Good Sam’s docs can keep hearts in rhythm

Ever worry about your heartbeat?

The folks at Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette are available to help. And if they find something wrong, they have the expertise to fix it.

Exempla recently opened a new electrophysiology center — a place where doctors treat patients who have abnormal heart rhythms.

It might sound funny to talk about an “abnormal heart,” but this is no joke. Heart arrhythmia — disruption of the heart’s rhythm — can cause chest pain, heart palpitations, lightheadedness and death.

A treatment called ablation can help. A doctor threads a small catheter into the patient’s heart in a nonsurgical outpatient procedure. The catheter is connected to a special machine that directs electrical impulses to small areas of the heart muscle to help resolve the abnormal heart rhythm.

In a separate procedure, doctors can place a defibrillator into a patient’s heart. Implanted into a small incision, the device is connected electrically to the heart, detects dangerous rhythms and shocks the heart back into a regular pace.

Good Samaritan opened in 2004.

Ankle replacement surgery

It might not be as common yet as anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, surgery for your knees, but a relatively new ankle replacement surgery is getting more common as baby boomers age.

If you have arthritis in your ankle, Dr. Gregg Koldenhoven at Front Range Orthopedics and Spine in Longmont wants to give you the lowdown on the surgery. He has done 20 to 30 of them so far.

Koldenhoven is expecting interest to pick up this year as more people hear about a new metal device called Inbone Total Ankle.

“As the population ages … joints are taking the brunt of more injuries,” Koldenhoven said. “This is a good option besides fusing the ankle or living with the pain.”

Such a surgery might cost $5,000 to $10,000, depending on a patient’s insurance coverage and how long he or she needs to stay in the hospital, Koldenhoven said.

Movement-limiting ankle fusion used to be the most common surgery to deal with ankle issues. With the new device, Koldenhoven said, he sees patients out walking, hiking and even skiing again after a rehabilitation period.

Koldenhoven will make a free presentation about the surgery at 6 p.m. Monday, April 29, at Good Samaritan, 200 Exempla Circle, in Lafayette.

Not yet time to SHOP

Small businesses may have to wait as the clock ticks toward the Oct. 1 deadline when Americans are expected to start enrolling for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Americans must sign up for health insurance or face penalties under the new Affordable Care Act approved by Congress in 2010. They’ll receive monthly subsidies from the government as incentives.

About 75,000 to 100,000 Coloradans are expected to sign up in the first six months that the exchange works — Oct. 1 to March 31.

Plans call for the Colorado Health Benefits Exchange (being renamed the Connect for Health Colorado exchange) to be working by then. Insurance companies have until May 1 to sign up to participate in it.

However, across the nation, small-business-focused health insurance exchanges called SHOP could be delayed but ready for business by 2015, according to the Colorado Managed Care industry newsletter in Denver and information from the federal government.

Colorado officials say they are still on track to offer the SHOP health insurance exchange for small business owners and employees starting in October.

It’s not clear how the uncertainty between what the federal government is doing and what Colorado officials say the state can do might affect when small businesses will be able to sign up locally for health insurance through the program.

So far, the federal government has spent $61 million on building the online shopping clearinghouse in Colorado.

It’s all about relationships

University of Colorado Health wants to delve deeper into the patient relationship business, partnering with MedSeek, an Alabama company that uses software to gather patient data that shows community health patterns.

The new software is billed as one that will help University of Colorado Health identify health patterns and try to figure out ways to get potential patients to be more healthy and avoid chronic diseases.

In our neck of the woods, University of Colorado Health is involved in a joint venture on the the $20 million to $30 million Indian Peaks Medical Center in Frederick. The new center is a partnership between Longmont United Hospital in Longmont, Poudre Valley Health System in Fort Collins and University of Colorado Hospital at Anschutz Medical Center in Aurora.

Beth Potter can be reached at 303-630-1944 or bpotter@bcbr.com.

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