ORX Proceedings
Page 19
Price Transparency's Biggest Proponent
Keith Smith, MD, shared his radical plan to revolutionize the healthcare system.
We've never taken a dime of federal money and it's really been beneficial for us," says anesthesiologist Keith Smith, MD, one of the featured speakers at OR Excellence. And now his Surgery Center of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City is in the process of disengaging from all third-party payors, something he hopes to accomplish in the next 6 to 12 months.
If that sounds unusual, it is. But there's very little that's "usual" about the way Dr. Smith and his partners run their center. A passionate believer in freemarket capitalism, Dr. Smith, the 2013 OR Excellence Award winner for financial management, explained how his libertarian principles led him to a radical business model that's attracted nationwide media attention.
Dr. Smith and his group post all-inclusive (facility, surgeon and anesthesia) prices online, and prefer to deal directly with patients who pay out of pocket. They can do it because the center charges only a small fraction of what most hospitals charge.
"True rational prices emerge from competitive activity," says Dr. Smith. And real and fair competition is what's been missing from health care, he adds. Instead, he argues, the system has become muddled — the
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MARKED MAN
Keith Smith, MD, has attracted national attention for the way he runs the Surgery Center of Oklahoma.
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