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PHA requests emergency and patient disclosure policies

Ambulatory Surgery Reimbursement Update, February 27, 2007

The executive director of Physician Hospitals of America (PHA), formerly the American Surgical Hospital Association, is asking members of the association to send her copies of several different internal policies to assist with an ongoing investigation into the January death of a patient at a physician-owned hospital in Texas, according to a release from PHA.

The association is collecting examples of emergency and patient disclosure policies to help respond to allegations by and questions from Senate Finance Committee staff members concerning the death, according to Molly Gutierrez, executive director of PHA.

The types of policies sought are:

• transfer policies
• emergency procedure policies
• code blue policies
• disclosure/consent to transfer policies
• disclosure of physician ownership policies/practices

The committee did not make a formal request for this information.

"It is very important that PHA be responsive to this request and to demonstrate to the [committee] that physician owned hospitals are prepared to handle emergency situations and provide full disclosure of ownership, etc. to their patients," wrote Gutierrez. "If PHA does not provide a thorough response to this request, it will make a difficult situation worse . This information will help disarm some of our critics, and be of great assistance to our allies in Congress."

You can e-mail your policies to Gutierrez at molly@physicianhospitals.org.

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