Health care ruling a victory, says Dignity CEO

"Life," said Lloyd Dean, CEO of Dignity Health, "is not too bad today."

Dean, a strong supporter of President Obama and a longtime advocate of universal health insurance, said Thursday's Supreme Court ruling was "a victory for patient care, and for those underserved by the health care system."

He had initially been skeptical of Obama's one-fell-swoop approach, telling The Chronicle in 2008 "some incremental steps" might be best, given the exigencies of the Great Recession. "There are not the resources available we could have hoped for," said Dean, who was on the short list to be Obama's secretary of health and human services.

Dean soon came around to the administration's thinking, but says the fight is not over. "The current law is not perfect. We need to fix the elements that people have had difficulties with." In particular, costs. "Although the act begins to bend the cost curve, we have to address how we're going to pay for what we are planning to deliver," he said.

"We have to find a way to deliver quality health care services in a cost-effective manner. That means people only be admitted to hospitals who really need to be in a hospital. That there is more focus on preventative care, that chronic conditions get treated early, before they become acute."

Dignity Health (formerly Catholic Healthcare West), headquartered in San Francisco, is the fifth-largest hospital chain in the country, with 40 full-service hospitals in California, Arizona and Nevada, and 150 ancillary clinics. It's one of 26 hospitals nationwide chosen byMedicare for a pilot program, funded by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, to try to reduce the high rate of health complications and hospital readmissions (and high costs) among elderly patients.

While profitable, the company, which recorded $10.6 billion in revenue last year, is "burdened" by low reimbursements from a large number of Medicaid patients, and the low-cost or free medical services it provides, according to a Standard and Poor's report.

Reductions in Medicare reimbursements to hospitals, as provided in the act, might not make life any easier. Still, said Dean, "we supported this legislation, even though it reduces payments to hospitals, because the new delivery model it creates focuses on reducing costs by increasing the quality of care."

But, he said, "it doesn't get us off the agenda of being a more cost effective, higher quality provider of service."

"Hopefully," he added, referring to the Supreme Court's ruling, "we have enough stability and momentum to address the issues that need to be fixed."

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