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Category: Health Care

  • Albert James Mamary, attending physician and professor of thoracic medicine and surgery at Temple, has died at 59

    Albert James Mamary, attending physician and professor of thoracic medicine and surgery at Temple, has died at 59

    Albert James Mamary, 59, of Wynnewood, attending physician and professor of thoracic medicine and surgery at Temple University, researcher, writer, mentor, artist, outdoorsman, craftsman, and amateur bicycling champion, died Thursday, July 9, of cholangiocarcinoma at Temple University Hospital.

    A 1999 graduate of Temple’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Dr. Mamary spent his career at Temple and affiliated hospitals. He was an expert in pulmonary disease, transplants, and sleep disorders at the Temple Lung Center, and became program director of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship at Temple Hospital in 2006.

    He earned a master’s degree in anthropology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia and his premedical school credits at the University of Pennsylvania. In a tribute, his family said: “His education in both medicine and anthropology reflected a lifelong belief that caring for a patient required understanding not only the disease but the whole person.”

    Over more than three decades at Temple — as a student, resident, fellow, professor, and physician — Dr. Mamary treated thousands of patients, mentored hundreds of students and doctors, lectured in classrooms and at seminars, and wrote more than 60 scientific papers and textbook chapters. He was named a top doctor by Philadelphia Magazine several times and was featured in The Inquirer and on 6abc TV for his lead role in a successful double-lung transplant in 2015.

    “It’s been 120 to 145 patients, individual patients that we’ve been able to help every year,” Dr. Mamary told CBS News in 2024. “That’s really the aim here, is to add years of life to patients who otherwise wouldn’t have that opportunity.”

    Colleagues called Dr. Mamary a “physician’s physician” and noted his “amazing intelligence and clinical acumen” in tributes. Gerard J. Criner, chair of Temple’s Department of Thoracic Medicine and Surgery, said: “His patients loved him not only for his clinical skills but also for the warmth, compassion, and humanity he brought to every encounter.”

    A former patient said online: “He was a calm in the storm of my end stage disease. … The world has lost a hero.”

    A former student said: “His kindness, thorough and balanced approach to medicine, and quiet, thoughtful approach to even the most stressful emergencies reminded me of a Jedi master.”

    Dr. Mamary and his wife, CeilaSue, married in 1996.Courtesy of the family

    Away from the hospital, Dr. Mamary liked to bike, hike, and camp. He built his own 18-foot mahogany canoe, walked the entire 272-mile Long Trail in Vermont, and won masters bicycling championship races.

    He also painted and sculpted, and earned a bachelor’s degree in art and psychology at Haverford College. He and his wife, CeliaSue, initiated the Shortridge Memorial Park Arboretum in Wynnewood and earned a 2024 community service award from Narberth and Lower Merion officials.

    Why did best-selling author Carol Saline email The Inquirer’s obit writer?

    “James brought wisdom, kindness, curiosity, and genuine joy to every moment,” his wife said.

    Albert James Mamary was born June 12, 1967, in Hempstead, N.Y. He grew up in Binghamton, N.Y., became an Eagle Scout, and was a wilderness river guide for the Boy Scouts in Maine during his college years.

    Dr. Mamary was an avid bicyclist and won masters championship races. Courtesy of the family

    He met CeliaSue Jaffe in class at Haverford, and they married in 1996 and had daughters HannahRose and LilyRuth. They lived in East Falls and Wynnewood, and he rode his bike from home to Penn and then Temple as often as he could.

    Dr. Mamary enjoyed traveling, baking, cooking, and gardening. “His specialty is fruits and vegetables, and I grow the flowers,” his wife said.

    Survivors give advice about mourning their loved ones, as told to The Inquirer’s obit writer

    He followed the Phillies, rescued cats and dogs, and doted on his daughters. Everybody said he was funny and silly.

    “He was curious and always learning or doing something new,” his daughter LilyRuth said. “He took joy in simple things.” His daughter HannahRose said: “Even if he wasn’t my dad I would want him as a friend because he was so interesting and so easy to talk to.”

    Dr. Mamary was a wilderness river guide for the Boy Scouts in Maine during his college years.Courtesy of the family

    Dr. Mamary was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, bile duct cancer, in 2020 and treated by longtime colleagues and friends at Temple, some of whom he had mentored. “It was a profound reflection of the life he lived,” his family said, “that so many of those he had taught ultimately became his caregivers.”

    His wife said: “He was a very vibrant and adventurous person but so thoughtful, steady, and reliable. James was incredible.”

    When parents die, even the mundane memories comfort their children. Here are their tales, as told to The Inquirer’s obit writer.

    In addition to his wife and daughters, Dr. Mamary is survived by a sister and other relatives.

    Private services were held earlier.

    Donations in his name may be made to the Albert James Mamary Memorial Fund at the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation, 5526 West 13400 South, No. 510, Herriman, Utah 84096.

    Dr. Mamary “was a very vibrant and adventurous person but so thoughtful, steady, and reliable,” his wife said. Courtesy of the family

  • Bonds for sale of South Jersey’s Advantage Behavioral Health failed to attract investors

    The nearly $600 million in tax-free bond issue meant to finance the sale of South Jersey’s Advantage Behavioral Health failed to attract enough investors last week, leading investment bankers to put the transaction on hold, Bond Buyer reported.

    Despite the extremely high investment yield as high as 8.25%, portfolio managers were troubled by the heavy debt load that would have been placed on a company with a short track record and few hard assets backing it up, according to the trade publication.

    Bond Buyer said that KeyBanc Capital Markets is working on restructuring the deal to salvage the sale of Advantage Behavioral by a private equity firm to a nonprofit called QCF Advantage LLC, which was created in April for the acquisition.

    Representatives of the private equity firm, Connecticut-based Clearview Capital, and QCF Advantage, whose parent company is based in Houston, did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. Officials at Marlton-based Advantage could not be reached for comment.

    Clearview took control of Advantage in April 2025, which means a successful sale would be a quick turnover by private equity standards.

    The proposed sale was notable not just because it would have increased Advantage’s debt by 12 times, according to Bloomberg Law, but also because of the structure that would have left Clearview and current executives as owners of a for-profit entity that would manage Advantage.

    The proposed sale price was about $520 million, according preliminary bond documents. That price included $80 million being held back to see if Advantage hits profit targets after the sale. The company had $141.6 million in revenue in the 12 months that ended May 31.

    Founded in 2017 in Camden County, Advantage also operates in Pennsylvania and six additional states. It offers intensive outpatient therapy through a business called Victory Bay and telehealth services through Harmony Bay. It also operates 17 sober-living houses under its Dignity Hall brand in Blackwood, Laurel Springs, Sicklerville, and several other South Jersey towns.

  • How to get paid for providing home care services in Philadelphia while vacationing in Jamaica

    How to get paid for providing home care services in Philadelphia while vacationing in Jamaica

    A federal law passed in 2020 required state Medicaid programs to implement electronic verification systems to verify that personal-care services were actually being delivered where they were expected.

    The systems were adopted to prevent the sort of fraud unveiled this week in Philadelphia by federal and state prosecutors, who charged 18 people for allegedly billing Medicaid while they were in prison, working at one of the city’s sports stadiums, relaxing on a cruise, or vacationing in Jamaica.

    Why don’t the electronic visit verification (EVV) systems work better?

    “It’s tough to verify that the services are actually being rendered,” David Metcalf, the top federal prosecutor in Philadelphia, said Tuesday. “The caregiver or the client behind closed doors simply can tap a button on their smartphone app or call in, and that record doesn’t actually establish that the person was actually there.”

    If location services on the smartphone are turned off, the system does not register where the caregiver is, Metcalf said. When a caregiver calls to check in or out of a shift, the system does not pick up where the caregiver is but, rather, where the phone is registered, he said.

    “EVV was not sufficient to prevent people from scheming the system,” Metcalf said.

    Federal officials from the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services did not discuss how the system might be improved. But T. March Bell, inspector general for the health and human services agency, said after Tuesday’s news conference that some states have adopted stricter controls.

    The Pennsylvania Medicaid program requires caregivers to submit a location as part of visit verification, but it does not limit services to the client’s home because they sometimes happen elsewhere in the community, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.

    If the human services department suspects fraud, it refers the matter to the state attorney general’s Medicaid fraud-control section, the agency said.

    National anti-fraud efforts

    The showing of federal officials in Philadelphia on Tuesday was part of a nationwide effort by the administration of President Donald Trump to root out healthcare fraud.

    In May, the administration implemented a temporary moratorium on the enrollment of new home care and hospice companies into Medicare, the federal insurance program for people 65 and up.

    Pennsylvania followed with its own six-month moratorium on enrolling new hospice companies in Medicaid, which is jointly funded by state and federal taxes, “after reviewing the risk levels of Medicaid hospice services in Pennsylvania,” state human services officials said in an email Friday.

    Kimberly Brandt, deputy administrator and chief operating officer at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on Tuesday encouraged Pennsylvania to follow through on home care and “take the action needed to protect beneficiaries and taxpayer dollars.”

    Pennsylvania said it is still determining whether a temporary moratorium on home health providers is needed.

  • Federal and state officials highlight Medicaid fraud in Philadelphia

    Federal and state officials highlight Medicaid fraud in Philadelphia

    Federal and state officials including Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Pennsylvania Attorney General David Sunday were in Philadelphia on Tuesday to highlight efforts to combat the persistent problem of Medicaid billing fraud in home care.

    During a news conference in Center City, officials outlined Pennsylvania cases involving a personal-care assistant who billed Medicaid 1,000 times for more than 24 hours of work in a single day, another who billed for helping his father in South Philadelphia while being arrested in Chester, and an agency that billed Medicaid $225,000 for services provided by an aide who was dead.

    Federal and state prosecutors used the occasion to announce charges against 18 people and one agency in mostly unrelated cases for defrauding Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program of $4 million by billing for home-care services they did not provide. The alleged fraud occurred roughly over the last five years.

    The alleged fraud in these cases filed over the last two weeks is tiny compared with the size of the program. Pennsylvania spent $8.1 billion on home-care services last year, up from $2.3 billion in 2020, when the program expanded and thousands more people started getting paid to provide home care.

    “Used properly by honest citizens, the program allows those with physical ailments to be cared for by those they trust the most,” said Colin McDonald, of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division. “But infiltrated by greedy and deceitful opportunists, this program becomes a money tree, a gravy train for criminal fraudsters.”

    Colin McDonald, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice National Fraud Enforcement Division, speaks as federal and state law enforcement officials announce healthcare fraud charges, Tuesday, August 4, 2026 in Philadelphia.Joe Lamberti / For The Inquirer

    The U.S. Department of Justice shared details on six new cases. The Pennsylvania attorney general recently filed five new cases.

    The biggest case involved $1.5 million in billings from a personal-care assistant registered with 13 agencies who more than 1,000 times charged Medicaid for more than 24 hours in a single day, Sunday said. On one occasion, the aide billed for 126 hours in a single day, Sunday said.

    Federal prosecutors charged Benevolent Home Health Care with billing 600 times in 13 months for a personal-care aide who was dead. That case originated during the arrest of the husband of one of its owners on drug-trafficking charges, said David Metcalf, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

    As the man was being arrested, he told agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency that he had to clock out of his shift as a home-care aide, even though he was not providing services. When asked about it, according to Metcalf, he said: “Everybody is doing this. If that’s a problem, you’d have to arrest the whole city,”

    Attorneys for Khaleelah Williams and Saleemah Davis, Benevolent’s owners, said they had no comment.

    In other cases, defendants billed for providing services while they were in prison, working at one of Philadelphia’s sports stadiums, or vacationing in Saudi Arabia, Jamaica, or Colombia

    This story has been updated to correct the name of the agency Mehmet Oz heads.

  • Quality Community Health Care’s financial troubles have deepened this summer

    When Pele Lewis arrived at Quality Community Health Care’s clinic in North Philadelphia Wednesday for his 1:30 p.m. appointment, he found the doors locked and a sign saying the clinic was “closed today.”

    Lewis was puzzled. “They called me this morning” with a reminder to come in, he said, as he stared at the door.

    The clinic, known as QCHC, was closed Thursday and Friday, as well, according to its phone message.

    “For many of our patients, QCHC is far more than a medical office,” its CEO, Helen Wilkinson, said in an email. “Members of our community are treated with dignity and respect regardless of their ability to pay.”

    She did not answer specific questions.

    The clinic at 2501 W. Lehigh Ave. began operating in 1981 under a federal program designed to provide medical and dental care in neighborhoods with few other options.

    Its troubles became public in the spring.

    After years of warnings from federal regulators that the clinic was delinquent on its audits, officials took the rare step in March of suspending it from the federally qualified health center program. At that time, audits for the years 2021 to 2024 were overdue. Now, the same is true for 2025. Typically such audits are due nine months after the fiscal year ends.

    Quality Community Health Care Inc., at 2501 W. Lehigh Ave. in North Philadelphia, was closed Wednesday. Management did not respond to emailed questions about the clinic’s status.Harold Brubaker / Staff

    A new audit

    In a small sign of progress, Quality Community Health Care last week posted an audit for the fiscal year that ended July 31, 2021, on a federal audit clearinghouse. Federal regulators had given a May 2 deadline to complete that audit or risk termination.

    The fiscal 2021 audit pointed to significant problems.

    “None of the data in it can be verified by the auditor,” said Steven Balsam, a professor of accounting at Temple University’s Fox School of Business.

    The auditor put it this way in the filing: “Because of inadequacies in QCHC’s accounting records, we were not able to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence for the amounts” stated in numerous categories of the financial statements.

    “I don’t know if just filing reports, if they look like this, is going to get them their funding back,” said Balsam, who reviewed the audit at The Inquirer’s request.

    The federal Health Resources and Services Administration, which regulates federally qualified health centers, has not responded to questions about QCHC since the suspension.

    Missed paychecks

    Some employees were not paid on July 10 and July 24, according to an email from the organization’s chief financial officer to staff Monday. This followed the organization not receiving the main federal funding for health centers, known as Section 330 grants, CFO Denise Ingram wrote.

    “QCHC is experiencing significant cash flow constraints following the suspension of 330 grant funding associated with the unresolved FY2021 audit submissions requirements,” Ingram wrote in the email obtained by The Inquirer.

    “QCHC remains committed to paying employees for all wages earned. Leadership continues to pursue funding, financing, and other lawful alternatives to address outstanding payroll obligations and restore normal operation,” the email said.

    Ingram did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

  • Bayada Home Health Care’s new CEO Bryony Winn wants to provide higher levels of care at home

    Bayada Home Health Care’s new CEO Bryony Winn wants to provide higher levels of care at home

    Bryony Winn became the CEO of Pennsauken-based Bayada Home Health Care in March after a career at two big Blue Cross health insurers and at the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

    Those experiences, she says, prepared her to take the reins at one of the nation’s largest home health companies at a time when Bayada is wants to increase the intensity of its home care offerings — and get insurers to pay for it.

    “Hospitals are full,” and patients want to be at home, said Winn in an interview this month at Bayada’s headquarters in Pennsauken.

    The company, whose founder Mark Baiada converted it to a nonprofit in 2019, operates in 22 states and five additional countries, employs 44,000 people, and had $2.2 billion in revenue last year.

    Winn, Bayada’s first non-family CEO, grew up in Zimbabwe and went to college in South Africa. “Being around so many challenges and so much opportunity every day in the developing world, I always had a sense that I wanted to do things that made lives healthier,” she said.

    When she came to the United States in 2009 to work as a consultant in Chicago, it struck her how specialized and disconnected healthcare is here. “In the developing world, there’s not enough trained people, so it’s a much more connected system around patients and humans,” she said.

    The Inquirer spoke with Winn about the importance of taking care of people at home as the nation’s healthcare providers come under increasing financial strain. Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

    How did your jobs at McKinsey and at Blue Cross of North Carolina and Elevance Health prepare you to lead one of the nation’s largest home healthcare companies?

    I learned a lot about the U.S. healthcare system and became more and more convinced that this lack of connection was driving unsustainable cost, and I still think it’s driving unsustainable cost. Pre-COVID, I used to say affordability is the greatest healthcare crisis of our time. Then COVID really was for a while, and I think we’re back to that now. The quality of care here is amazing if you have a really rare form of cancer. I’d prefer for it to be treated in some of the amazing institutions here than anywhere else in the world. But if you are just a typical person, and especially an aging person here with two or three chronic conditions, you are pushed from pillar to post across a system who doesn’t ever see you as a human being.

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    What do you think you can accomplish at Bayada, which was founded more than 50 years ago, to address that connectivity issue?

    What I can bring to it is really understanding the place of home health in the entire healthcare ecosystem. This is the place where clients and patients want to be; they want to be in their homes. And so the question I’m asking is not what are the kinds of conditions that should be addressed at home, but rather flip that on its head and say, what are the kinds of capabilities you need in the home to be able to address things for clients who want to be there?

    What’s happening now that makes it so important to solve this problem?

    For two decades in healthcare, we’ve been talking about people aging into Medicare. Ten thousand people a day aging into Medicare. Now 10,000 people a day are 20 years older. They’re aging into 85 every day. Because it’s not a change in insurance, it doesn’t generate the same conversation. But it’s a huge change in health status. We now have all of these seniors with two or three chronic conditions, and with a decent chunk of life expectancy still. The delivery system really needs to shift in how we care for these folks.

    What has to change?

    One thing that’s needed is a collection of multiple services in the home. Very rarely do you need just skilled nursing. You need skilled nursing and a home health aide and potentially wound care. That requires care management, a much more connected ecosystem, versus what is today much more a siloed set of services. The second thing is we just need more intense care at home. We have done this quite successfully, and we’re doing it even more now around NICU babies [in partnership with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and insurers Highmark and Independence Blue Cross].

    Bryony Winn, who became Bayada’s CEO in March, said her background in health insurance will help the nonprofit expand by finding ways to get paid for new services.Bayada Home Health Care
    Do you see Bayada playing a broader role in health systems’ hospital at home programs?

    I do. We can serve higher-intensity patients at home with more complex care needs, and we do a lot of this today. We’re just not really paid for it, or it’s not the service that we’re meant to provide. So it’s really, how can we more sustainably do this high-intensity work at home? That’s a shift for us. Our clients want it. Wound care at home is hard. It’s one of the biggest reasons for readmission back into the hospital after post-acute discharge. How we can build really strong clinically evidence-based wound care capabilities is one of the big pieces that we’re looking at in this elderly population.

    Providing more intensive care has higher costs. How do you convince insurers to pay more, especially given the prevalence of Medicare and Medicaid in home health?

    There is not a ton of wiggle room, but this is where my background helps. I’ve worked on the payer side for a long time. They truly care about affordability and quality as well, and so it’s really working together to say how does what we need for our caregivers, clinicians, and ultimately clients map with what you can afford, and how do we build this together? I’m not sure home health has ever had those conversations as intently as we need to have them now. It’s a very fragmented industry. Hospitals have been having these more strategic conversations with health insurers for decades.

    Editor’s note: The caption with the main photograph has been updated to correct the name of the person Winn is speaking with. It’s Lillian Floyd, a nurse with Bayada’s Camden County Visits unit.

  • Temple and Jefferson resident physicians have ratified union contracts

    Temple and Jefferson resident physicians have ratified union contracts

    Resident physicians at Temple University Health System and Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals have ratified their first contracts with their health systems after having voted to unionize last year.

    The 2,200 Temple and Jefferson residents organized with the Committee of Interns and Residents, affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, and are among the 86% of Philadelphia resident physicians who have joined a union in the last several years.

    The contracts were ratified July 1 and announced Thursday.

    The new contracts include “substantial” raises and “greater investment in resident education,” the union said Thursday in a news release.

    In addition, residents at different hospitals in the same health systems will now receive similar salaries, the union said.

    Residents at Jefferson Einstein Hospital will be paid the same as other Jefferson residents, and those at Temple’s Chestnut Hill Hospital will “achieve near pay parity” with residents at Temple University Hospital and Fox Chase Cancer Center by the second year of their contract, the union said.

    Resident physicians and fellows have completed their medical degrees and spend three to seven years training in a clinical specialty, working up to 80-hour weeks for, on average, $61,000 a year. That’s a lower salary than other professionals who require special training, like flight attendants and electricians.

    Union members said their new contracts would help them afford living expenses as they train. Many live paycheck to paycheck, and some take on debt to get by, Linda Li, a resident physician at Chestnut Hill Hospital, said in a statement.

    “I’m incredibly proud that we stood together and won a contract that will make a material difference in our lives and for residents who come after us,” she said.

    In a statement, a Jefferson spokesperson said: “We look forward to moving ahead together in support of the patients we serve.”

    A Temple spokesperson said the contract “appropriately supports our residents and Temple Health and preserves our ability to provide our patients with the high-quality care they deserve.”

    “We take great pride in the skill and compassion our Residents and Fellows demonstrate in caring for our patients, and in their tireless dedication to the pursuit of knowledge,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “We remain committed to a positive working relationship which supports the finest and most rewarding physician training experience for them.”

    Philadelphia-area physicians have been part of a wave of unionization efforts for years. Residents at Penn Medicine signed their first contract in 2024, just before roughly 3,000 residents at Temple, Jefferson, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Delaware’s ChristianaCare began a unionization push. ChristianaCare’s attending physicians are also unionized and signed their first contract earlier this summer.

    Adrian Kase, a resident physician in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Jefferson, said in a statement that she and fellow residents were inspired by unionization efforts at Penn.

    “We saw how residents at Penn were able to raise the bar for physician training and patient care by organizing and winning their first contract, and we’re thrilled to build on what they achieved,” Kase said.

    While CHOP’s medical residents ultimately voted against unionizing, residents at the other health systems opted to organize with the Committee of Interns and Residents. ChristianaCare residents are still negotiating their first contract.

  • Insurers propose 17% average rate increase for Pennie health plans in 2027

    Insurers propose 17% average rate increase for Pennie health plans in 2027

    Insurers are asking for double-digit increases to health plans sold on Pennsylvania’s Affordable Care Act marketplace, Pennie, in 2027.

    Insurers have requested an average increase of 17% for plans sold to individuals and families through Pennie. They are asking to raise the premium price of plans sold to small businesses by an average of 11.5%, according to rate requests released last week by the Pennsylvania Insurance Department.

    The proposed rates are not final. A public comment period is open through Aug. 22, and insurance administrators expect to release final rates this fall.

    Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Michael Humphreys said in a statement that the rates were “higher than we’d hoped.”

    New Jersey has not released 2027 rate requests for its ACA marketplace, Get Covered NJ.

    In their rate proposals, Pennsylvania insurers said they needed to charge more to account for the rising cost of medical services and prescription drugs, and a shift in who is buying health insurance and how sick they are. Insurers are required by law to spend 80% of the money they collect through premiums on healthcare for members.

    “Addressing rising healthcare costs requires a shared commitment across the healthcare system, and we will continue working with providers and other partners to help keep quality care within reach for the people we serve,” Independence Blue Cross, which has proposed a 14% average premium increase, said in a statement.

    The proposed increases for 2027 come on top of massive price hikes in ACA marketplaces this year, when a critical financial incentive program was eliminated. The cost of a Pennie health plan more than doubled for many in 2026 and 177,000 people have dropped coverage as a result.

    Advocates worry that another price increase will cause even more people to drop coverage, which could further raise costs.

    “If these proposed rates take effect, even more Pennsylvanians are likely to be priced out of coverage,” Antoinette Kraus, executive director of the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, which helps people enroll in coverage, said in a statement.

    Rising costs and premium prices

    A major factor that affects the cost of insurance is who the plan will cover — how healthy or sick they are, and how much the plan will need to spend on their care.

    Healthy young adults who have few healthcare expenses typically help balance the higher cost of insuring older adults who may have multiple chronic conditions.

    But young adults — many buying insurance on their own for the first time — can be highly sensitive to cost. They have been among those dropping out of ACA plans at the greatest rates after Congress failed to renew a financial incentive program that ensured no one paid more than 8.5% of their income on insurance.

    About a third of adults who dropped out of Pennie health plans so far this year were under age 34, according to state data.

    “They’re the ones looking at the cost and saying, ‘Well I’m pretty healthy right now, I’m going to take the gamble,’” said Devon Trolley, Pennie’s executive director.

    People with ongoing medical needs are more likely to stick with their plan, despite cost increases.

    Pennie’s 2027 enrollment period will run Nov. 1 through Jan. 15.

    Lawmakers have not shown signs of bringing back the enhanced tax credits, which were introduced in 2021 and had been renewed annually since.

    Income-based tax credits that are part of the ACA are still available. People remain eligible for these tax credits if they earn up to 400% of the federal poverty level — about $62,600 a year for an individual or $128,600 for a family of four.

  • Tower Health is laying off 160 workers at Pottstown Hospital while expanding emergency department, behavioral health

    Tower Health is laying off 160 workers at Pottstown Hospital while expanding emergency department, behavioral health

    Tower Health is eliminating 160 jobs at Pottstown Hospital as part of an effort to bring staffing at the Montgomery County facility in line with lower patient volumes, the Berks County nonprofit announced Tuesday. The cuts amount to 22% of the workforce at Pottstown.

    In addition to the job reductions — which are more than the 131 positions cut last year at Pottstown — Tower also plans “a multimillion-dollar investment” to expand the emergency department, enhance inpatient and outpatient behavioral health services, and update portions of the hospital, Tower said.

    “These changes are designed to strengthen the hospital’s ability to serve local residents for generations to come by preserving access to the services patients need most, investing in the areas of greatest community need, and ensuring Pottstown Hospital remains a strong, sustainable community hospital for the future,” Tower said in a statement.

    To expand behavioral health, Tower will convert some underused general-purpose hospital beds to inpatient behavioral health beds. The behavioral health total will rise to 52 from 28, an 86% increase. Pottstown has 213 licensed beds.

    Tower did not provide a timeline for the changes but said it plans to hire 38 people to staff the expanded emergency department and behavioral health unit, which will have a separate entrance for the sake of patients’ privacy when they seek mental health services.

    Another change at Pottstown involves the lease of an unspecified amount of space to Community Health & Dental Care, a federal health clinic that was formed in 2008 with funding from Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation.

    Unlike the restructuring Tower announced last fall at Pottstown, which included the closures of the combined intensive care/critical care unit, the Pottstown location of the McGlinn Cancer Institute, and the hospital’s endoscopy center, this round is not eliminating any services, Tower said.

    In the nine months that ended March 31, Pottstown has 5,104 inpatients, down 9.7% from the same period the year before. Most of that decline came in the first three months of this year, after Tower’s service cuts, according to data shared with bondholders.

    After last year’s layoffs, which included about 60 registered nurses represented by Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses & Allied Professionals, Pottstown employed about 700 people. Overall, Tower employs more than 10,000.

    The union said it still has 200 Pottstown nurses in its ranks. “We have been in touch with hospital management to better understand the context for and impact of the proposed layoffs and to push hard for solutions that protect both patient care and the dedicated nurses who serve the Pottstown community,” a union spokesperson said.

    Tower’s anchor is Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pa. In additional to Pottstown, it owns Phoenixville Hospital, plus St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in North Philadelphia in a 50-50 joint venture with Drexel University. Tower previously owned Brandywine, Jennersville, and Chestnut Hill Hospitals.

    It closed Brandywine and Jennersville and sold Chestnut Hill to a group led by Temple University Health System.

    Tower recently announced that Jefferson Health, Nemours Children’s Health, and Temple University Health System are working on forming an alliance to support St. Chris clinically. Last week, Tower said that it had formed a clinical affiliation to expand advanced care in its markets.

  • Tower Health and Jefferson Health have formed a clinical affiliation

    Tower Health and Jefferson Health have formed a clinical affiliation

    Tower Health and Jefferson Health announced Friday that they have formed a clinical affiliation that would expand access to advanced treatments in Tower’s markets northwest of Philadelphia.

    The two nonprofit organizations said Jefferson is not acquiring Tower, which is the biggest healthcare provider in Berks County and also owns two hospitals in Chester and Montgomery Counties.

    “Healthcare organizations today face unprecedented challenges, including inadequate reimbursement, rising costs, workforce shortages, and increasing competition,” Tower’s CEO Michael Stern said in an announcement to employees.

    “History teaches us that when an organization is confronted by challenges on multiple fronts, success depends on finding the right ally — one that shares our values, respects our strengths, and is committed to the same mission,” Stern’s note said.

    Jefferson said it routinely works with other health systems to provide high-level specialty care throughout the region it serves.

    “As part of that commitment, we are working with Tower Health to enhance access to advanced tertiary and quaternary services, bringing more specialized expertise, innovative treatment options, and coordinated care closer to the communities we serve,” Jefferson said.

    Details of the arrangement with Tower will worked out in the next few months.

    Jefferson is also among the Philadelphia-area health systems exploring a clinical alliance to support financially struggling St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, which Tower manages and owns in a 50-50 joint venture with Drexel University.

    Turnabout for Tower

    For Tower Health, the potential collaboration with Jefferson represents a turnabout from a decade ago when the system based in West Reading plotted a move into the Philadelphia market. Tower spent $423 million for the acquisition of five community hospitals in Southeastern Pennsylvania from Community Health Systems Inc. in 2017.

    The idea then was that the health system’s anchor, Reading Hospital, would draw patients for the most advanced care to Berks County from the Philadelphia region. That deal led to massive losses as the anticipated patients didn’t materialize in Reading and then COVID-19 crushed health system finances nationwide.

    Tower sold or closed three of the five acquired hospitals, but remains saddled with a huge debt load. The interest payments leave the system with little money left over to invest in the new facilities and services. Last year, Tower instituted significant service cuts and layoffs at Pottstown Hospital.

    Jefferson has expanded through acquisitions from three hospitals to 33 since 2015. The most recent acquisition was Lehigh Valley Health Network two years ago, creating a network that stretches from South Jersey to near Scranton. The system has been losing money for years as management attempts to make the hospitals it acquired work as a financially sustainable system.

    This week, Jefferson sued Independence Blue Cross, claiming a series of five payment policy changes cost it nearly $100 million this year.