-PDBM/FXT EL CAMINO
Continued from page 8
“Further cuts to Medi-Cal will not have a substantial impact on El Camino from a business perspective,� Pifer wrote. “However, Medi-Cal can be an effective way of funding certain types of primarycare and community-based clinics� and could have a large impact on the overall quality of health care offered throughout Mountain View and the surrounding Bay Area. Another item in Brown’s proposed budget — the extension of the Hospital Fee through June 30, 2011 — could also put a squeeze on El Camino’s books, although Pifer wouldn’t speculate how much, saying only that the hospital is “continuing to watch it closely.� The Hospital Fee is a tax that draws money from all California hospitals in order to increase the state contribution to MediCal, thus increasing the federal
matching funds. The pressure the hospital is feeling from health care reform and the state’s budget crisis — however severe — comes on top of the damage done by the recession, which caused patient volumes to drop significantly at El Camino. People lost health coverage, decided to put off elective surgery and became more frugal with their trips to the doctor. It has all come rather suddenly to the organization, which had enjoyed a long stretch of prosperity. “We have been a hospital that, for at least the past 10 or 15 years, has been a very profitable business,� Pifer said. “In the last year we had some challenges to our profitability as a business entity.� Pifer said he believes all of these challenges will ultimately make the hospital stronger by encouraging El Camino to run a tighter ship. “It turns out that efficient care is often the best
care,� he said. He rejects the notion that by forcing hospitals to make tough decisions, the government will create an environment rife with sub-par care. “Good health care providers will always recognize that there is an art to medicine and that guidelines for care are just that — they’re guidelines,� he said. Without a nudge from government, insurance companies would have no incentive to end their “Cadillac� plans and hospitals would have no reason to stop ordering unnecessary and redundant tests. “It is more comfortable for the patient if they don’t need to have their blood drawn the second and third time and since the care does not improve beyond the information gathered from the first test,� he said. “The traditional fee-for-service form of insurance does not create an incentive for efficiency.� V
N OBITUARY
LILLIAN “DOLLY� SEXTON Lillian “Dolly� Sexton, a Mountain View resident, died in Mountain View Feb. 10, following a short illness. She was 89. Born May 16, 1921, she was preceded in death by Ernest, her husband of 52 years. She is survived by her children, Lana Freidin, Janice Sexton and Raymond Sexton, all of Mountain View; stepson Jerry of San Jose; sister Irene
Centoni of Half Moon Bay; grandsons Aaron and Adam Freidin; and great-granddaughter Madelyn Freidin of Campbell. Memorial donations are preferred to the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, for the Monkey Toy Ladies, 400 Hamilton Ave., Suite 340, Palo Alto, CA 94301, or online at www.supportlpch.org. Funeral arrangements were by Cusimano Family Colonial Mortuary.
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â– MOUNTAIN VIEW VOICE â– FEBRUARY 18, 2011