A report from Third Way examines how hospital acquisition of physician practices is increasing prices for outpatient services across the country. The report recommends policies to move towards a payment system that ties prices to the value of the care being provided, rather than who owns the location of care, including:
- Expanding site-neutral payments in Medicare, including extending current site neutral requirements to all hospital outpatient departments, regardless of when they were built or whether they were an acquired physician practice.
- Requiring hospitals to disclose the physical location of the site of care.
- Encouraging value-based payments, including increasing payments to physicians at the same time it lowers payments to hospitals for the same set of services (as part of site neutral policies)
The report concludes that these reforms would result in significant savings and have spillover effect into the commercial market, lowering out-of-pocket spending for a wide range of patients.
Read the full report here.