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LEGAL UPDATE
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Healthcare reform's impact
It's been more than 2 years since the Affordable Care Act became
law, and even after the Supreme Court upheld its most controversial provision, the individual mandate, in June, one-third of the physicians who
responded to our survey said they're taking a "wait-and-see" approach on
healthcare reform. One-third (32.9%) had an "unfavorable" or "very unfavorable" view of it, largely due to fears of reduced reimbursement and
government interference.
One of the healthcare reform law's provisions established accountable care organizations, networks of physicians and hospitals that
team up to deliver care with the aim of netting fiscal rewards from
meeting specified quality-of-care benchmarks. Some observers speculate that ACOs will be a driving force behind the consolidation of ASCs
into hospital and health systems, a trend that's been on the increase
since 2010. Of our survey's respondents, however, 70.4% stated that
they hadn't joined or were not considering joining an ACO at present.
So it remains to be seen what impact these affiliations will have on the
outpatient surgery industry.
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Mergers and acquisitions
The ASC market's consolidation trend is likely to continue with
or without ACOs, though. Changing trends in reimbursement have
many physicians expecting that they'll be compelled to provide more
D E C E M B E R 2012 | O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E
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