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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Lauren Rooney |
State Rep. Phyllis
Mundy |
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Mundy takes aim at Pa.’s costly health-care arms race
Introduces bill to resurrect Certificate of Need Law
HARRISBURG, Feb. 7 – State Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Luzerne, reintroduced legislation yesterday designed to hold down health-care costs by reining in what she called a “technological arms race” in Pennsylvania health care: overused, expensive high-tech equipment, physician-owned surgical facilities and other medical technological advancements.
“There is a saying, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ But at what cost?” Mundy said. “The number of MRI units and ambulatory surgical facilities owned by physicians in Pennsylvania is growing by leaps and bounds, impacting the efficiency, quality and cost of health care.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Health reports that the number of physician-owned ambulatory surgical facilities has grown from 91 in 2000 to 235 in 2006. A 2003 survey by the medical journal Health Affairs found the number of physician-owned magnetic resonance imaging units in Pennsylvania increased 47 percent from 1999 to 2001. And the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council reports the number of MRI scans increased from 9.3 million to 13.5 million during that same time period.
“On average, MRI units cost $2 million to buy and $800,000 per year to run. When a physician buys one of these expensive pieces of equipment for his or her own office, as many are doing now, there is likely to be pressure to use it,” Mundy said. “Self-referring physicians order two to eight times as many scans as other doctors.”
Mundy wants to curtail the duplication of services caused by the boom in technology by reinstating Pennsylvania’s certificate of need law that expired in 1996. The law required a “certificate of need” for major health-care equipment purchases or expansions. Since the law expired, there has been no statutory requirement that health-care facilities prove they will provide needed services to the communities in which they plan to operate.
Mundy’s legislation (H.B. 305) would re-enact the certificate of need program, with a number of additions and changes. The bill would:
- Create local review committees to review certificate of need applications and make recommendations to the Department of Health. The local review committees would be made up of local or regional groups of consumers, business, labor, health-care providers, payors or other affected interests.
- Require applicants to submit a data-based cost analysis showing that there is not a more appropriate, less costly or effective alternative of providing the proposed services and that the proposed service will not have an inappropriate adverse impact on health-care expenditures.
- Require the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council to assist the Department of Health in the application review process.
- Create a “look back” provision to require the Department of Health to monitor quality of a facility one year after a certificate has been issued by requesting data from PHC4, including mortality rates and the number of procedures performed.
- Ban physicians from referring patients to any facility in which they have a financial interest -- for example, scanning facilities. Self-referring physicians order two to eight times as many scans as other doctors, according to HealthHelp, a radiologist management company.
“Having a certificate of need process is a common-sense way to save on health-care costs. Currently, more than 30 states use this process or other regulatory measures to review health facilities, or services or both. It’s time Pennsylvania rejoined them,” Mundy said.
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