patient satisfaction.
• Quality bonuses. Physician-owned hospitals represent less than 5% of
America's approximately 5,700 hospitals. But 7 of the top 10 hospitals
that received quality bonuses in Medicare's Hospital Value-Based
Purchasing Program in 2015 were physician-owned. Also worth not-
ing: This was the fourth consecutive year that physician-owned hospi-
tals have been among the program's top performers, and the third
consecutive year that the No. 1 performing hospital has been physi-
cian-owned (osmag.net/ujMV2R).
• Patient satisfaction. Physician-owned hospitals earned higher levels of
patient satisfaction than their non-physician-owned counterparts did,
according to the 2015 results of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of
Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) Survey, conducted by CMS.
To be specific, 67% of physician-owned hospitals received a 4- or 5-star rat-
ing. What's more, 84 of the 251 hospitals receiving 5-star ratings (the high-
est possible in the Hospital Compare program) were physician-owned
(osmag.net/6rRXnN).
• Criticisms no longer valid. Some of the major criticisms of physician-
owned hospitals, including that they select more profitable patients,
provide lower value care and threaten the financial viability of sur-
rounding hospitals, may no longer be valid. While physician-owned
hospitals tend to treat slightly healthier patients, they don't seem to
select more profitable or less disadvantaged patients or to provide
lower value care than other hospitals do, says a team of American
researchers who published their findings online in the British
Medical Journal last year (osmag.net/ExMU3r). Despite opponents' alle-
gations, they don't systematically select patients based on their level
of income or the profitability of their treatment, the researchers note,
and the patients were just as likely to be Medicaid beneficiaries and
members of racial minority groups as those having surgery at non-
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