Who likes to make the bed?
Apparently not hospitals, because an increasing number are building new “bedless” facilities.
Reception area/waiting room? Check!
Operating rooms? Check!
Patient monitoring? Check!
Inpatient rooms? Heck no!
All of the overnight rooms are the patients’ own rooms at their homes. There’s no need to build them. There’s no need to staff them. And, there are no hospital infections lurking over at Ms. Smith’s place.
So, what’s the difference between an ASC and a bedless hospital? Payment rates. But just as HOPD rates are slowly but surely being squeezed down to the ASC level, it’s a fool’s bet to think that bedless hospital rates won’t be headed to the same destination.
As I wrote in my post on this topic a year ago (Bedless Hospitals and Physician Opportunities), as hospitals become more like ASCs and other outpatient facilities, physician owned non-hospital ventures can become more like hospitals.
Brick and mortar doesn’t change thinking. Thinking changes brick and mortar.
