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The Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare have repeatedly been touted as models for a new healthcare delivery system. Yet all four have declined to apply for the “Pioneer” program tailor-made by the Obama administration to reward such organizations.

With the decline of traditional pensions, many hospitals and health systems have turned to 401(k)s and other defined-contribution plans in which workers save and invest through an employer-sponsored retirement vehicle. Healthcare organizations usually empower investment committees with oversight of their defined benefit plans, but committee members often have inconsistent levels of investment experience. Thus, they need all the advice they can get, especially in the current economy.

Reimbursement cuts and new payment models resulting from healthcare reform are the biggest challenges confronting U.S. hospitals, according to a new survey of hospital CEOs.

Carolinas Healthcare System, based in Charlotte, N.C., has been granted a Certificate of Need (CON) by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control to construct a 64-bed hospital in Fort Mill, S.C.

Mike Murrill Chief Financial Officer Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital Bolingbrook, Ill.

As the U.S. economy continues to struggle, short-term interest rates have settled at historic lows and may remain that way as the Federal Open Market Committee has signaled its intention to keep short-term interest rates low through mid-2013. As a result, now may be an opportune time for hospitals to finance a new project or refinance existing debt with a variable-rate interest structure.

This summer’s financial market volatility and the continuing pressure on government spending have made it more cumbersome for healthcare companies to secure capital.

Everyone following national economic policy news knows the basics: the Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, authorized by August’s Budget Control Act, must create a plan to reduce the national deficit by at least $1.2 trillion. This plan must be in place by Nov. 23, and we all expect Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement to be hit hard.

When the merger of hospitals owned by Stanford University and the University of California at San Francisco dissolved in 2000, it was to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and a lot of misery. Such failures are very rare say merger and acquisitions insiders.

New technologies in remote patient monitoring will push the market to $22.2 billion by 2015 as these solutions are used increasingly to combat soaring healthcare costs and personnel shortages and to reduce hospitalization times, according to a recent report from healthcare market research firm Kalorama Information.