After the couple was stuck at Centro Médico Americano because they were unable to pay their $14,000 hospital bill, Tyler Perry—an actor, writer, producer, and director—sent a payment to the hospital and offered to cover the couple's travel expenses, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from Arizona, Georgia, and Missouri.
- Arizona: Banner Health named Daniel Post as CEO of Banner-University Medical Center Phoenix. Post most recently served as regional EVP of strategy and business development at Loyola Medicine in Illinois. He succeeds Steve Narang, who left to become president of Inova Fairfax Medical Campus in Virginia (Haefner, Becker's Hospital Review, 11/25).
- Georgia: Actor, writer, producer, and director Tyler Perry is helping a couple from Atlanta stuck at a hospital in Mexico over a billing dispute. Tori Austin and her finance Stephen Johnson went to Centro Médico Americano (CMA) after medics on a Carnival Cruise ship diagnosed Johnson with pancreatitis. However, the couple was unable to leave the hospital after learning that CMA requires patients to pay bills when discharged—a bill that for Johnson's care totaled more than $14,000 in out-of-pocket medical costs. After a GoFundMe page was established to help the couple pay off the charges, Perry sent a payment to the hospital and offered to pay for the couple's travel expenses back home (Gooch, Becker's Hospital CFO Report, 11/25).
- Missouri: Washington University School of Medicine has been granted $11.5 million from NIH to study brain development in babies born with Down syndrome. Officials from the hospital said they hope the research will help counter developmental delays in children born with the condition (Rizvic, St. Louis Business Journal, 11/25).