vision2020
Re: Hospital Governance
At 11:01 AM 12/03/1999 -0800, Don Coombs wrote:
>I have great difficulty believing there is no way for Moscow and Pullman
>to get together and operate just one hospital efficiently.
Personally, I don't think that a merger requires a single facility (not to
say I'm against that, either). A merger could still maintain separate
facilities, while saving money by reducing duplication (oops! the bean
counters are getting scared now), by limiting purchases of major equipment,
and by purchasing larger quantities of supplies at a time. Instead of each
hospital purchasing the latest, state-of-the-art equipment, only one
hospital need have a cat scan, only one need have dialysis equipment, etc.
One of the reasons for high medical costs today is that each hospital in an
area believes it must have the latest, greatest equipment in order to
maintain prestige. So although a region might only have enough patients to
keep one cat scan busy, the region has three or for scanners operated by
different hospitals. In order to pay for the equipment, the doctors
suddenly require a cat scan for every ache and pain. The insurance
companies, and consumers in the end, must pay for this duplication.
It is my understanding that hospitals are not exempt from antitrust & price
fixing laws. So it would probably be illegal for Gritman and Pullman to
get together and say "OK, I'll buy one of these, and you buy one of
those." That's known as dividing the market. But if they merged, a single
administration could maintain separate facilities while deciding which
facility was in charge of which specialization.
There is something to be said for having a hospital in each city
(convenience of patients, proximity of emergency facilities), but for
major, expensive procedures, I don't think increasing your trip by ten
miles is asking too much.
Bob Hoffmann
229 East C St., Suite B
Moscow, ID 83843 USA
Phone: (208) 883-0642
Fax: 1-800-683-3799
http://www.alt-escape.com
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