Three insurers offer coverage this year
Vanderbilt University is going to separate financially from its medical center — a move officials say will allow the hospital system to be more flexible in a time of rapid changes for health care.
The medical center is looking to build upon its Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network, which allows Vanderbilt and partner hospitals to build specialty centers as joint ventures and to share medical expertise. It started in 2011 with just three hospitals has since grown to about 50 in five states, helping give the medical center $2.8 billion in revenue last year.
Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos told The Tennessean that Vanderbilt University Medical Center will be better positioned to secure financing for joint ventures as an independent entity.
Zeppos said the change, which should take between 12 and 18 months to complete, should not affect employees or patients. Medical school students will continue to learn alongside Vanderbilt professors who will continue to staff the medical center.
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Jeff Balser, who will continue to lead VUMC and serve as dean of the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, said that with the consolidation of the health care industry, “we can either be part of a system or we can lead a system.”
“If you had asked me if we would have 50 hospital affiliates two years ago, I would say that just doesn’t sound possible,” Balser said. “Now, here we are.”
The new VUMC model will be similar to models at other schools, including Harvard and Northwestern Universities. But Balser said Vanderbilt is better positioned than many schools to create dynamic changes with its brand thanks to a relatively open landscape in the midsouth.
“In many places of the country, health care is already consolidated, partnerships are already set up,” Balser said. “Whereas in this part of the country it is in evolution.”
VUMC is not looking to buy hospitals. Rather Vanderbilt and its partners share expenses and revenue from joint ventures. Vanderbilt gives partner hospitals access to its medical specialists so they can expand their realm of care. In return, those hospitals refer patients who require a higher level of expertise to Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt also can make its “best-in- class health care IT” platform available to affiliated hospitals, Zeppos said.
Three companies are selling health insurance in Mississippi through a federal website created under the health overhaul that President Barack Obama signed into law.
That’s up from two in the state last year.
A three-month annual enrollment period started Saturday for consumers seeking coverage through the online marketplace, or health exchange.
People can choose from more than one company in 77 of Mississippi’s 82 counties. The only places with a single company offering coverage on the federal website are along or near the Gulf Coast: Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, George and Stone counties.
About 61,500 Mississippi residents bought coverage during the first period of open enrollment a year ago. That was about 21 percent of the potential market.