As the nation awaits the unveiling of the Senate Finance Committee health-reform bill, advocates of physician-owned hospitals might be nervous about the latest comments on the hospitals from Sen. Max Baucus, the committee chairman, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican. Baucus and Grassley point to a story in today’s Denver Post that describes the death of a 25-year-old student at a physician-owned hospital in Denver. The woman went in for brain surgery and died following administration of the wrong dose of a painkiller. State inspectors described the effort to revive her as “chaotic,” according to the Post. State health officials found numerous problems when they investigated the death. The hospital management has agreed to improve its drug monitoring, hire more emergency room doctors and improve their procedures for handling emergencies, the Post says. In a news release, Baucus said, “I have long been concerned about physician-owned hospitals’ ability to respond to emergency situations, and this tragic incident heightens that concern.” The Senators also say there are potential conflicts of interest when physicians self-refer patients and

accuse the hospitals of a “tendency to cherry-pick healthier and wealthier patients,” the senators say. Brett Gosney, president of board of directors of the trade group Physician Hospitals of America , said this in a statement to the Health Blog: It is despicable that Senators Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley would use the tragic death of one patient to help support the efforts of corporate hospitals and bureaucrats … to undermine hospitals owned and operated by physicians themselves. The fact of the matter is, every independent study, including those by federal government, demonstrate physician-owned hospitals have lower mortality rates and lower morbidity rates by patient outcomes across the United States. There are over 100,000 preventable deaths in American hospitals every year. The House version of the health-reform bill, which cleared two committees today, prohibits physician ownership in new hospitals . Baucus and Grassley say they want to improve patient safety at existing physician-owned hospitals and bar any new ones from participating in the Medicare program.

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Baucus, Grassley Slam Physician-Owned Hospitals