In a January Substack newsletter, Dutch Rojas, who talks all things affordable and accessible healthcare, challenged critics who believe physician-owned hospitals “cherry-pick the easy cases” and should be banned. He says data says otherwise…
He challenged his readers to think: “What if the best healthcare model is the one we’re actively preventing?”
To set the scene, here’s some background, according to the American Medical Association: “Physician-owned hospitals grew rapidly from less than 70 nationwide in the early 2000s to roughly 250 by 2010. That growth was spurred by demand for general acute care hospitals in some markets and opportunities to boost clinical operations and surgical procedures through facility specialization.”
Lawmakers began restricting growth of physician-owned hospitals in 2003 through a series of moratoriums on new facilities, and by 2010 expansion stopped with the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
Alluding to this, Rojas critiqued those lawmakers who banned expansion of existing physician-owned hospitals and prevented new ones from opening, saying the data “speaks for itself,” showing physician-owned hospitals have lower infection rates, better patient satisfaction, more efficient operations, higher quality scores and lower prices.
One study I found, published by researchers at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia, conducted a systematic review of the cost and quality of care in physician-own hospitals. The takeaways from this study alone seem to back up all of Roja’s claims.
Relevant to the world of orthopedics specifically, that study found that physician-owned orthopedic surgical specialty hospitals offered “comparable or lower costs and higher quality care compared to other hospitals”; and that patients with orthopedic conditions received a “greater number of conservative preoperative therapies prior to invasive procedures and experienced shorter stays and lower risk-adjusted complication rates.”
“The question isn’t whether physician-owned hospitals work. The data settled that long ago,” Rojas wrote.
He added: “This isn’t about replacing every hospital with a physician-owned one. It’s about allowing a model that works to grow and compete.”
Who is Dutch Rojas? Rojas is a healthcare startup founder and investor, as well as an advisor to independent health systems and private practices. His self-proclaimed mission is to “Make healthcare affordable and accessible for everyone, everywhere,” and, through his Substack, he poses thought-provoking questions which often challenge the status quo in healthcare.
