Article 118. Investigation highlights potential dangers of Surgery Centers

CBS "Investigation highlights potential dangers of surgery centers in the U.S." CBS News March 2, 2018.

A joint investigation by USA Today Network and Kaiser Health News highlights the dangerous conditions that have apparently led to many deaths in facilities known as surgery centers across the U.S. The report takes an in-depth look at operations performed at these non-hospital facilities and found more than 260 patients have died after surgery center procedures since 2013.  

The deaths occurred largely because the procedure wasn't done at a hospital, but at one of more than 5,600 surgery centers across the U.S. There are now more surgery centers, which focus on routine, same-day operations, than hospitals. The industry says this can make for cheaper, faster and more convenient service than in a hospital, but when something goes wrong during surgery, the hospital may be the safer option.

 It appears that others mostly individual Doctors have discovered, as I have, that General Hospitals are low patient volume/ high cost and that when routine procedures are moved to individual Surgery Centers the procedures become high patient volume/ low cost.  The problem found by this Investigation was that medical standards were not maintained and many of the Surgery Centers only objective was to make as much money as possible.

What’s happening here is: Insurance Companies, Medicare and Medicaid reimburse at the General Hospital rate leaving Surgery Centers to receive huge bonuses for each patient processed.

I recommend that all General Hospitals in metro areas reorganize creating routine specialized Surgery Centers (I have identified about 15) within the Hospital grounds with access to the Hospitals ER. 

This will reduce the cost of Health Care for: insurance Companies, Medicare and Medicaid. Unfortunately in rural areas where patient volume is low General hospitals will continue to provide services but at the current high rate. 

A related problem is that in metro areas with the conversion to internal independent routine Surgery Centers within each Hospital fewer Hospitals will be needed.