FTC investigating practice of healthcare monopolization

https://doctorsofcourage.org/ftc-investigating-practice-of-healthcare-monopolization/

Many, if not most of us who have been the subject of investigations and prosecutions have been lead down this road by large healthcare systems that appear to feel threatened by you. Many of us who don’t quite fit the mold or that have refused to cooperate have been subjects of sham review by these systems or just plane bad publicity. The FTC is now probing into the larger mergers. Called the Merger Retrospective Program. It has sent orders for 6 years worth of claims to Cigna, United Healthcare, Anthem, Florida Blue, Aetna, and Health Care Service Corporation.

The FTC is looking to access the impact of Physician consolidation, including Physician practice merger and hospital acquisition of Physician practices between the periods of 2015-2020. This will allow the FTC to access the impact of healthcare facility consolidation. The FTC hopes to learn more about how mergers impact competition and “proper functioning of healthcare markets”. They will be examining inpatient and outpatient data in 15 states. The pandemic has resulted in an increase in mergers. Previous research has shown that mergers drive up cost without increase in quality or patient experience. FTC chair Joseph Simons states that “Merger retrospectives are a powerful way of engaging in critical self-examination to see if our antitrust enforcement is working correctly.”

Anyone who has been paying attention as to what has been going on in various communities throughout our country for the past 8-10 yrs. We live in a ONE HOSPITAL COUNTY… with a population of abt 85,000. This local hospital, about 10 yrs ago , started buying up local office practices. In around 2013 we were told that our multi prescriber office was been sold to the hospital.  Our PCP told us that in the previous year that he had seen more pt visits than ever before and he brought home $40,000 less the previous year.  They were a fairly “high tech office” they were one of the very first offices to implement EHR several years before but apparently the cost of the “back office” where all the billing took place was taking its told on their bottom line.

IMO, nothing really changed in how the office functioned in seeing and taking care of pts.  About 5 yrs later, we were informed that our hospital system was “merging” with a MAJOR HOSPITAL SYSTEM in a near by large city in a adjacent state..  Within a year or so, things started to change in and around out county.  Apparently the “merger” was actually a sale because our local hospital now bears the name of the LARGER HOSPITAL that they merged with.

Then all the practices and the hospitals implemented a major hospital software system. Two of the prescribers in the practice that dealt with pediatrics were asked to move on and the practice that had a separate waiting room for “sick kids” … was gone and the whole waiting area and reception area was remodeled.

In Nov 2019, Barb experiences some unexplained shortness of breath and our PCP recommended that she be admitted to the local hospital for at least <24 hr observation.  Now our PCP could no longer see his pts when they were in the hospital… the hospital now had a staff of 20 HOSPITALISTS. and below is the post that I made about that encounter.

Does a practitioner’s ethnicity effect the care they provide to females ?

I have never updated that original post…. I filed a complaint with the QIO ( https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/QualityImprovementOrgs )

Which a entity that oversees how hospitalized Medicare pts are treated.. The QIO reviewer’s report basically “ripped this doctor a new one”… so I took that report and filed a complaint with the Indiana AG office … a few months later I get a copy of the letter sent to at least the doctor and perhaps his hospital employers basically stating that this is A WARNING – DON’T DO IT AGAIN.

Over a year as pasted and from people I know who work in/around the hospital states that he had not changed his opiophobic ways.

The entire point is as these hospital systems merge and getting larger… they are most likely accumulating “deeper pockets/ cash reserves”…  Deep pockets is what law firms go after and these large hospital systems tend to put out systemic edicts in how their practitioners will practice medicine…. prescribe or not prescribe certain medications or groups of medications – think controlled substances.

If one prescriber is force reduction in medications used for chronic pain medications, most likely many/most/all practitioners within the hospital system are doing the same, because of a policy and procedure edict coming from the corporate suite… initiated by the CFO or legal dept.  That means that hundreds or thousands of pts are being discriminated against because of their medical necessity for a certain category of meds.

I get the sense that numerous law firms are “sniffing around the chronic pain community” they are trying to figure out a game plan…  healthcare discrimination at this level has never happened before and all the health issues that are being discriminated against are subjective diseases… there are no lab tests to determine the severity of a individual’s condition.

Here is a link to all the ill effects to human beings having to deal with under/untreated pain… it is quite extensive and many effects can be LETHAL  https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=20995

IF any pt talks to a law firm, never let them go down the path of talking about MAL PRACTICE…  Malpractice is when something goes accidentally and the pt is harmed.  With forced reduction of pain and other meds… that is an INTENTIONAL HARM that is being caused to the pt.  That has nothing to do with MALPRACTICE.

Filed under: General Problems