Top RI Hospitals Weigh in on Concerns that Partners HealthCare Will Drive Up Costs
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
The top hospital groups in Rhode Island are weighing in and voicing concerns that costs will increase if Boston-based Partners HealthCare enters the market.
Partners HealthCare is in the process of buying Care New England — owners of three of Rhode Island’s hospitals — Women & Infants, Kent, and Butler Hospitals.
“Lifespan maintains its position that the proposed acquisition of Care New England by Partners HealthCare would deeply impact health care pricing for all Rhode Islanders. When patients are referred to Boston for care, they and their insurance carriers pay higher Boston rates, where caps don’t apply, for the same high level of specialty care they could receive here in Rhode Island. If local control is ceded in this deal to Boston-based Partners, that, in turn, will affect the cost of health insurance for all Rhode Islanders and drive up costs to consumers and to businesses,” said Jane Bruno of Lifespan.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“From CharterCARE’s standpoint, we are deeply concerned at the possibility that Partners’ appetite for higher rates may mean that smaller, high quality, lower cost providers like CharterCARE will simply be unable to compete for fair reimbursement in the future, threatening local access to essential hospital services and thousands of healthcare jobs in the State,” said Otis Brown, spokesman for CharterCare.
Video Unveiled Tactics
On Monday, GoLocal unveiled a video of a top Partners HealthCare executive captures him saying that the company’s near monopolistic model allows them to force higher prices via by forcing higher reimbursement from insurance companies.
“..the payments we get from insurers are higher than the average payments that go to other hospitals and physician groups in this state,” said Peter Slavin, President of Massachusetts General Hospital — one of Partners HealthCare’s hospitals.
“One of the reasons Partners was created, but far from the only reason, is that back in the early ‘90s, the insurance companies were playing MGH and Brigham off one another and basically [saying] to the MGH if you don’t accept our lower rates we’re going to move our patients to the Brigham and vice versa,” said Slavin in the video.
"So we came together as Partners — we do contracting together — and now insurers have to take either both of us, or neither of us, and that has helped level the playing field," said Slavin.
“The admission by a Partners executive that they purposefully came together as a system so they could use their dominant market share power to achieve higher rates from insurers is troubling,” said Brown.
Today, Partners’ budget of $14 billion is 50 percent higher than Rhode Island’s annual budget and the corporations’ 70,000 employees is more than the total number of Rhode Islander who work in healthcare.
Partners Says It Will Not Increase Costs
“In the video, which is almost a decade old, Dr. Slavin is describing the health care environment during the early-to mid-1990s. However, in today’s health care environment, Partners and other providers across Massachusetts are keeping health care cost growth in check, staying well under Massachusetts’ cost growth benchmark,” said Rich Corp, Partners’ spokesperson.
But, Massachusetts has seen the highest increase in health insurance costs in the country.
“States where workers pick up the largest share of their premium are dispersed across the country: Alabama (26.2 percent), Maryland (26 percent), Virginia (25.8 percent), Massachusetts (24.9 percent) and New Hampshire (24.7 percent),” reports the trade publication Benefits Pro.
In addition, the Commonwealth Fund reports that, “Premiums for employer health plans rose sharply in nearly every state in 2017. After climbing modestly between 2011 and 2016, overall premiums for employer health plans (employer and employee share) grew more sharply in 2017, by 4.4 percent for single plans and 5.5 percent for family plans. Annual single person premiums rose above $7,000 in eight states (Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Wyoming) and family premiums were $20,000 or higher in seven states (Alaska, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, West Virginia, Wyoming) and the District of Columbia. Average premiums for families increased overall in 44 states and the District of Columbia.”
“Together, Brigham Health (a Division of Partners HealthCare) and Care New England can help improve access to care while controlling health care costs for patients in Rhode Island. Additionally, it is worth noting that Rhode Island hospital rates have been negotiated with the Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner (OHIC) and can’t be changed. The Governor’s executive order keeps the growth in insurance premiums below 3.2% each year through 2022,” added Copp.
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