Hospital-Based Medicine > > General Hospital Practice– Rising expenses have actually left lots of health centers susceptible to “the sway of personal equity,” one specialist states
by Shannon Firth, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today January 2, 2025
In September, we reported on a Senate hearing that concentrated on the effect that Steward Health Care’s greed and mismanagement had on clients and health care employees. Here we report on what has actually occurred given that.
Throughout a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing, nurses explained the “risky” and “illogical” conditions throughout healthcare facilities in the Steward Health system, which had actually declared personal bankruptcy a couple of months previously.
Around 15 clients in Steward medical facilities passed away due to absence of medical devices or personnel, and much more lives were threatened, stated HELP Committee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). All the while, Ralph de la Torre, MD, the CEO of Steward, invested $160 million on a private yacht, 2 personal jets, a high-end fishing boat, and a contribution to an elite preparatory school.
After he decreased to appear at the hearing in spite of a congressional subpoena, the HELP Committee voted to hold him in civil and criminal contempt. Later on that month, de la Torre revealed that he would resign as CEO having actually “agreeably separated from Steward on equally reasonable terms.”
In mid-December, Steward notified the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas of its strategy to close Sharon Regional Medical Center in Mercer County, Pennsylvania on Jan. 6 Steward has actually currently closed a minimum of 2 other health centers due to absence of a purchaser.
How Did Things Get So Bad?
Increasing health care expenses and insufficient compensation rates have actually left numerous healthcare facilities susceptible to “the sway of personal equity,” Natasha Murphy, MSPH, director of health policy at the Washington-based Center for American Progress, informed MedPage TodayPersonal equity “can action in like that white knight and state … ‘we’re here to assist,'” however their real objective is to make the most of revenues, which is “in direct misalignment” with the objectives of client care, Murphy stated.
Robert McNamara, MD, primary medical officer of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine and a co-founder of Take Medicine Back, a group formed to recover medication from business interests, argued that “at its easiest, the personal equity design is wealth extraction.” Personal equity companies obtain a health system, offer the property, require the medical facility to pay lease it wasn’t paying previously, and after that get loans, providing itself dividends that health centers need to pay back, McNamara informed MedPage TodayThey likewise press doctors to see more clients in less time, cut personnel, and change doctors with less pricey non-physicians, he kept in mind, in addition to raising expenses for clients.
The obtained medical facilities usually aren’t profitable or well-run, he included. “When you put [that burden] on top of them, collapse is basically unavoidable, unless the state bails them out, or some other purchasers been available in,” McNamara stated.
