http://healthcare-economist.com/2006/05/17/hospital-trends/ An unbiased look at today's health care issues Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:22:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 http://healthcare-economist.com/2006/05/17/hospital-trends/comment-page-1/#comment-94 Rational Actor Wed, 17 May 2006 18:40:22 +0000 http://healthcare-economist.com/2006/05/17/hospital-trends/#comment-94 There is some missing data (which may not be available) -- has there been a shift in delivery of outpatient services from providers unaffiliated with acute care hospitals to providers who are affiliated with acute care hospitals? I don't know how the landscape breaks down for surgery centers overall, but there are definitely some that are partnerships between hospitals, docs and third parties. The same goes for o/p imaging services. Also, there are some services that clearly can not be provided by the outpatient provider. For these services, the argument in your final sentence would seem to be irrelevant. In general, I don't think that pure monopoly pricing is an issue; it is more one of oligopoly pricing, combined with a system that forces people into poorly designed insurance plans by virtue of the significant "discounts" off of gross charges that are offered to the insurers. but not the individual.... There is some missing data (which may not be available) — has there been a shift in delivery of outpatient services from providers unaffiliated with acute care hospitals to providers who are affiliated with acute care hospitals? I don’t know how the landscape breaks down for surgery centers overall, but there are definitely some that are partnerships between hospitals, docs and third parties. The same goes for o/p imaging services.
Also, there are some services that clearly can not be provided by the outpatient provider. For these services, the argument in your final sentence would seem to be irrelevant.
In general, I don’t think that pure monopoly pricing is an issue; it is more one of oligopoly pricing, combined with a system that forces people into poorly designed insurance plans by virtue of the significant “discounts” off of gross charges that are offered to the insurers. but not the individual….

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