WASHINGTON – The American Medical Association is countering efforts calling for the increased regulation of specialty hospitals owned by physicians.
In May, the hospital industry upped the pressure on specialty hospitals by presenting a unified front to lobby against hospitals owned by physicians. These facilities typically treat a narrow range of conditions, often focused on one specialty, and don’t provide the wide range of services at larger community hospitals.
In particular, the American Hospital Association touted a recent report citing the negative effects of physician ownership and self-referral when physicians own the facilities to which they refer patients.
In defending the facilities, an American Medical Association statement painted the AHA efforts as “nothing more than a power grab by the hospital industry.”
Provisions to ban specialty hospitals had been included in a farm bill before Congress that had been padded with a variety of provisions. The wording was pulled after an outcry from House lawmakers and the AMA.
“The hospital industry’s campaign to eliminate physician-owned hospitals has nothing to do with patients and everything to do with eliminating competition,” said William G. Plested III, MD, immediate past president of the AMA.
The Department of Health and Human Services also has weighed in with a study critical of specialty hospitals, indicating about half are unable to provide emergency care services.
AMA officials charged that the AHA and two other hospital organizations misused information in the HHS report, saying the hospital groups received a letter of rebuke last month from the Department of Health and Human Services for including statements that misrepresented the report, conducted by the Office of the Inspector General for HHS.
“Studies show that the quality of care patients receive at specialty hospitals is high, and the patients like the choice of care, so there’s simply no good reason to try and get rid of them,” Plested said.
Specialty hospitals have been criticized for the narrow range of care and questions over their ability to handle emergency cases. Concern has grown after two high-profile cases in which patients died from complications and specialty hospital staff had to call 911 to request emergency transfers to full-service community hospitals.
The AHA report correlated physician self-referral with higher use and costs. The AHA report also cites evidence that physician-owned hospitals have higher-than-average costs and contends that they are not efficient, and it questions their quality of care and availability of care to all populations.
“Research shows that physician ownership results in financial incentives for physicians to steer more complex and costly patients to community hospitals while referring less complex, well-insured patients to their own facilities,” the AHA report concluded.
The AMA refuted those findings, saying multiple studies have found high levels of quality care and patient satisfaction. AMA officials said government studies have found fewer complications, like infections and hip fractures, at specialty cardiac hospitals, and that specialty hospitals provide more net community benefits, through uncompensated care and taxes, than not-for-profit competitors as a share of total revenues.