As The Boston Globe notes: “Tufts … straddles the ground between an elite academic medical center and a safety net hospital. Tufts surgeons, for example, perform more heart transplants than at any other hospital in the state. Still, about 60 percent of its patients are covered by … Medicare and Medicaid, a higher portion than at many other hospitals.”
“If Tufts fails to grow, it risks losing business to larger systems that can serve more patients and use their market clout to extract higher payments from insurers.
The Globe says: “Tufts executives say the end of the BMC talks underscores that the hospital’s future lies beyond Boston, where they will seek to link up with other hospitals and expand their network of doctors. They point to the merger with Lowell General as a model.”
How about a merger with Providence-based Lifespan? Or does Partners HealthCare want that for itself?
“Our goal is not to be a big megamedical center in downtown Boston that would require pulling patients into Boston to basically fill the beds. Our goal is to be a nimble, small, academic medical center that works in partnership with the community,” Michael Wagner, M.D., told The Globe.
