Hospital acquisitions of physician practices are primarily being fueled by burdensome administrative requirements, rising expenses and insufficient commercial and public reimbursement rates, the industry’s most powerful hospital lobby wrote in a recent report that lands as policymakers are taking a magnifying lens to provider consolidation deals.
The American Hospital Association’s report, which leans heavily on a physician survey conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of the industry group, also points a finger at the “vastly different” scale of recent practice acquisition deals by UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health, reports Fierce Healthcare.
“While an inordinate amount of attention has been placed on hospitals’ acquisition of physician practices, little scrutiny has been given to commercial insurers, which have collectively invested billions in physician practice acquisitions,” the AHA wrote in the report. Read more.
