Patient death renews lawmaker focus on specialty hospitals

One senator says the law should require doctors to disclose ownership interest. The Bush administration ponders clarifying hospital staffing and procedure rules for emergencies.

By David Glendinning, AMNews staff. March 26, 2007.

Washington -- Lawmakers opposed to the concept of physician-owned specialty hospitals continue to stay on the offensive more than six months after the government lifted the main barrier preventing new cardiac, orthopedic and surgical facilities from opening.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in August issued a mandated strategic plan for regulating the hospitals. Before that, congressional and administrative prohibitions had prevented growth in the industry for nearly three years while policymakers debated whether such facilities were legal, appropriate and beneficial to patients.

But a number of powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill remain intent not only on stemming the growth of physician-owned specialty hospitals but also on placing more restrictions on existing facilities.

The latest attention follows the death of a patient who received elective spinal disk fusion surgery in January at West Texas Hospital in Abilene. When the patient went into respiratory arrest after the surgery, the hospital staff was unable to resuscitate him and called 911 to transfer the patient to a nearby community hospital, where he later died. The incident sparked a congressional response leveled at all specialty hospitals.

"I am deeply saddened and also completely outraged to hear of another death of a patient at a specialty hospital," said Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D, Mont.). "It really seems to me that if you call a place a hospital, it should have the facilities to handle an emergency, but all this facility could do was call 911. This is a strong reminder that doctors' financial stakes in a hospital can cloud judgment and blur priorities, and we can't let that happen."