Physician-owned hospitals (POHs) have long-been a source of controversy. Critics say that doctors "cherry-pick" the most profitable patients –– those with the best insurance and those seeking easy, but expensive procedures –– while leaving poorer patients with more complicated needs to other hospitals.
A study published in the British Medical Journal, however, suggests that the critics are wrong.
"We found some evidence that POHs treat healthier patients than non-POHs but little evidence that these hospitals select more profitable patients or avoid poorer patients or those from ethnic and racial minority groups," the report stated.
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The report is in direct contrast to previous research on the matter, which highlighted evidence that POHs were forgoing certain patients. POHs have also been criticized for lacking adequate emergency-care facilities.
In the areas that the report examined, 6 percent of Medicare hospital admissions were to POHs. The report authors suggested that that small figure meant that POHs were not having a substantial financial impact on other hospitals.
A leader of the American Hospital Association said the report was incomplete because it did not examine whether physicians were referring patients to their hospitals.
R. Blake Curd, president of Physician Hospitals of America, an advocacy group for POHs, was predictably happy with the report.
"You can't paint us with one broad brush stroke, which is what the American Hospital Association is always trying to do," he told Kaiser.
No new POHs have been added since the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which included a moratorium on such hospitals. A current proposal in Congress seeks to lift the moratorium, a move that is strongly opposed by operators of both nonprofit and for-profit hospitals. The bill has so far received 38 co-sponsors, 15 of whom are from Texas, where POHs have thrived in recent years.
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