Physician-Owned Hospitals (POHs) are bad for patients and communities. These facilities:
- Fail to Meet Patient Needs
- POHs cherry pick patients, avoiding Medicaid and uninsured patients, while at the same time treating fewer medically complex patients. They also provide fewer emergency services. relying on community hospitals and publicly funded 911 services to provide emergency care to their own patients.
- Increase Costs for Patients and Taxpayers
- Banning new POHs and limiting expansion of existing ones reduced the federal deficit by $500 million over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Changing the current law would erase those savings and raise the deficit.
- Undermine Rural Health Access
- POHs fail to offer the specialized care needed by rural patients – patients who are typically older, sicker, more reliant on Medicare and Medicaid. Should POHs displace other hospitals in rural communities, residents may lose access to services like obstetrics and 24/7 emergency care that are typically only available in acute care hospitals.
It is vital that Congress keep the ban on self-referral to POHs in place. Such arrangements are mired in conflicts of interest, and result in over-utilization of Medicare services at significant cost to patients and the Medicare program. More information can be found below.
One of the tenets of our nation’s health care system is a level playing field in service of higher-quality, more affordable, and improved access to care for patients. This was the impetus for the Ethics in Patient Referrals Act, more commonly known as the “Stark Law,” which limited physicians’ ability to self-refer to entities in which they have a financial stake.
New Study Reinforces the Risks of Expanding Physician-owned Hospitals
A new study funded by Patient Rights Advocate adds to the evidence that physician-owned hospitals (POHs) are not comparable to or substitutes for full-service acute care hospitals. Buried beneath its flawed conclusions on hospital prices are three simple truths: the study was based on a very limited sample size (just eight medical procedures), it relies on misleading data, and, most importantly, the study’s own data shows conclusively that POHs shun medically complex patients, as well as the uninsured and those on Medicaid.
New Analysis Highlights Need to Maintain Law Banning Self-Referral to Physician-Owned Hospitals
Full-service community hospitals, policymakers, the business community and governmental advisory bodies have long grappled with the shortcomings, including overutilization and higher health care costs, caused by self-referrals to physician-owned hospitals…
Joint FAH/AHA op-ed: Physician-Owned Hospitals are Bad for Patients and Communities
For decades, the Ethics in Patient Referrals Act (“Stark Law”) has protected the Medicare program, its beneficiaries and communities from the inherent conflict of interest created when physicians self-refer their patients to facilities and services they own…
FAH submitted a statement for the record in advance of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing on health care costs which addresses several of the legislative proposals that will be discussed…
FAH submitted a statement for the record in advance of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing on health care costs which addresses several of the legislative proposals that will be discussed…
Data from the health care consulting firm Dobson | Davanzo, released recently by the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH) and the American Hospital Association (AHA), shows that physician-owned hospitals (POHs), when compared to other hospitals, treat less medically complex and more financially lucrative patients, provide fewer emergency services, and treat fewer COVID-19 cases…
