Writing in the letters section of The Wall Street Journal Aug. 1, Mr. Pollack said the reality of such hospital departments mostly treating sicker lower-income patients reliant on Medicare and Medicaid, and the need to follow more regulatory and safety codes than physician offices or ambulatory surgery centers, mean they should charge more.
His words came in response to an opinion piece highlighting the payments patients are expected to pay in hospital departments compared with what they might pay for the exact same services in a physician’s office, for example.
“Existing site-neutral payment policies have already hurt hospitals,” wrote Mr. Pollack. “Under current law, the vast majority of off-campus HOPDs that weren’t billing Medicare before November 2015 are already paid at a site-neutral rate.”
In addition, Mr. Pollack said private equity and health insurers — not hospitals, as the original piece claimed — have made the most acquisitions of physician-owned groups in the past few years.
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