Healthcare Consolidation…

…is harming your health and finances.

Healthcare consolidation is an important issue that impacts all of us. Why is it rarely discussed? It’s not sexy. But it is something that we must talk about because it has a big negative impact on your health and finances. Healthcare consolidation increases the costs of care and hurts the quality, transparency of and access to healthcare. This is supported by many studies (1, 2, 3). In fact, costs for the same services increases up to 50% when consolidation occurs (1).

Research show that when two hospitals merge, not only does the surviving hospital raise prices but so do its competitors (3). This goes not just for hospital but physician groups and large hospital systems (think of a hospital that also has physician offices). You do not directly see the costs increase. Instead your insurance company increase your premiums the next year and then the year after and then the year after that and so on (4). So, most people direct their anger at their insurance company. Health insurance companies most definitely deserve blame, however, we need to look at the hospital systems first.

Source: Hospital Consolidation: Trends, Impacts & Outlook. NIHMC. https://nihcm.org/publications/hospital-consolidation-trends-impacts-outlook

Quality of care also suffers when healthcare consolidation occurs (1, 3). One important and overlooked consequence of hospital system consolidation is decreased physician autonomy that often occurs as well. Often times when a physician works for a large hospital or corporation they MUST follow certain treatment protocols and no deviation is allowed. Moreover, when you are in the exam room with a physician they have to think not only about your insurance company, but about what their employer will think of their recommendations, lab orders, medication prescriptions and so fourth. This creates a significant conflict of interest.

Since 2010 healthcare consolidation has largely been motivated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (5). In other words government intervention resulted in unintended consequences. Who would have seen that coming?

If you as the American Hospital Association (hospital lobby group) they disagree and believe healthcare consolidation is good for all (6). I completely disagree with their stance, which is why we started Summit Direct Primary Care. We believe that physician autotomy and a transparent, conflict-free doctor-patient relationship should be the backbone of healthcare.

Join Summit DPC today so you can have a transparent, conflict-free doctor-patient relationship.

References:

1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6170097/

2) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32981974/

3) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22051574/

4) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30933578/

5) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0009.12312

6) https://www.aha.org/press-releases/2019-09-04-new-research-confirms-hospital-mergers-reduce-costs-enhance-quality-care