"Doc ownership takes a legal hit" is the title of an article posted on 9/15/08 at Modern Healthcare.com. It has an interesting discussion of the legal issues involved in the on-going competition between physician owned hospitals and competing hospitals.
The decision to dismiss a suit against Baptist Hospital in Little Rock by a group of physicians who own a competing cardiology clinic was based on a technicality. Nonetheless, the issue is continuing to create debate within the healthcare community nationally.
In my opinion, doctors should be doctors, not owners of hospitals, for several reasons.
- The potential conflict of interest when the doctor admits a patient to a facility. Does the doctor's facility provide the same level of service as the competing hospital? Will it have the same degree of emergency facilities immediately available if there is a problem? Will the financial incentive of admitting the patient to the doctor's hospital override the possibility that the competing hospital will be better for the patient? Not easily answered questions are they.
- The most likely groups of doctors who would open hospitals would be the specialists who have the most profitable practices. Consequently, they would siphon off most of the profitable patients from the competing hospitals, leaving those hospitals with a patient mix that will bring additional financial burdens.
- It is hard enough to run a healthcare facility with all the challenges, fiscal constraints and competing demands of the healthcare industry - just ask any hospital CEO - without having the extra burden of managing a hospital that could conceivably make them less effective doctors.
The healthcare industry - the challenges never end!
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