Director of Physician Hospitals of America to Take New Job to Open New Joint Replacement Hospitals

Molly Sandvig, executive director of Physician Hospitals of America, says she will leave her position to become COO of Joint Replacement Hospitals of America, a new for-profit company developing knee- and hip-replacement hospitals to be run by physicians.

She has offered to stay at PHA through Dec. 31, so a new executive director can be found. Ms. Sandvig, an attorney, worked at the trade group for five years.

"I have to say it's been quite a ride," she says of her term at PHA. "I enjoyed every minute if it."

In the past year, her tenure was focused on turning back a provision in the healthcare reform law to ban new physician-owned hospitals and stop expansions of existing ones. Although that provision stayed in place, intensive lobbying and visits to Capitol Hill by physician-owners helped turn back plans to retroactively implement the ban and implement it on Dec. 31, 2010.

"Some interests felt threatened by the volume physician-owned hospitals have," she says. "But I believe physician-owned hospitals will progress no matter what."

Pointing to her new company, which gives physicians the opportunity to lead hospitals without owning them, she says, "Circumstances continue to change."

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