HJNO Jan/Feb 2025

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  JAN / FEB 2025 13 Editor Tell us about your relationship with Ochsner. Peoples We have an affiliation agreement with Ochsner, and what that means is that we are a partner. We have what's in town that's called Chabert, which back in the day if you were part of New Orleans, you recognize that they had charity systems. And then they converted them into a community hospital bases. So, we are the board over Chabert, which was a charity facility, mission-based orga- nization. We help Ochsner to run that par- ticular organization so it can stay in busi- nesses; it still serves the majority of our underserved population in addition to us. We're not an Ochsner facility, and we're not looking at joining a system, but our strength is that we're able to partner, and we're very strong and very stable financially to be a community hospital. Editor It is interesting to cover the community hospitals around New Orleans. They seem to be special places in many ways. Peoples They definitely are. We serve all, and our docs really go out of their way to assist in so many ways. And the thing that I like is that we are a system, but we still make sure not to have so many layers to get to the top. My thing is I still make rounds. I was talking to a doc yesterday. He called and said, "You got a minute?" I was like, "You're lucky. One of my meet- ings canceled." He said, "Can I head to your office?" I said, "I'll head to yours." And we went and sat in his office. So, it doesn't take a week or two. They’ve got all your cell numbers, and they know where you live and all of that. And I don't want it ever to be that you've got to talk to 100 other people before you can get to the person that you're looking for. To me, it just makes the problem bigger than if I say, "Hey guys, I know you got some concerns. I can get to it, but can you give me a day or two?" But I find smoke turns into an inferno if you just don't address things — just sit in a room and talk. That's the easiest way to do it. So far, for me and my career path, it's been favorable. I have a lot of respect for our medical staff and my staff here. I really do. Editor In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges Terrebonne General Health System faces? Peoples Well, of course, healthcare in general. I think healthcare in general continues to evolve, and there's good and bad. The amazing part is it continues changing daily. And as it continues to change, I mean the state-of-the-art things out there, we can diagnose things that we never could before. We can diagnose things so much less invasively than what we used to have to do. You can make the lifespan so much longer than it was in our parents’and grandparents' days. That part's amazing. I think the downside is as it continues to evolve and become so finite and so amazing, it's becoming cost limited. Things continue to rise in cost, and need, and necessity, and pharmaceuticals, and different things. And it is just becoming very concerning at how much the price point continues to rise as you want to provide state-of-the-art care. And that's a challenge, too — research and development for new drugs, specialty drugs, equipment. It's amazing to find out some of the genetic things that are out there. It just comes with a price tag, and will we all be able to afford that one day? Editor Truly. And that came up a little bit recently with the tragic shooting and murder of UnitedHealthcare's CEO. It's drawn attention to frustrations about delays, denials, and I think the last thing on the bullet was “depose.” Louisiana Hospital Association has been talking about denials pretty loudly, especially for Medicare Advantage plans. How important do you think that issue is for hospitals like yours? Peoples Well, I think very important. You quoted the LHA, and I've been on that board for over 20 years or more. And the issue is … look, I’ve got respect for everybody who has a role in healthcare. I do. But if it takes longer, you deny things so that it just drags things out, it's not advantageous for a patient or an organization to continue to wait to get paid for somebody's service, or continue to wait to be approved for somebody's service, or to go ahead and say, “Do the service,”but then question and have to defend why they got it. People just don't have that kind of plan. And, look, illness is an emotional thing. We take care of people in an emotional state. We're in a service industry. And when you're sick, everybody says to do everything to make mom better, make you better, because, emotionally, that's what you want to do. But then when you’re better, and all of a sudden, they say, "Well, I'm going to deny it and you got to pay for it," it becomes a little bit different for you. But at the time, of course, we all want everything done, and I wish everybody could do everything. It is just getting to be a big, big challenge. But I do think that the amount of denials that they're doing or the delays if it’s a true denial because it's not necessary, I agree. But if it's a delayed tactic and a delayed denial for that, I think that's probably a strategy that's not advantageous. Editor How do you think we get that fixed? Peoples I think you hold people accountable. I think one of the things that LDH and everyone is doing is, as we're getting some of those like we just talked about, the Medicaid managed care corporations and some of the insurance corporations, is that if they're doing proper case management because they do negotiate that they are, and they work with whoever signs up for that plan... Some people sign up for a variety of plans and don't know what they cover. You get a lot of tv advertisements, and they don't know what to ask. We even consider doing an education for some of our older