Along with AHA and OHA, hospital representatives called on members of Congress to prevent conflict of interest and promote fair competition by permanently prohibiting physician self-referral to limited-service hospitals that carve out relatively profitable services from community hospitals. In the Congressional meetings, Ohio’s delegation was generally sympathetic to hospitals’ message that limited-service, physician-owned hospitals do not promote fair competition since they generally do not offer the same breadth of services as full-service community hospitals, such as emergency and trauma care.

Hospitals moreover advocated for Congress to close a loophole allowing physician self-referral to a “whole hospital.” Federal laws prohibit physicians from referring patients to facilities where they have an ownership interest. An exception allows physicians to refer patients to a whole hospital theorizing the financial gain would be too small to constitute a conflict of interest. However, because limited-service, physician-owned hospitals pull out hospital departments or certain services, the facilities are essentially a hospital department – to which physician self-referral is prohibited – and not a whole hospital as intended by the original law.

AHA yesterday released a report finding the opening of physician-owned, limited-service hospitals led to increased costs and use of health care services, forced cutbacks in other services at full-service hospitals, and placed access to emergency and trauma services at risk. Find a news release at www.aha.org/aha/press_room-info/.

Additional visits to lawmakers’ district offices are planned over the next several weeks. Hospitals are urged to continue building congressional support on this issue by contacting their federal lawmakers. Talking points and template letters are available by contacting Jonathan Archey, OHA's Federal Relations Manager.  (Jonathan Archey, jonathana@ohanet.org) 

The OHA Committee on Advocacy and Policy last week discussed the previous legislation and OHA submitted a letter to Rep. Raussen this week outlining the position of Ohio’s hospitals. Hospitals are supportive of informed consumers and, to that end, currently submit quality data to a variety of state and national organizations. OHA opposes submitting case-level, patient billing data to a state agency for hospital performance measurement. OHA notes in its letter to Raussen that submission of patient–level data can result in a costly bureaucratic system with unreliable and outdated consumer information, and would be quite expensive, costing hospitals statewide approximately $9.3 million a year. OHA, on behalf of Ohio’s hospitals, also opposes the idea of a new statewide effort to disseminate hospital information that duplicates existing initiatives, and provides consumers with information on the outpatient services of hospitals and not all providers. To learn more about this issue, or to access OHA’s letter and a grid outlining what each Ohio hospital can expect to be charged to meet the bill’s requirements, visit www.ohanet.org/advocacy/state/issues/public_disclosure.htm. (Jeff Klingler, jeffk@ohanet.org)