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What will happen to your healthcare job in the event of a major disaster? In New Orleans, healthcare providers are struggling to keep it together.

Accrording to an analysis of the New Orleans healthcare market post-Hurricane Katrina conducted by HealthLeaders-Interstudy,

• Hundreds of physicians have moved to other cities and many are having trouble getting paid for the care they provide.
• Health insurers, having absorbed losses, are now facing the prospect of substantially decreased membership.
• Of the 26 hospitals in the New Orleans area, 12 have been evacuated and nine closed indefinitely.

Patrick Powers, HealthLeaders-InterStudy senior analyst said:

In healthcare, planning for the future is difficult enough even in the best and most stable of times. But, given that New Orleans faced special healthcare challenges before the natural disasters, going forward, planning and paying for healthcare in New Orleans will be an unprecedented challenge for healthcare decision makers. The biggest challenge hospitals face is just figuring out what the population will be and what their mix of payors will be — whether Medicare-eligible residents will return, for instance, or whether more people will go on the Medicaid rolls.

Most of us don’t like planning for contingencies, but if you’re in a position to make decisions and can help guide your healthcare organization’s future direction, you may want to establish new plans or review existing ones. And don’t just consider the situation from the patients’ point of view, remember your fellow healthcare workers too.

PRNewswire, December 21, 2005