In news that may not come as a shock to those of us who have been through the cycle of hospitals purchasing physician practices before, a recent study has found that hospitals are losing considerable amounts of money on acquired physician practices. According to the study, 92% of reporting hospital CEOs state that they are losing money on their physician networks and 58% of the survey respondents report losing more than $100,000 per employee physician in 2014. For more information on the study, see "The Challenges of Integrating Physician Group Operations", 2014 Kentucky Healthcare Industry Study, Dean Dorton Allen Ford, PLLC. While many hospitals believe that acquisition of physician practices is necessary in order to integrate the delivery of care, the question remains whether many hospitals will be able to absorb these losses long enough to reap the potential benefits of this integration. Payor models which would reward clinical integration have been slow to develop, and even once those models are established, there is no telling whether integrated provider networks will be able to make money under them.
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