Fewer EDs, fewer poor at specialty facilities.(Specialty Hospitals)

Publication: Medicine & Health

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Compared to general hospitals, specialty hospitals treat smaller numbers of poor patients, and they are much less likely to have emergency departments, according to a General Accounting Office report released Oct. 22.

Specialty hospitals, which are almost always for-profit and are often owned in part by physicians who practice in them, are acute-care facilities that focus on specific conditions. Their backers argue that they improve quality and reduce costs through specialization and economies of scale. Critics, however, charge that specialty hospitals skim the healthiest patients with the most generously reimbursed diagnoses, taking...

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