Another Voice On SCHIP

Hat tip to Bill Scher at The Huffington Post for this one...



Update 10/11/07: In response to the commenter, this biased "blog author" (Quotes, huh? Screw you.) found the following (from here)…

Section 651 creates new limitations on the exception to the prohibition on certain physician referrals for hospitals. This section would establish several new reporting and disclosure requirements, including submission of annual reports that identify each physician owner and a requirement to have disclosure procedures in place that inform patients of a physician’s ownership interest. Other changes include a limit on the aggregate physician ownership of a hospital to 40 percent of the total value, with the investment interest of any individual physician owner not to exceed 2 percent of the total value of the investment interest held in the hospital.

This provision prospectively abolishes the so-called “whole hospital” exception that allowed physicians to refer Medicare patients to a hospital in which they had ownership/investment interests, as long as the physicians performed services at the hospital and their ownership interests were in the hospital itself and not a subdivision of the hospital.

I only care about this as a prospective patient at a medical facility (could happen, though I’m not planning for that of course), and it sounds to me as if Section 651 affords more transparency for patients when considering care facilities referred to them by their medical providers. And why exactly should I be unhappy about that?