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The affordable care act has laws to limit doctor owned hospitals. The law says that doctor owned hospitals won’t be able to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. Patient owned hospitals feel that it was a plan to “cut them off at the knees” ,but they are fighting back. Some of these doctor owned hospitals are now refusing Medicare and Medicaid patients to comply.
The reason behind this is that these doctors have a conflict of interest. They might refer people to get unnecessary tests. They might try to push for more expensive procedures because they have a financial stake in the hospital.
In addition, congress seems overly worried about hospitals going out of business. They don’t like the fact that these hospitals focus on higher value care. Regulators feel that these hospitals are “cherry picking” the best patients. The worry is that these hospitals will take the most valuable patients and leave the smaller and less profitable stuff to the non-profit community hospital.
It doesn’t seem fair that one doctor gets rich specializing while the one that helps everyone makes far less. There are a lot of rare diseases. There are some patients that are difficult to diagnose and help. If care becomes too specialized and profit driven, a lot of the care that needs done, but that is less profitable just won’t get done. That’s the fear of the government.
Ironically, the American Medical Association has been against doctors owning hospitals for a very long time. They feel it as a competitive threat to their trade union. Many for profit hospitals have been against private doctor owned hospitals due to competitive concerns and the “cherry picking”.
The evidence is clear. Most of the best hospitals (around 90%) are doctor owned. The outcomes are better. The facilities are a lot nicer. The staff ratios are higher. As it turns out, they put more effort into the outcomes when they have invested large amounts of money into the hospital. They just care more.
I really think doctor owned hospitals are a threat to just about everyone. They threaten the American Medical Association, they threaten public hospitals, and they threaten insurance companies. Which, would also mean they threaten the lobbyist organizations and senators that represent them.
The reasons put forth for this law are just another way to reduce competition in favor of monopolies and control. The evidence shows doctor owned hospitals are better. Why do we need to get rid of them?
Links: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2013/05/doctor-owned-hospitals.html
http://www.texmed.org/Template.aspx?id=16450
https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/research-commentary-physician-owned-hospitals-and-affordable-care-act
http://www.physicianhospitals.org