Report: Lee County healthcare facing more challenges

HealthLeaders-InterStudy, a leading provider of managed care market intelligence, reports that the healthcare market in Lee County is facing multiple challenges, including rising unemployment rates resulting in an increased uninsured population.

According to the new Cape Coral-Fort Myers Market Overview, this rising uninsured population, combined with reimbursement cuts, a lack of quick-care clinics and a physician shortage, have placed a growing burden on the area's largest health system, Lee Memorial Health System, which is responsible for nearly 95 percent of acutecare beds in the area.

"Lee Memorial Health System is the main player in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers market. With reimbursement cuts and a growing uninsured population, the system is faced with significant financial challenges," said Chris Clancy, analyst with HealthLeaders-InterStudy and author of the report. "As a public hospital that receives no government financial assistance, the system is taking on significant risk."

According to the report, as of July 2008, health system administrators have cut about $27 million from the system's annual budget, yet have maintained services and jobs.

There may be some relief for the area with the entry of Promise Healthcare, which plans to open a 60-bed, long-term acute-care hospital in Fort Myers in late 2008, with 5 percent of beds for the uninsured.

A limited presence of convenience health clinics is also increasing the burden on Lee Memorial Health System. While the health system does run two such clinics of its own, Florida's three biggest convenience clinics — CVS's MinuteClinic, Take Care Health Systems and The Little Clinic — are not present in Lee County.

Florida's physician shortage is also a concern for the Cape Coral-Fort Myers market. According to a survey released in October 2007, 13 percent of physicians in Florida plan to leave or reduce their practice within the next five years. State officials are addressing the shortage with the opening of the new University of Central Florida College of Medicine, which will open in the fall of 2009.