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Sunday, March 14, 2010

Hospital War

by Emily Ramshaw
November 20, 2009  |  3

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DALLAS — The gleaming mahogany floors, elegant track lighting and high-speed wireless Internet at the Texas Institute for Surgery scream “upscale hotel,” not “demise of American health care.”

But to many traditional hospitals and health care experts, the latter is exactly what physician-owned specialty hospitals like this one represent.

And as lawmakers in Washington hammer out a health care reform bill to expand access and control costs, these physician-owned facilities — a quarter of them in Texas — face an uncertain fate. Those under development could see bulldozers, not cranes. Those already in operation may face serious limits on growth.

“There are a ...

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Comments (3)

  • stlevine wrote on 11/20/2009 1:40 p.m.

    Physician-owned hospitals are not new. Physicians founded many of the nation’s first hospitals to ensure appropriate care for their patients.

    The Texas Medical Association strongly supports responsible physician investment in technology, facilities, services, or equipment. Physicians invest in facilities to improve the effectiveness, timeliness, and quality of the care they provide to their patients. The focus should be not on who owns the medical facility — a physician, a nonprofit entity, or a for-profit company — but on the quality of the facility and appropriateness of patient care. If overutilization or deviations from quality care are the issues, legislators should address those problems regardless of ownership, rather than limiting patient choice and innovation in the marketplace.

    Referrals to a physician-owned entity or entity in which the physician has a financial relationship must be based on the patient’s medical needs. TMA believes physician-owned entities should adhere to all state and federal regulations; provide appropriate credentialing of physicians, and clinical and support staff; monitor utilization and quality; and adhere to TMA and American Medical Association ethical guidelines.

    Steve Levine
    VP, Communication
    Texas Medical Association
    www.texmed.org

  • ggshein wrote on 11/20/2009 7:39 p.m.

    Great story.

  • skhn wrote on 11/21/2009 9:49 a.m.

    Regarding the statement, "The Heart Hospital of Austin, a physician-owned facility, ranks first in the nation for the percentage of patients who survive a heart attack.", one must wonder what percentage of heart attack patients admitted to The Heart Hospital of Austin are uninsured and generally unhealthy. To put any significance to the ranking stated above, the patient type and load would have to be comparable to hospitals in general, particularly to public hospitals which do significant charity work through their emergency rooms.