Health Care Initiative blasts ThedaCare over new facility

Posted at 1:30 p.m. on November 11, 2019 The Brillion News APPLETON – A plan by ThedaCare to build a $144 million orthopedic clinic and surgery facility, announced last week, is drawing sharp criticism from a group fighting “big medicine” in the area. The Fox Valley Health Care Transformation Initiative (FVHCI) was started over 2½ years ago to fight ThedaCare’s plans to replace its Neenah and Appleton hospital to build a new mega-hospital in the I-41 corridor. Now the FVHCI is accusing ThedaCare of trying to put down competing outpatient services. The FVHCI said big health care corporations can put up new, unnecessary facilities, driving up the price of health care. “ThedaCare proposes adding 25 new inpatient beds in the proposed facility when no hospital in the area has an occupancy rate much above 50 percent,” the FVHCI statement said. The group said that Wisconsin has some of the nation’s highest outpatient costs – more than three times greater than Medicare pays for.