The Health Reform Law (ACA) includes a provision to prohibit physicians having a

Question

The Health Reform Law (ACA) includes a provision to prohibit physicians having any ownership interest in “specialty” hospitals (e.g., those primarily providing cardiac surgery, or orthopedic surgery, etc.) from receiving Medicare payment for any services they provide in such hospitals. A previous moratorium on opening new “specialty hospitals” reflected two concerns: a) specialty hospitals were treating less severe and more profitable patients [“cream skimming”] which was adversely affecting the financial stability of general hospitals in the same service area; and b) physicians practicing at specialty hospitals often also were investors in the hospitals, creating a financial conflict of interest.

a.Discuss the economic concepts of “economies of scale” and “economies of scope” as they relate to potential differences in productive efficiency between specialty and general hospitals.

Explanation / Answer

A) Hospitals do screen patients for risk, Here hospitals concerned about profits are cream skimming patients and treating patients with less risk and easy process to get more profit out of them, This is unacceptable as other hospitals in the area would only recieve much more difficult cases and their profits will take a hit while doing all the hard work.

Speciality hospitals are very useful but in the same time they must take all cases related to their speciality. They cannot deny more serious cases and only take less serious and easy to treat cases,

This is more related to ethics of the hospital than pure profit etc.. The sole purpose of hospital is to treat patients, If that purpose is defeated by profit making ideology then society in long run would not accept this ideology and several law suits will be filed.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse T
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.