U.S. Senators Max Baucus, D-Mont.; Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; and U. S. Representative Pete Stark, D-Calif., have sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services asking it to account for more than $4 million in Medicare reimbursements to physician-owned West Texas Hospital in Abilene during an 18-month moratorium on Medicare payments to new physician-owned specialty hospitals. The lawmakers have attempted to stem the growth of physician-owned specialty hospitals and are now spotlighting the death of a 44-year-old patient who underwent spinal disk-fusion surgery in January at West Texas Hospital. After the patient went into cardiac arrest, the hospital called 911 to have him transferred to Abilene Regional Medical Center, where he died. “It really seems to me that if you call a place a hospital, it should have the facilities to handle an emergency, but all this facility could do was call 911,” said Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Added Stark, chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, “If specialty hospitals are unable to provide adequate care to Medicare beneficiaries, we should shut them down.”
Ron Rives, West Texas Hospital’s CEO, said the hospital is not a specialty hospital and that staff did everything they could to revive the patient, reports The Houston Chronicle. “It was only as a last resort and in the interest of saving a life that a call was placed to 911,” Rives said in a statement. Texas has 57 physician-owned hospitals and 20 more are being developed.
