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http://www.medicaleconomics.com/blog/facility-fees-farce-everyone-pays
"Facility fees pile on at every step, so a knee surgery that would have cost the patient $5,000 through various independent practices now costs $35,000. When you figure that only one third of practicing physicians today are independent, leaving the majority employed, you see how facility fees cost us all billions of dollars a year. For nothing."
https://www.regenexx.com/regenexx-makes-sense-company/
"We now have two-thirds of all doctors owned by the hospital. These physicians are required to keep “leakage” to a bare minimum. This is a hospital term that describes what happens when a patient is sent outside the hospital system. So let’s follow an orthopedic patient through the facility fee machine that is the modern hospital. A 50-something executive is hiking and feels pain in his right knee. That knee swells and he soon begins to hobble. After a week, he’s still limping around, so he goes to see a local family doctor who is part of the local hospital system. The office visit in a private facility across the street would have been $100, but in the hospital, it’s $200. That doctor orders a knee MRI on the hospital-owned MRI, which instead of costing $500 costs $1,500, due to the facility fee. That image shows a meniscus tear, so the patient is sent to a hospital-employed orthopedic surgeon who decides to operate on the tear. The patient is then taken to a hospital-owned surgery center where the facility fee is $6,000. The same surgery performed across the street in a private ambulatory surgery center would have been $1,200."
Medicare wants to cut hospital outpatient facility fees, and that’s good for patients
"Currently, when a patient goes to a doctor who is employed by and works in a hospital-run outpatient clinic, they—and the Medicare program—often will be charged what is technically known as a "facility fee", in addition to the usual charge for the office visit and any diagnostic tests or procedures required to treat them. If the patient received the same services in an independent physician office practice, they are charged only for the medical care they receive during the visit, not the add-on facility fee. In many cases, the "outpatient clinic" had previously been an independent physician practice, until the hospital bought the practice and converted into an outpatient clinic."
"Facility fees pile on at every step, so a knee surgery that would have cost the patient $5,000 through various independent practices now costs $35,000. When you figure that only one third of practicing physicians today are independent, leaving the majority employed, you see how facility fees cost us all billions of dollars a year. For nothing."
https://www.regenexx.com/regenexx-makes-sense-company/
"We now have two-thirds of all doctors owned by the hospital. These physicians are required to keep “leakage” to a bare minimum. This is a hospital term that describes what happens when a patient is sent outside the hospital system. So let’s follow an orthopedic patient through the facility fee machine that is the modern hospital. A 50-something executive is hiking and feels pain in his right knee. That knee swells and he soon begins to hobble. After a week, he’s still limping around, so he goes to see a local family doctor who is part of the local hospital system. The office visit in a private facility across the street would have been $100, but in the hospital, it’s $200. That doctor orders a knee MRI on the hospital-owned MRI, which instead of costing $500 costs $1,500, due to the facility fee. That image shows a meniscus tear, so the patient is sent to a hospital-employed orthopedic surgeon who decides to operate on the tear. The patient is then taken to a hospital-owned surgery center where the facility fee is $6,000. The same surgery performed across the street in a private ambulatory surgery center would have been $1,200."
Medicare wants to cut hospital outpatient facility fees, and that’s good for patients
"Currently, when a patient goes to a doctor who is employed by and works in a hospital-run outpatient clinic, they—and the Medicare program—often will be charged what is technically known as a "facility fee", in addition to the usual charge for the office visit and any diagnostic tests or procedures required to treat them. If the patient received the same services in an independent physician office practice, they are charged only for the medical care they receive during the visit, not the add-on facility fee. In many cases, the "outpatient clinic" had previously been an independent physician practice, until the hospital bought the practice and converted into an outpatient clinic."
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