The Affordable Care Act bans new physician-owned hospitals (about 7o facilities) and expanding their existing facilities unless specifically approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
So far they’ve been overwhelmed by lobbyists from the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals, which of course don’t want the competition.Andrew Wachler, managing partner with Wachler & Associates law firm, told Modern Healthcare that the central argument of the opposition was that physician-owned hospitals would “cherry pick” patients who needed such high profit-margins treatment as orthopedic surgery.
