The late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s legacy to the health-care industry has been carried out on the North Side, but church leaders say much work is to be done on the other half of the city.
The Archdiocese of Chicago has confirmed that several South Side Catholic hospitals are talking about linking together in some form, but their financial difficulties may be keeping a network from taking shape until next year.
“There are conversations going on, but there is no concerted effort,” said Bishop Edwin Conway, liaison for health affairs at the archdiocese. “No network or system is coming together like there was with Resurrection [Health Care].”
Indeed, Resurrection Health Care recently agreed to purchase St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chicago, adding a fifth hospital to a system that now stretches from the North Side Lincoln Park neighborhood to the city’s adjacent near north and northwest suburbs.
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Such consolidation was part of Bernardin’s vision to preserve Catholic health care in the Chicago archdiocese, which he saw threatened by giant health-care corporations gobbling up independent community hospitals. The archdiocese doesn’t own Catholic hospitals but has worked with the various religious orders of nuns who do sponsor health facilities.
The archdiocese also still sees a threat to some of the city’s remaining independent Catholic hospitals from reductions in federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid.
“We are afraid for freestanding hospitals and their ability to serve poor neighborhoods,” Conway said.
Yet several independent Catholic hospitals are interested in forming partnerships on the South Side and quietly have begun discussions.
Catholic Health Partners, which is selling St. Joseph to Resurrection, is waiting for a partner to emerge for its South Side facility, St. Anthony Hospital, 2875 W. 19th St., and has had talks with undisclosed parties.
Conway believes talks will become serious early next year after several independent Catholic hospitals on the South Side improve their financial operations.
Both Mercy Hospital Medical Center and Holy Cross Hospital, also of the South Side, are amid financial restructuring plans that have recently included layoffs.
“Some of these facilities need to come back internally so they can then talk to one another,” Conway said. “It’s easier to rationalize services once you have a system.”
Privacy right: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois may be taking another step toward national expansion, but the state’s largest health insurer isn’t ready to mix it up on Wall Street with publicly traded giants.
The Illinois Blues last week confirmed a plan to buy GenAm Benefits Insurance Co., a St. Louis-based stock insurance company with licenses to do business in 42 states.
As part of the deal, GenAm will convert to mutual reserve status like the Illinois Blues and therefore be owned by policyholders.
“We are committed to not-for-profit mutual status,” said Robert Kieckhefer, vice president for public affairs at the Illinois Blues.
Although Blues executives have discussed the possibility of a publicly traded venture in the past, the insurer doesn’t believe such a move is necessary as long as the firm has access to capital.
The Illinois Blues, which also owns Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, recently took steps to be more competitive without a public offering by affiliating with The Regence Group, a Portland, Ore.-based firm with health plans that operate under the Blues’ names in Oregon, Utah, Washington and Idaho. Combined, the Illinois Blues and Regence plans have more than $2 billion in reserves to aid their expansions.
Blues executives say the Regence deal is designed to “strengthen both of the companies so they can survive as not-for-profits,” Kieckhefer said.
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