USA Privatizing Health Care & Worsening Health Outcomes

[Webster]

(The Guardian) Private equity acquisition of hospitals have led to an increase in deaths among emergency department patients receiving Medicare, according to a recent study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

It’s the latest in a series of recent studies illustrating that private equity acquisition of health facilities leads to worsening patient outcomes, including death.

“Each of them sort of comes up with the same result,” said Martin Kenney, distinguished professor in the department of human ecology at the University of California, Davis and author of Private Equity and the Demise of the Local. “Private equity takes over things in the medical field, quality goes down, prices go up,” Kenney explained.

Researchers found that private equity acquisition leads to increased deaths in nursing homes, increased post-operative complications for common inpatient surgeries and even an increase in medical conditions acquired in the hospital, such as bloodstream infections and injuries from falls.

Notably, the Department of Health and Human Services condemned private equity’s role in worsening patient outcomes toward the end of the Biden administration.

Private equity takeover of hospitals led to rise in Medicare emergency patient deaths, says study

Study found seven more deaths per 10,000 patients in private equity hospitals’ versus non-private equity hospitals

www.theguardian.com

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ANNALS-24-03471

 

[Lamb]

(The Guardian) Private equity acquisition of hospitals have led to an increase in deaths among emergency department patients receiving Medicare, according to a recent study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

It’s the latest in a series of recent studies illustrating that private equity acquisition of health facilities leads to worsening patient outcomes, including death.

“Each of them sort of comes up with the same result,” said Martin Kenney, distinguished professor in the department of human ecology at the University of California, Davis and author of Private Equity and the Demise of the Local. “Private equity takes over things in the medical field, quality goes down, prices go up,” Kenney explained.

Researchers found that private equity acquisition leads to increased deaths in nursing homes, increased post-operative complications for common inpatient surgeries and even an increase in medical conditions acquired in the hospital, such as bloodstream infections and injuries from falls.

Notably, the Department of Health and Human Services condemned private equity’s role in worsening patient outcomes toward the end of the Biden administration.

Private equity takeover of hospitals led to rise in Medicare emergency patient deaths, says study

Study found seven more deaths per 10,000 patients in private equity hospitals’ versus non-private equity hospitals

www.theguardian.com

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ANNALS-24-03471

So it's no longer Covid's fault?



I once read that causation is not correlation.

 

[Frankj]

From the article:

"All of the patients whose records were included in the study were Medicare recipients."

So prior to this were all the patients studied at those hospitals also all Medicare patients as well and with the same socioeconomic demographics involved? And were the conditions being treated generally the same?

I rather suspect this was a study driven by political agenda, no mention apparently is made of the outcomes for anyone other than Medicare patients at those hospitals or a before and after study using the same controls for each.

 

[tango]

It's hardly surprising that any for-profit system will eventually drift towards charging more while offering less. That's how profits are increased.

 

[Frankj]

It's hardly surprising that any for-profit system will eventually drift towards charging more while offering less. That's how profits are increased.

That's only if there is no competition among producers.

Publicly supported endeavors have no incentive to produce anything for less or strive for higher quality results.

 

[tango]

That's only if there is no competition among producers.

Publicly supported endeavors have no incentive to produce anything for less or strive for higher quality results.

True, when healthy competition exists the result is usually improved performance. It's the existence of competition, or the viable threat of a competitor undermining what you've got going, that encourages improvement.

The healthcare has so many regulations it's impossible to imagine it ever getting better. When the alternative to dealing with the sludge is "well you could always just die" people will put up with just about anything.

 

[NewCreation435]

i don't think there is any question that healthcare as a whole has gotten worse over the last couple of decades, even while different tests and medications have gotten better. I think part of it has to do with how insurance has to approve everything these days and all the hoops that doctors have to jump through to get services for their patients.

 

[Frankj]

i don't think there is any question that healthcare as a whole has gotten worse over the last couple of decades, even while different tests and medications have gotten better. I think part of it has to do with how insurance has to approve everything these days and all the hoops that doctors have to jump through to get services for their patients.

I think it's the delivery of healthcare that has gotten worse over the last several decades, not the healthcare or quality of healthcare itself.

I'm not a gambling man and don't make bets on things, but if I were I think l would be pretty safe to bet that there are more personnel involved in administrative functions in healthcare now than there are personnel that are actually involved in treating patients.

Why we put so many people between the doctor and patient is beyond my understanding, and why it costs so much to do so makes no sense to me. Maybe the advances in AI will replace them, they don't do anything a computer can't do better and while people are paid in dollars computers work for electrons.

It all seems to have started around twenty years ago, what changed back then and caused it?

 

[Forgiven1]

Doing some digging and finding the study, it looks like when these facilities are acquired by private equities, they reduce salaries in the ED and ICU. This then results in staffing issues. So, you don't pay, you lose staff and quality of care drops.

We, who have worked in medicine, have known that this happens. Working conditions and pay are important and if they drop, people leave.

I

 

[tango]

i don't think there is any question that healthcare as a whole has gotten worse over the last couple of decades, even while different tests and medications have gotten better. I think part of it has to do with how insurance has to approve everything these days and all the hoops that doctors have to jump through to get services for their patients.

It's not just insurance.

In the UK where the healthcare system is publicly funded it gets progressively worse.

I think part of the problem is that healthcare is a market where demand will always outpace supply, and as a result something has to happen to ration the supply. In some places you end up with rising prices, in others you end up with unmanageable waiting lists, but the end result is the same - people want healthcare and can't get it.

In the US in particular I think a large part of it relates to diet and lifestyle, and the tendency to run to the doctor with minor ailments. Practically everything in the US that even remotely relates to health is loaded with disclaimers to "consult your physician".