“Many Senators and Representatives have been bombarded with negative information regarding physician-ownership in recent days,” says Molly Sandvig, JD, executive director of the PHA. However, “PHA has been pleased to see the results of several well-timed and well-orchestrated efforts emerge.”
Here is a summary, from Ms. Sandvig, of the four documents helpful to the physician-ownership cause.
1. PHA sent to all members of Congress a summary of the most recent PHA-funded study on Medicare expenditures and physician hospitals. This study, conducted by healthcare economist John Schneider and HECG, Inc., found that there is zero impact on Medicare expenditure when a physician hospital enters a market.
2. On April 1, the OIG sent a letter to the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals and the Coalition of Full Service Hospitals chastising them for their inappropriate use of the recent OIG Study of Physician Owned Hospitals. Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) brought the AHA’s use of the study to the attention of the OIG.
3-4. Two physician-hospital champions, Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas) and Rep. Johnson sent two “Dear Colleague” letters to all members of Congress. The first, sent April 8, distributed and explained the OIG letter to the AHA, et al. The second, sent April 9, introduces and distributes the April 4 Wall Street Journal article covering non-profit hospitals’ out-earning for-profits.
In addition, public statements released April 2 from the House regarding HR 1424 (the Mental Health Parity bill) indicated that the physician hospital pay-for was “too controversial” to be left on the bill and that for Mental Health Parity to pass the Senate, the current pay-fors would need to be removed, says Ms. Sandvig. (Physician-hospitals were added to HR 1424 to pay for the expense of the bill, she notes, as the Congressional Budget Office placed a score of $2.9 billion in Medicare savings over 10 years, if the legislation against physician-hospitals passed). However, says Ms. Sandvig, on April 11, Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) “are attempting to insert provisions prohibiting physician ownership of hospitals — similar to Section 651 of the former CHAMP Act — into the Senate version of the farm bill as one of the offsets to costs of the bill.”
The farm bill is in a House-Senate conference and this bill was a Senate response to the House position.
“While the issue is still not completely resolved, PHA has been advised that there may be opposition in the Senate and that House leaders will object to the use of a health provision as a pay-for in a bill completely unrelated to healthcare,” says Ms. Sandvig. “Therefore, we are working to make certain that objection is raised and the provision dropped prior to passage by the House. In addition, PHA has been advised that other issues in the farm bill may not be resolved by the House and Senate and that a simple one-year extension of the program will probably be the only action this year. In this case, the ownership provision should drop out of the bill.”
PHA will continue to stay on top of this situation, working with Congressional allies to stop this end run.
In the meantime, “I recommend that physician-hospital owners would be well served to contact their elected officials within the next few days and send them information on your hospitals, our industry stance, and also ask if they have any questions that you might address in follow up to the AHA visitations,” advises Ms. Sandvig.
