March 19, 2024

Loebsack tours Health Enterprises Medical Laboratory

U.S. Congressman Dave Loebsack toured the Health Enterprises Medical Laboratory, which opened in May, Monday afternoon in Newton.

Meeting with Judy Sadler, CEO of Health Enterprises, Bruce Barnes, CFO of Health Enterprises, Jonathan Wilke, Director of Busienss Development, Brett Altman CEO of Skiff Medical Center and Deb Corlew, Director of the Laboratory, Loebsack had the chance to see specimens curried in and observed medical laboratory technicians use the chemical system machine.

Loebsack spoke with Sadler about the history of Health Enterprises and what it will be doing in Newton and the state of Iowa.

“Eventually, with time we would like this to be Iowa’s reference lab, keep the dollars in the state,” Sadler said.

“It’s all about saving dollars,” Loebsack said. Altman added that Health Enterprises will improve the access for the rural Iowa hospitals.

“Plus it saves money in the health care system because we’re not buying all of the same products,” Altman said.

While viewing the blood bank the laboratory has on site, Loebsack shared a story about when he traveled overseas.

“The first time I went to Iraq, with a delegation, this was in February of 2007, I had never been into a war zone. We went to this armored vehicle ... first question was what’s your blood type. I don’t know what my blood type is, half of us didn’t know what it was. ‘Why do you want to know?’ Well we’re going to talk to you now about in the event you are in a Black Hawk and you’re flying over Baghdad and you get shot we need to know your blood type,” Loebsack said. Corlew reassured him that they would never give him blood without testing him or they would give him O negative, the universal blood type.

“If anything would have happened to us, that might have been the least of our worries,” Loebsack said.

While fielding questions from the group, Loebsack acknowledged that medicare reimbursement rates are a major issue in the state of Iowa.

“I think the best thing to do is to move us ... to a reimbursement based on value, I realize it is not easy to define what value is. That’s where we’re moving, it will take a while to get there,” Loebsack said. “Iowa will benefit period, Iowa providers. I am very aware that we’re always at or near the top in terms of the value of the quality of care that is provided here in Iowa. And then we’re always at or near the bottom in terms of reimbursement rate.”

“We’ve got to move the model, change the model. I think that is going to help Iowa, no doubt eventually.”

Altman brought the groups attention that Loebsack is very knowledgeable about Skiff’s “tweener” status and continued with the issues the hospital is having with reimbursement.

“The formula set up for a tweener hospital, we’re basically being reimbursed about 95 percent of cost and that formula just doesn’t work,” Altman said. “To be in these medium sized communities, it is a struggle.”

“Ultimately we’ve got to have you folks here, so patients can have access to good quality, affordable care,” Loebsack said.

Contact Staff Writer Jamee A. Pierson at (641) 792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com.