DENVER-HealthOne last month bought 80-bed Rocky Mountain Rehabilitation Institute in Aurora, Colo. Terms of the deal with Mechanicsburg, Pa.-based Continental Medical Systems weren't disclosed. HealthOne also completed its previously announced merger with 50-bed Bethesda PsychHealth System, Denver, last month. The HealthOne system now will operate six hospitals in the Denver area with 1,137 beds.
HOUSTON-Aetna Health Plans has begun recruiting physicians to staff the 12 to 15 primary-care clinics that it plans to open in the Houston area during the next three years. The clinics, called HealthWays Family Medical Centers, will be open to the general public, not just Aetna managed-care enrollees. Aetna, which piloted to HealthWays clinics in Atlanta, plans to open HealthWays centers in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas; Chicago; Charlotte, N.C.; Cleveland; and Washington/Baltimore. Aetna Health Plans has 350,000 enrollees in the Houston area and 2,300 physicians in its managed-care network.
DENVER-The average total profit margin at Colorado hospitals rose to 6.9% last year from 6.4% in 1992. Profit margins from operations also grew-to 4.9% in 1993 from 4.1% in 1992. Those figures come from the Colorado Hospital Association's annual report on the finances of the 69 general-service hospitals in the state. They spent $3.1 billion to treat patients in 1993, up from $2.9 billion in 1992, the report said. Inpatient admissions rose by less than 1% to 342,200, and the total number of days patients were hospitalized dropped 5% to 1.7 million. Outpatient visits, however, grew 8.9% to 5 million.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.-Healthcare reform efforts in Missouri stalled this month when the legislative session ended without passage of a bill. A House bill endorsed by Gov. Mel Carnahan failed early in the session. It would have placed payers and providers in risk-bearing delivery networks (Feb. 21, p. 8). On the session's last day, senators debated a bill to reform insurance markets but didn't vote on it. It had been released only hours earlier by a House-Senate conference committee. Reformers now must start anew because Missouri doesn't carry old legislation into the next session.
