Carilion Clinic is treating more of the region’s poor for free, in keeping with a new federal law that seeks to expand health care for the needy.

The Roanoke-based health care system said Thursday it is broadening the guidelines that determine who qualifies for financial assistance with their medical bills.

Under the revised “charity care” policy, people who make up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line — $15,000 annually for an individual , $31,000 for a family of four — will qualify for free care.

The previous policy had offered full write-offs for those who made up to 100 percent of the poverty guideline, assuming they were not already covered by public or private insurance.

Carilion is making the change to be consistent with the proposed expansion of Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor and disabled, that is part of the Affordable Care Act.

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First came the diagnosis: Too many people of the Roanoke Valley are in poor health, lacking the insurance, awareness and assistance they need to get better.

Then the potential cure: A strategic plan, unveiled Tuesday, that strives to treat not just the patients but the health care system that serves them.

Healthy Roanoke Valley, a coalition of more than 50 public and private entities with a stake in the community’s health, outlined a broad plan that calls for increased access to medical services, better coordination of care and an enhanced culture of wellness.

The plan was drafted in response to a community health needs assessment completed last year for an area that includes the cities of Roanoke and Salem and the counties of Botetourt, Craig, Franklin and Roanoke.

While the region’s ailments have been known for years, the latest effort to address them is driven in part by the new federal health care law.

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Read the Community Health Needs Assessment that prompted the plan here.

Charges for the same medical procedures can vary by  thousands of dollars at hospitals across the country — and at the two  cross-town rivals in the Roanoke Valley, according to data released  Wednesday by the federal government.

At LewisGale Medical Center in Salem, the list price  for nearly all of the treatments included in the data was higher than  what was charged by Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

For example, the average cost for a joint replacement at LewisGale was $64,505, compared with  $53,441 at Roanoke Memorial.

In fact, Roanoke Memorial was less expensive for all but two of 95 procedures included in the data.

Released by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and  Medicaid Services, the figures were touted as the first opportunity for  health care consumers to make a hospital-to-hospital comparison.

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To go directly to the data on prices, click here. A note: This is raw data, and lots of it — a listing of hundreds of hospitals, arranged in alphabetical order by state. To search for a particular hospital, enter its name in the search box in the upper right corner, where the words “find in this dataset” appear.  That will take you to a list of up to 100 procedures performed at the hospital, which appear in the column labeled “DRG definition.”  Scroll to the right to find the list price for the services, which is labeled “ average covered charge.” The next column to the right, labeled “average total payment” is what Medicare actually paid to the hospital.

For the first time since 2007, Carilion Clinic turned a profit in the most recently completed fiscal year.

The Roanoke-based health care organization saw  operating income of $13.4 million in the 2012 fiscal year, which ended  Sept. 30, according to its latest audited financial report.

In the previous fiscal year, Carilion lost $6.2 million.

The return to profitability comes as Carilion slowly  emerges from the recession’s effects on health care, which coincided  with an earlier-formed plan to pump millions into a new clinic model and  other capital expenses.

As the region’s largest private employer, Carilion  did not significantly cut back on employment or health care services  during the lean years since 2007, a period in which its net assets  declined dramatically.

In fact, it did the opposite, and officials hope the  new clinic model and other growth initiatives will pave the way for  more years in the black.

“We’re pleased with the success we’ve had in  executing our plan and returning to profitability,” said Don Halliwill,  Carilion’s chief financial officer.

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As part of a move to better coordinate its air medical services, Carilion Clinic is building hangars and other facilities for emergency helicopters based at Lexington and Smith Mountain Lake.

Construction will begin later this month on a hangar, crew quarters and offices on a half-acre site behind Carilion Stonewall Jackson Hospital in Lexington, the Roanoke-based health care system announced Monday.

The new complex, which will cost more than $750,000, will be the permanent location for Carilion’s Life-Guard 12 helicopter.

Work on a similar facility in the Westlake area of Franklin County is already under way. Life-Guard 10 is based at the Westlake location, which is next to an urgent care center.

A third Carilion helicopter, Life-Guard 11, will remain at its current location at Carilion New River Valley Medical Center, which already has a hangar.

With helicopter bases located strategically across Southwest Virginia, Carilion says it will be better positioned to quickly transport patients from rural areas to the Level I trauma center at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

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Carilion Clinic has launched a new website to promote its “Doctors Connected” accountable care organization.

The site is www.doctorsconnected.org.

Designed for Medicare patients under the traditional fee-for-service plan, the program is aimed at improving health care while reducing costs.

Last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that Carilion was one of 106 health care providers selected nationwide for the accountable care program.

Accountable care organizations are groups of doctors, hospitals and other providers who work together to provide high-quality treatment through improved care coordination and a focus on preventative and wellness care, especially for patients at risk for chronic illness.

As an inventive to participate, accountable care organizations can receive a portion of the savings they bring to Medicare, as explained in this article that ran last month when the Carilion organization was announced.

Carilion Clinic wants its employees and visitors to step up their exercise regimen by taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

This week, the heath care system launched Stairwellness, adding splashes of bright color and health information about the benefits of stair climbing to the south tower stairwell at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

The idea was to do something that would be “motivating and encouraging and just a little bit of fun” to encourage people to use the stairs more often, Carilion President and CEO Nancy Agee said.

Whether people go just a floor or two or up 14 stories, they will be met with painted blocks on the walls with messages such as “There’s a reason why a piece of exercise equipment was designed after stairs.”

While hospital visitors are encouraged to take the steps whenever possible, one of the program’s key goals is to keep Carilion employees healthy so they can better care for their patients.

“Our employees are our patients too,” employee wellness consultant Michele Hamilton, credited by Agee for coming up with the idea, said in a news release. “We are cultivating an environment that supports healthy decision-making.”

Carilion plans to extend the Stairwellness program to its community hospitals in the coming months.

At the start of this year, Carilion Clinic began offering  insurance benefits to the domestic partners of its gay employees.

The move by Carilion, the region’s largest private employer, is consistent with a national trend that began more than a decade ago but was slower to catch on in Southwest Virginia.

To read more about the plan, and how Carilion employee Kim Roe and her longtime partner Jeannie Mann are taking advantage of it,  click here for the article that ran in today’s newspaper.

Carilion Clinic has been selected to participate in a government program aimed at doing two things for Medicare patients: lowering costs while improving care.

The Roanoke-based health care system is one of 106 nationwide that will be forming accountable care organizations, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department announced Thursday.

Read the rest of the story, published in today’s newspaper, by clicking here.

A surge of patients sick with the flu is stretching the resources of emergency rooms at Roanoke-area hospitals.

On Wednesday, the number of patients treated at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital’s emergency department exceeded the normal operating capacity of 225 patients per day.

Both Roanoke Memorial and LewisGale Medical Center in Salem have seen their capacity levels tested more than once recently, as an influenza outbreak struck hard in Southwest Virgina starting in mid-December.

To read the rest of this story, published in today’s newspaper, click here.