Run-for-profit VA Clinics Close in Northern Wisconsin, Sending Vets Scrambling for Health Care

Update II: Minneapolis to open temporary VA clinic in Rice Lake

Update: Veterans Administration clinics in Hayward and Rice Lake may re-open Monday

Another exhibit demonstrating that health care ought not be a commodity to be sold for profit, especially for our veterans.

The VA contracted out health care services for veterans to Corporate Health & Wellness, Inc and the company subsequently closed down two VA clinics in Northern Wisconsin, complaining that they were not making a profit.

The VA and Corporate Health & Wellness, Inc's CEO Mary Cheek have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

I wonder how they received this VA contract.

Did Mary Cheek contribute money to Republicans? Readers who have a minute ought to look into this.

From Business Week, Dinesh Ramde reports:

Two Veterans Affairs clinics in northwestern Wisconsin closed abruptly this week, leaving nearly 1,000 local veterans wondering where they will get health care.

"Guys are worried. We've got some guys on oxygen, some guys who aren't doing so well, don't know what's going to happen," said Jim Sanders, the post commander for the American Legion Post 87 in Rice Lake. "But (if) they need to get to a clinic and don't know how, one way or another we'll get 'em there."

Some 915 veterans had enrolled at two VA clinics opened in Rice Lake and Hayward earlier this year to handle simple outpatient procedures such as regular checkups, physicals, blood draws and x-rays.

But the Kentucky corporation that runs the clinics closed them Monday, saying the VA hadn't fulfilled its promises to help run them profitably. The VA, in turn, accused the company of leaving veterans in the lurch.
Veterans with appointments scheduled this week are being sent to other clinics within 60 miles, including those in Superior, Chippewa Falls and Minneapolis, said Ralph Heussner, a spokesman for the Minneapolis VA Medical Center that oversaw the two Wisconsin clinics.

The VA hired the company, Corporate Health & Wellness, Inc., in February to run the two clinics. The Paris, Ky.,-based company agreed to accept a fixed sum per month instead of having the VA reimburse it dollar for dollar, president and chief executive Mary Cheek said.
It quickly felt pressure from the government to spend more on supplies and equipment than it had budgeted and could pay.

"We were losing $26,000 a month," Cheek said.

When she told the government its demands were wiping out her profits, Cheek said, she was told to file for an adjustment to the contract. But nothing ever came of the filings. Closing the clinics, she insisted, was a temporary measure that the company was forced into.

Regardless, the move could constitute a breach of contract the VA will discuss with its attorneys, Heussner said.

In the meantime, the facility in Minneapolis will do whatever is necessary to accommodate additional patients, including extending hours or supplementing staff with physicians from the closed facilities, he said.
Wisconsin's two Democratic senators and U.S. Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wausau, issued a strongly worded joint statement Tuesday condemning the closings.

"It's behavior like this that shows why contracting out government services is a real risk to the taxpayer and the American public," Obey said. ...

Cheek said her corporation has other similar contracts with the VA but she declined to say where and how many. The others have been free of the financial issues plaguing the two Wisconsin sites, she said.

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