California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of March 20, 2009
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Colton
On March 17, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved an appropriation of $23.2 million from a tobacco tax settlement to fund the construction of a new three-story medical office building at the Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, the San Bernardino County Sun reports.Â
The addition will include an outpatient dialysis center, a primary care clinic for county workers, and offices and conference rooms for educating and training physicians in the hospital's residency program.Â
Patrick Petre, the hospital's CEO, said the addition will allow the hospital to better meet the demands of its growing clientele (Sorba, San Bernardino County Sun, 3/17).
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
Last week, the Los Angeles Planning Commission authorized the construction of a new tower at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The 200,000-square-foot expansion will include 100 additional patient beds and 700 parking spaces (Groves, Los Angeles Times, 3/13).
Coastside Family Medical Center, Half Moon Bay
Coastside Family Medical Center has closed permanently, the San Mateo County Times reports.Â
As one of the only two medical facilities in the area, Coastside served about 26,000 patients last year, 40% of whom did not have insurance.
Seton Medical Center in Moss Beach will take on Coastside's patients (Myers, San Mateo County Times, 3/17).
El Camino Hospital, Los Gatos
This week, El Camino Hospital representatives told Los Gatos officials that they plan to open the hospital's recently purchased facility in Los Gatos almost two months earlier than initially expected, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
El Camino bought Los Gatos Community Hospital in December after Tenet Healthcare announced that it would not renew its lease on the facility.
Tenet is vacating the property early, making it possible for El Camino to expedite its re-opening process (Samuels, San Jose Mercury News, 3/18).
Riverside Community Hospital
Riverside Community Hospital is proceeding with plans to double its size to meet the demands of an increasing patient population, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.
The new building, originally planned to have nine stories, will now have 10 stories, but the estimated cost of $400 million has not changed.
Tracy Dallarda, a spokesperson for the hospital, said hospital officials aim for the project to be completed by 2013, or 2015 at the latest (Haberman, Riverside Press Enterprise, 3/14).
San Mateo Medical Center
San Mateo County has paid $6.8 million to settle federal charges that San Mateo Medical Center filed false Medicaid and Medicare claims, officials said last week, the Mercury News reports.
In a statement, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California alleged that the medical center inflated the amount of its acute care beds between 1998 and 2007 to receive larger Medicare payouts.
San Mateo County Budget Director Jim Saco said that county officials anticipated the payout and allocated $7 million for it in this year's budget (Bernstein-Wax, San Jose Mercury News, 3/13).
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