Physician Owned Hospitals: Will Healthcare Reform Make it Harder for them to Operate?

Physician-owned hospitals have long since been a profitable and well-run industry if operating correctly. However this may soon change with healthcare reform. A provision in the health reform law enacted in March placed major limits on physician ownership of hospitals.

Under healthcare reform, new doctor-owned facilities that are not certified as Medicare participants no longer will be allowed into the program. E xisting physician-owned facilities face immediate restrictions on expansion. Physician investors say those rules are so strict that virtually none of their hospitals will be able to grow.

Other new regulations include capping physician ownership, ending some exceptions to Stark self-referral bans and mandating more disclosure of physician owners' potential conflicts of interest when they send patients to their own facilities.

Physician-owned hospitals include specialty hospitals, surgery centers, acute care facilities, multi-specialty hospitals and even struggling community hospitals that have been propped up financially by physicians.

Until litigation, legislation or regulation direct otherwise, plans for new or expanded physician-owned hospitals will be in a holding pattern. Facilities also will need to make sure they don't run afoul of the law in their continuing operations.

Read the full article in American Medical News, or click here:
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/06/28/gvsa0628.htm