two years, an amount ranging from $500 000 to $1 million each, depending on the calculation used. The proposed temporary solution was for Klopf and Raman to continue to see patients out of the downtown Phoenix offices after the satellites were shuttered, until the Vanguard acquisition was finalized and the debts paid off, something Klopf says was not a reasonable solution, even temporarily, for their largely elderly clientele, "who don't like to drive five miles, let alone 20," Klopf said.
Exactly what kind of debts will now be settled as a result of the bankruptcy filing and acquisition agreement, and to what extent, remains to be seen.
Wheeler could not discuss the institute's outstanding debts, saying only that "the courts [will] determine how the proceeds from the sale are redistributed among our outstanding debts to creditors." Without addressing any of the debts specifically, Wheeler added that at no time was patient care affected in any way.
Lisa Levi, a spokesperson for Vanguard, also declined to discuss the extent of the institute's debts, but noted that the 363 bankruptcy filing is "in essence, a prepackaged bankruptcy filing in which Abrazo was represented as the intended purchaser subject to the judge granting a sale order."
The winds of change
For the physicians remaining at the Arizona Heart Institute, almost all of whom also work at the hospital, the Vanguard acquisition may offer some stability for the beleaguered institute, which has closed a number of other satellite facilities over the past year. There are 15 physicians who work at the downtown offices, Diethrich said. None of the physicians who have an ownership interest in either the hospital or the institute have made dividends from either business, he added.
Over at the Arizona Heart Hospital, the majority owner is Medcath Corp; according to Wheeler, physician ownership of the hospital is now just 28%, down from a high of 49% in the past. Any decision on whether the hospital will also be sold to Vanguard remains MedCath's, Diethrich said, adding that he expects an announcement this week.
According to Diethrich, having a single owner of the institute, the hospital, and ideally the affiliated Arizona Heart Institute Translational Research Center as well, would "make sense" from a business perspective. Over the past few years, he said, MedCath has "felt challenged" by the increasing legislation limiting physician-owned hospitals: section 6001 of the recently passed Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act prohibits physician-owned hospitals that see Medicare patients from expanding (as of March 23, 2010) and bans any new physician-owned Medicare hospitals that are not certified as Medicare providers before the end of the year.
In the current healthcare environment, says Diethrich, MedCath has also "by necessity" become increasingly uninterested in supporting activities beyond clinical care.
"All of that has been very hard for us here at the Heart Institute, because as the philosophy of the hospital environment changes . . . it changes the orientation of your program," Diethrich explained. "We've been very involved in research, education, cutting-edge technologies, and being on the leading edge . . . but when your hospital partner becomes less interested, is a public company, and is not sharing the enthusiasm for the expenditures for research and education that we have, the institute has had to take over this [expense] more and more," he said.
"Very, very costly"
Over the past three years, the institute has "spent an exorbitant amount of money" building new labs and investing in imaging and other state-of-the-art technology, Diethrich told heartwire. "It was very, very costly to us: big expenditures without much help from our hospital partners. As time went on, it was pretty clear to us that we'd have to make some different kinds of relationships."
Vanguard's Abrazo group, which already owns five other hospitals in the Phoenix area, "is the best fit," Diethrich is quoted as saying in a press release, which also notes that the acquisition of the Arizona Heart Institute is the first independent cardiovascular specialty physician practice Abrazo has added to its local network.
Diethrich believes some of the pressures his institute has faced are also being felt by physician groups around the nation. "I do think that we're going to see a reduction in physician-owned hospital practices, and on the other hand, you're going to see an accelerated number of physician groups going with the hospital and working for the hospitals under contracts."
Physicians are "very nervous" about the changes going on in US healthcare, he continued. "[There's] a lot of angst about this, and I think physicians are unsure what the direction is going to be, and what kind of practice they are going to have if they are alone and solo; a lot of things are very scary. You see this happening already, all over the US, where entire groups have now joined a hospital and work for the hospital."
Other factors behind woes
Klopf, however, who witnessed firsthand many of the changes taking place both within and outside of the Arizona Heart Institute, says the blame does not rest solely with a changing healthcare environment. While he spoke glowingly of Diethrich and his vision, calling him "a great guy and a great, innovative surgeon who has really built a great institute," Klopf believes the era of "extravagant" investment in specialized institutes is probably over.
He points to a decline in the number of referrals to specialized institutes like Arizona Heart for the big money-making procedures, as regional practices and hospitals have expanded to include more open-heart and complex interventional services; an increase in the number of high-cost/low-reimbursement procedures by institute physicians; and its expensive international development arm, which sought to open a heart hospital in Singapore, known as Arizona Heart International.
"It's not a secret that [the Arizona Heart Institute] has accumulated a lot of debt over the years," Klopf told heartwire. "I think their problems have much less to do with the changing climate in terms of physician-owned hospitals and subspecialty hospitals and more to do with the debt they've accrued over the years, and the fact that they had to file bankruptcy in order to reorganize. There are really a lot of bigger issues that are independent of the broader healthcare environment."
Monday, August 2, 2010
A Tiny update
I spoke with Teresa last week. She said they were just finalizing cost and insurance. They were still Unsure if insurance will cover it. But other than that they are starting as soon as they can get the cost down. Sorry I don't have a better update than that. If I could go in there and make them move faster I would. You guys all know that I am on your side.
Email Teresa with Questions or if you want to be added to the list.
tcapriotti@azheart.com
Email Teresa with Questions or if you want to be added to the list.
tcapriotti@azheart.com
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