Word: carefuls
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While these places are known as specialty hospitals, most do not resemble acute-care, all-purpose community health-care institutions. For one thing, they tend to sell themselves on the promise of comfort, if not luxury, with at least a few offering wine with gourmet meals and on-campus hotels for friends and family. More importantly, about half don't have any kind of emergency department and of those that do, more than half have only one bed available, according to a 2008 report from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. Even more troubling...
...hospitals is money. Although there is not ample hard data yet available to prove that specialty hospitals take a large bite out of community hospitals' bottom lines, a quick scan of the list of the common procedures performed at the highly focused institutions suggests just that. Orthopedic and cardiac care bring in some of the highest margin reimbursements from insurers, money community hospitals use to cover the cost of low-margin or money-losing services like burn units, neonatal care and treating the uninsured. When healthier, fully insured patients migrate away from community hospitals to specialty facilities, their reimbursements...
...their part, doctor-owned specialty hospitals say they're providing more access to better quality care - and in some respects, this may be true. Patient satisfaction rates at such facilities are generally high and it's logical that a facility dedicated to just one or a few specialties could operate more efficiently. "Rather than compete in the marketplace they want to legislate us out of business," says Dr. John Harvey, president and CEO of the Oklahoma Heart Hospital...
...known, has been strengthened over the years to include more facilities and apply to Medicare and Medicaid payments. But the loophole allowing for doctor-owned specialty hospitals has remained open despite repeated attempts to close it. Now that the country is grappling with how to reform the entire health-care system, Congress has another chance to decide whether the costs of this kind of proprietary specialized care are simply too high to bear...
...photos of the Cleveland Clinic's smarter approach to health care...