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Some hospitals seek doctors as partners in acute-care facilities

Consultants say such joint ventures are relatively rare but that they might be happening more often because of hospitals' desire to bolster their market positions.

By Katherine Vogt, amednews staff. Jan. 30, 2006.

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In the last year or so, Indianapolis-based Clarian Health Partners has opened or made plans to open three acute-care hospitals in conjunction with physician partners. Clarian is one of a smattering of health care entities around the country that believe such joint ventures are the best medicine for what is ailing full-service hospitals.

"We need physician partners in the new world to deal with quality improvement, technology and transparency," said Dan Evans, president and chief executive of Clarian Health, a nonprofit system that operates 11 hospitals across Indiana, including the hospital associated with the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Clarian partnered with physicians to open an acute-care hospital in the Indianapolis suburb of Avon in December 2004. A year later, the organization opened another acute-care hospital with physician partners in the suburb of Carmel.

Also in December 2005, word came that Clarian had a tentative deal to build an acute-care hospital in Lafayette, Ind., with the 125-physician Arnett Health System, a multispecialty group that also runs a health plan. Both sides have been reticent about the project pending a definitive agreement. But Evans said the facility would likely have about 275 beds. Groundbreaking could occur within months.

To maintain its tax exempt status, Evans said the nonprofit Clarian's partnerships with physician groups can be no more than a 60/40 split, giving Clarian the larger ownership stake. Still, the physician stake is large enough to give the physicians a fair amount of say in the business.