A new op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by former Obama White House Advisor on Healthcare Policy Bob Kocher reported providers are better off independent to keep costs low than becoming employees "owned" by a single institution; Kareo agreed.
Kareo CEO Dan Rodrigues said, "All over the country, we hear our customers saying 'Amen' to Bob's realization. The facts are telling."
Here are a few key statistics about independent physicians:
1. Independent physician groups have stronger incentives to prevent hospitalizations than hospital-owned groups, thus outpatient practices independent of hospitals are better for accountable care organizations than one hospital system owning several outpatient practices, according to a recent article in Harvard Medical.
2. Independent practices reduce avoidable hospitalizations by 33 percent, according to a 2014 Health Affairs report.
3. There is a substantial difference in average cost for services when independent doctors provide the service when compared with hospital-owned and multi-hospital-owned physicians. The hospital-owned physicians increased costs by 40 percent and multi-hospital-owned physicians increased cost 56 percent, according to a 2014 JAMA article.
4. More than half — 60.7 percent — of physicians were in small practices of 10 or fewer physicians in 2015, according to an American Medical Association study.
5. The AMA suggests independent physicians moving to hospital employment have been minimal; physicians owning their own practices decreased from 53.2 percent to 50.8 percent while the share of physicians who were in solo practice only dropped about 2 percent. Direct hospital employment went from 5.6 percent to 7.2 percent.
"My experience has been that the bureaucracies of hospital-owned practices decrease provider autonomy and the ability to quickly adapt to the ongoing changes in healthcare decreases as well in my opinion," said Scott Mayer, MD, of Today Clinic. "Our current healthcare status has made it increasingly difficult to maintain private practice, but just like small business where most innovation comes from, private practice is where I believe the most creative, flexible and innovative healthcare will always come from."