Advocate blasts feds for keeping Medicare, Medicaid from physician-owned hospitals

Physician Hospitals of America is calling upon Congress to change current federal law to allow new physician-owned hospitals to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients, according to the organization's president.

"It was put in the bill so the big hospital lobby would support the ACA," said Blake Curd, MD, president of the Physician Hospitals of America.

Curd made his comments based on new research showing physician-owned hospitals offer the same level of care, or better, than other providers.

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The study's authors said there is no evidence that physician-owned hospitals avoid poorer patients or those from ethnic or racial minority groups in favor of more profitable patients. Opponents to physician-owned hospitals have "grossly overstated previous research to their advantage," said the authors, including Daniel Blumenthal, clinical fellow and associate professors E. John Orav and Anupam B. Jena.

The findings claim the law should be changed to allow hospitals owned by physicians to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients, according to the report published Sept. 4 in BMJ, the former British Medical Journal.

Current policy under the Affordable Care Act does not allow new physician-owned hospitals to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients nor allow grandfathered physician-owned hospitals to expand if they want to continue to serve this patient population, according to the report.

"The quality of care provided by POHs was equal to, or in some cases better than, care at other institutions across a range of metrics, including process measures, mortality rates, and readmission rates," the report stated.

Also, the costs and Medicare payments at physician-owned hospitals were similar to, or lower than, those at other facilities, it said.

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There are more than 250 physician-owned hospitals nationwide.

The authors used a comprehensive list of physician-owned hospitals for the study, they said. Previous research was limited to only a handful of facilities that do not represent the industry today, they said.

"The law is ridiculous and the most un-American thing I have ever heard of - restricting someone's ability to engage in commerce because of the educational degree they have obtained. … Congress should correct the current policy that is bad for patients who have limited access to some of the best hospitals in the country."

Twitter: @SusanMorseHFN