Hope for the healers 2 Chatting with chaplains 3 Executive changes 7 PERIODICAL RATE PUBLICATION
MARCH 2025 VOLUME 41, NUMBER 3
Proposals for drastic Medicaid cuts worry providers across Catholic health care By LISA EISENHAUER
Ryan Cross would like the people behind budget proposals that call for drastic cuts to Medicaid to visit Our Lady of the Angels Hospital in Bogalusa, Louisiana. The 66-bed hospital serves a community of about 10,000 and its rural surroundings with acute, emergency and specialty care that includes labor and delivery and pediatrics. The next closest hospital with similar services is 45 Cross miles away. With 450 staffers, it is one of the largest employers in its parish. Of the patients the hospital treats, about 44% rely on Medicaid for coverage
A child in the equine-assisted therapy program in Kodiak, Alaska, hugs his horse. Instructors say children in the program tend to develop strong bonds with their four-legged helpers.
‘MAGICAL CONNECTION’
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MEDICAID BY THE NUMBERS
Equine-assisted therapy program impacts young lives By NANCY FOWLER
T
he setting for physical, occupational or speech therapy is typically a clinical environment — not an outdoor, fenced-in area. But that’s where children in Kodiak, Alaska, receive therapy every summer with the help of 1,000-pound assistants sporting glossy coats. It’s called hippotherapy, a practice
in which horses or ponies are part of the treatment. Hippotherapy helps people with issues including those involving neurological function, cognition and muscle tone, says Amy Stohl, an occupational therapist at Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center. The hospital is part of Providence St. Joseph Health, which helps support Kodiak’s Therapeutic Riding and Equine Assisted
Medicaid/CHIP enrollment: About 80 million Pre-ACA average monthly enrollment: About 57 million The federal government paid 69% ($606 billion) and states paid 31% ($274 billion) of the costs of Medicaid ($880 billion) in FFY 2023 Medicaid represents nearly $1 out of every $5 spent on health care in the U.S. Federal matching dollars cover at least 50% of the cost of qualified services for eligible enrollees, with no cap Source: KFF
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Our Lady of the Lake Health’s Community Impact Center provides space for nonprofits
Conversations with peers are part of Mercy’s approach to addressing problematic physician behavior
By VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN
The nonprofits sharing space at Our Lady of the Lake Health’s Community Impact Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, are celebrating the best kind of officemate situation: one that happened organically and over time. The building opened years ago as a day center for older adults but that program ended. Now, it houses the office of Our Lady of the Lake Health’s director for community impact, Monique Marino, and the offices of the leaders of about a dozen nonMarino profit organizations. Most of them moved in last year. Marino is excited about the potential of the center and the impact it could have for the community. The nonprofit hub is the only such space in Baton Rouge, and the tenants use its Continued on 6
By JULIE MINDA
Mohammed had lived from age 2 to 18. He had been eager to return to the beloved community where his parents and boyhood friends still live. The icing on the cake was that a new employee benefit from Mercy Health provided him $10,000 in down payment assistance when he and his wife, Iman, bought a
Mercy is using a standardized reporting system, prompt responses, and, sometimes, a conversational approach to try to put a quick end to disruptive physician behavior. The Chesterfield, Missouri-based system has developed two programs within its systemwide harm reporting tool — Safety Accountability and Feedback for Everyone, or SAFE — that specifically track and seek to counter problematic physician behavior. Dr. Chad Smith and Kathryn Nelson, who have roles at Mercy connected with SAFE, say disruptive physician behavior while rare can pose a direct threat to patient safety, have a negative impact on patient outcomes, and put the safety and well-being of the offending physicians’ colleagues at risk. They say the reporting programs are designed to get at the root of problematic physician behavior in a
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Dr. Mutahher Mohammed, a primary care physician at Mercy Health — Urbana Family Medicine and Pediatrics in Ohio, is joined by his wife, Iman; their son, Suliman; and their daughter, Minha, in front of their new house in Springfield, Ohio, last year. Mohammed was the first Mercy Health — Springfield employee to take advantage of the health system’s new down payment assistance program.
Two Bon Secours Mercy Health markets pilot down payment assistance for employees By JULIE MINDA
After Dr. Mutahher Mohammed completed his residency in July, he was thrilled to accept a position as a primary care physician at Mercy Health — Urbana Family Medicine and Pediatrics in Ohio. Working in Urbana meant he and his family could move to nearby Springfield, Ohio, where