AHA to Congress: H.R. 2513 would promote neither access nor competition

The AHA today urged Congress to reject H.R. 2513 “and all other attempts to skew the health care marketplace in favor of physicians who self-refer patients to hospitals they own,” saying the legislation would promote neither access nor competition. The bill, introduced last week by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) and Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), would loosen current restrictions on the growth of physician-owned hospitals. “Physician self-referral is the antithesis of competition,” wrote AHA Executive Vice President Rick Pollack. “It allows physicians to steer their most profitable cases to facilities they own – facilities that often call 9-1-1 to handle their emergencies and are frequently located in the most affluent areas. By cherry-picking the highest-paying procedures, physician-owners inflate health care costs and drain essential resources from community hospitals, which depend on a balance of services and patients to provide indispensable treatment, such as behavioral health and trauma care. By increasing the presence of these self-referral arrangements, H.R. 2513 would only further destabilize community care.”