Geisinger is named after Abigail Geisinger, widow of iron magnate George Geisinger. Its primary care facility is the Geisinger Medical Center located in Danville, with three other hospitals; Geisinger Wyoming Valley and Geisinger South Wilkes-Barre - both located in Wilkes-Barre, and Geisinger-Community Medical Center located in Scranton. Geisinger has clinics throughout northeastern and western Pennsylvania, located in Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Mountaintop, Nanticoke, Wyoming, Scranton, Dallas, Plains, Kingston, and other surrounding cities and towns. Geisinger Health Plan, a subsidiary Health Management Organization, was started in 1985. On December 4, 2012 it was announced that Geisinger Health System and Lewistown Hospital had signed a non-binding letter of intent for a merger. Geisinger's Frank Trembulak said the non-binding letter refers to the specifics of how the merger will work and that there is a "binding agreement to merge". Independent physicians have opposed a merger with Geisinger, stating that with the presence of a Geisinger clinic in Lewistown and with Geisinger offering health insurance, a monopoly might result from the merger, ultimately hurting instead of helping local healthcare. The full merger and integration of Geisinger-Lewistown Hospital into Geisinger Health System received final approval from the Pennsylvania Attorney General and the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the new Geisinger-Lewistown Hospital became effective on November 1, 2013. From 2001 through mid 2015, Glenn Steele served as Geisinger’s president and chief executive officer. Steele left Geisinger in 2015, with David Feinberg joining as president and CEO. In December 2018, Jaewon Ryu was named interim president and CEO. Prior to the announcement, he previously served as the health system’s executive vice president and chief medical officer since 2016. In order to "fix the primary care shortage facing the organisation", Geisinger announced in 2019 its Commonwealth School of Medicine will select 40 students and cover their full tuition plus a $2,000 monthly stipend. The students need to commit to work at Geisinger for four years after residency in primary care roles.
Quality and Cost-Containment
Geisinger operates as an integrated delivery system, a self-contained healthcare ecosystem including administration, payer, and providers to contain the entire patient experience. IDSs are thus able to coordinate care and manage population health, and its incentives are aligned amongst administration, payer, and providers to deliver high-quality healthcare at low cost. Speaking to a joint session of Congress in September, 2009, President Barack Obama cited it as a model for national healthcare reform: "We have long known that some places — like the Intermountain Healthcare in Utah or the Geisinger Health System in rural Pennsylvania — offer high-quality care at costs below average." Several factors have been identified as contributing to its high performance, including its payment of doctors on a flat salary bais instead of fee-for-service ; bundled payments for several common procedures to shield patients and the system from paying for complications arising from the original service; establishing checklists of best practices for physicians to follow for specific conditions and procedures to ensure good outcomes for patients; and a robust electronic medical record system that minimizes duplication of treatments and tests.
Research
Geisinger opened its $21 million Geisinger Center for Health Research on its Danville campus in the spring of 2007. Researchers conduct health services, epidemiologic and population genetics research.
For comparison, in 2017 the Pennsylvania average operating margin and total margin were 5.15% and 6.62% respectively. The Pennsylvania average uncompensated care percent of NPR was 1.74%. The Pennsylvania average portion of NPR paid by Medicare and Medical Assistance was 34% and 14% respectively. The average payment per inpatient day for Medicare and Medical Assistance was $2,249 and $2,286 respectively, while other commercial payers paid an average of $4,843 per inpatient day.
