Tuesday, April 13, 2010

60 doctor-owned hospitals canceled due to new health law

In this March 16, 2010 photo, emergency room patient Anthony Barbuto waits for surgery for an aneurysm at St.Vincent's Hospital, where he was born, in New York. The facility, which has fought to save lives for 160 years, treating survivors of the Titanic and New Yorkers fleeing the World Trade Center attacks, is threatened with closing because of a financial crisis. It is the only hospital with a trauma center on the west side of Lower Manhattan. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

The new health care overhaul law – that promised increased access and efficiency in health care – will prevent doctor-owned hospitals from adding more rooms and more beds.

These hospitals are advertised as less bureaucratic and more focused on doctor-patient decision making. However, larger corporate hospitals say doctor-owned facilities discriminate in favor of high-income patients and refer business to themselves.

The new rules single out physician-owned hospitals, making new physician-owned projects ineligible to receive payments for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Existing doctor-owned hospitals will be grandfathered in to get government funds for patients but must seek permission from the Department of Health and Human Services to expand.

Full story: 60 hospitals cancelled due to new health law

Posted:  True Health Is True Wealth

1 comment:

justice4all said...

I hope these hospitals die off. Because there is no outside oversight of patient care, doctors are getting away with murder in their own private money-making hospitals. Google COSH--Colorado Orthopedic and Surgical Hospital in Denver. A hospital of horrors closed by the state of Colorado.