She has offered to stay at PHA through Dec. 31, so a new executive director can be found. Ms. Sandvig, an attorney, worked at the trade group for five years.
“I have to say it’s been quite a ride,” she says of her term at PHA. “I enjoyed every minute if it.”
In the past year, her tenure was focused on turning back a provision in the healthcare reform law to ban new physician-owned hospitals and stop expansions of existing ones. Although that provision stayed in place, intensive lobbying and visits to Capitol Hill by physician-owners helped turn back plans to retroactively implement the ban and implement it on Dec. 31, 2010.
“Some interests felt threatened by the volume physician-owned hospitals have,” she says. “But I believe physician-owned hospitals will progress no matter what.”
Pointing to her new company, which gives physicians the opportunity to lead hospitals without owning them, she says, “Circumstances continue to change.”
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