Re: [MLUG] mlug?

[Stephen Montgomery-Smith <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Jonathan King wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
>
>
> >Jonathan King wrote:
> >
> >I am told from speaking to people on the Faculty Council that
> >they were not involved with these decisions.
>
>
> At other universities I've seen Faculty Councils do not have very
> much power over decisions like this, but they sometimes *do* have
> significant power over hiring and firing of people at the
> Provost/Dean/whatever level.  It doesn't look like MU faculty really
> have this.


I don't think that Faculty Council at MU have any power at all.


>
> >These are the same people who control the hospital, which
> >according to a recent state audit, lost about $12M over 2.5
> >years, because they did not file insurance claims in a timely
> >manner, or properly preauthorise treatments.
>
>
> Well, that's a point simultaneously about the weakness of some IT or
> business systems in the hospital, and the real chaotic nature of
> getting indigent care claims properly filed. ............ 


As I understand it, the problem isn't so much that this happened, rather 
that the upper adminstration had been told repeatedly that this was a 
problem, and they didn't do a thing to correct it.  (This is based upon 
conversations I have had with doctors rather than any document I have 
seen so I am not totally sure as to the accuracy of the above statement.)


>
>
> I mean, all of this stuff is bad for your finances, and it has to
> stop.  But these weren't like the decision to try and pay specialist
> MDs less than the market rate (so that they left for greener
> pastures, leaving you with the new expense of recruiting for a
> replacement) or buying Columbia Regional without a really clear idea
> of why you needed this facility.  (Apparently, they thought that
> Boone would scoop it up if they didn't; now, of course, Boone is
> going to build their own new infrastructure, and Regional looks like
> a real white elephant in this market.)


According to the state audit, the University hired an outside consultant 
about whether they should buy Regional.  The consultant suggested a 
price, but said that the University should not buy Regional at any price 
unless the University adminstration would then institute major and 
important management changes.  Well, the University went and bought the 
hospital, and then totally failed to institute any of the required 
management changes.

There was an article written by Dr. Adelstein in the Tribune a few 
months ago, which gave other examples of severe mismanagement of the 
hospital.  All medical staff I have spoken to say that the article was 
accurate - if anything it understated the case.  You can find the 
article on the Tribune web site - I could try to dig it up.

-- 

Stephen Montgomery-Smith
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~stephen

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