Dive Brief:
- Previous research has suggested that physician-owned hospitals (POHs) preferentially select the most profitable patients, negatively impacting the rest of the industry. As a result, the ACA banned new POHs and limited the growth of current ones.
- A study released Wednesday in The BMJ refutes that philosophy and argues policies penalizing POHs need to be re-evaluated.
- "Although POHs may treat slightly healthier patients, they do not seem to systematically select more profitable or less disadvantaged patients or to provide lower value care," the study concludes.
Dive Insight:
The issue is not whether hospitals are physician-owned, but whether they are physician-owned specialty hospitals, the study says.
"Much of the evidence against POHs is rooted in studies of specialty hospitals, some but not all of which are POHs," the authors write. They argue few studies have specifically looked at the impacts of physician ownership separately from specialty status, and POHs can not be viewed as one and the same.
“Overall, POHs have virtually the same proportions of Medicaid patients and racial minorities, as well as similar quality of care,” lead author Dr. Daniel Blumenthal is quoted by Kaiser Health News.
One significant limitaton of the study was it did not look at referral patterns by physician owners of POHs.
Legislation has been introduced in the House to lift the ban on new POHs, but no companion bill has been introduced in the Senate.