Becker's Healthcare August 12, 2024
The vertical integration of physician groups and health systems is pushing colonoscopies to be performed in hospital outpatient departments over ASCs, ultimately driving Medicare and patient out-of-pocket costs up, according to a study published July 25 in Science Direct.
To determine how vertical integration changes services, the study analyzed data collected between 2013 and 2019 from 1 million arthroscopy and 10 million colonoscopy procedures in the U.S. Medicare population.
The study used primary care physicians to measure patient’s exposure to vertical integration, rather than specialist physicians, “due to the concern that health systems may influence patient referrals to these same specialists.”
Here are six key notes:
1. Scaling the change in Medicare payments by the increased use of...
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