Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal’s FY 2016 Executive Budget http://doa.louisiana.gov/doa/ Presentations/FY16%20Budget%20Highlights.pdf, reports that in the past three years, the State has completely transformed how care is delivered to the uninsured and poor. The plan has been to move from a model of government-run public hospitals to providing care via community partners at independently run hospitals.
The establishment of public-private partnerships have been very successful since safety net care is maintained while supporting and improving graduate medical education in the state. In FY 2014, the partnerships came in $52 million under budget.
Since these public-private partnerships have been launched, there has been increased access to urgent care centers, to preventive care, and now disease management is being provided to uninsured and Medicaid enrollees.
For example, in Baton Rouge, Our Lady of the Lake’s http://fmolhs.org clinics have had more than 126,000 patients visit the clinics. This includes over 30,000 patient visits at the new 24/7 urgent care center that was opened in North Baton Rouge with a second urgent-care center opening in mid-city Baton Rouge. In addition, over 15,000 patients have been seen at the Perkins Surgery Center.
In Lafayette LA, private partner Lafayette General Health www.lafayettegeneral.com has reopened their clinic and hospital capacity that previously had been scaled back but now they have reopened their pediatric clinic, opened a twelve bed medical detox, and returned the orthopedics unit to full time status.
Louisiana Children’s Medical Center www.chnola.org in New Orleans has taken over the operations of the Interim LSU Hospital. Since completing the partnership, the hospital has increased emergency department capacity and reopened several medical/surgical inpatient beds and nine inpatient psychiatric beds
Under partnership with Lake Charles Memorial Health System www.lcmh.com, W.O. Moss www.isuhospitals.org/WOM.aspx in Lake Charles has established a new urgent care clinic and physicians are averaging 28 to 30 patients per day versus ten in 2012. The partnership has also led to acquiring several new specialty care clinics including an orthopedic clinic and a breast health clinic.
In Houma, the partnership between the Terrebonne General Medical Center www.tgmc.com and Ochsner Health System www.ochsner.org has improved patient care with the hiring of new physicians, including a cardiologist, urologist, and family health physician.
As a result, urology services have been expanded at Houma and there has been a 41 percent increase in monthly visits. Additionally, there is an 83 percent increase in urological surgical procedures and a 12 percent increase overall in patient clinic visits.