Surgical Specialty Centers
In June, 2005 the moratorium on Surgical Specialty Hospitals
expired providing surgeons the ability to refer program patients
to a hospital in which they own interest. The Center for Medicare
and Medicaid Services (CMS) has elected not to process any
program provider applications until January 2006 and
the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has been
charged with continuing its study of specialty hospitals.
In addition, MedPAC has been assigned the responsibility of developing a DRG weight system solely for surgical hospitals. Considering all of the legislative activity regarding surgical hospitals, Atlantic's initial recommendation to a potential physician group is to acquire an existing general acute care hospital. Our second recommendation would be to expedite the development process so that the hospital is considered “under development”, and will be grandfathered from any additional moritoriums or legislative activity.
Atlantic executives acted as the lead member of the surgical hospital project that received the first advisory opinion being grandfathered from the moratorium. Surgical hospitals are still a very positive, viable model that will continue to be pursued under the right conditions of ownership and development. In addition to its legislative experience, Atlantic’s executives have developed and operated 10 surgical hospitals. Atlantic applies identical management principals across all of its business entities. Consistent focus on the patient-surgeon experience, establishing operational and financial best practices, and continued strategic planning, makes Atlantic the choice for a physicians surgical hospital management partner.
