Partners vs. Metrowest
- |
AS STATE officials, insurers, and medical providers seek ways to reduce costs in the health industry, Newton-Wellesley Hospital wants to spend $17.5 million on a new outpatient surgical and screening center in Framingham. If the projected cost of the facility reached $25 million, the state could require the hospital, an affiliate of Partners Healthcare, to get approval for the center from the Department of Public Health. State officials should make sure the $17.5 million is not underestimated to avoid the review.
A spokesman for the hospital says it needs the center's new operating rooms because its main facility is performing many gastric bypasses and spine surgeries, which are in-patient procedures. Saying there is too little space on its 26-acre campus in Newton for the outpatient structure, the hospital plans to renovate a commercial building on Route 30, nine miles away.
This puts it uncomfortably close to Metrowest Medical Center's Framingham Union and Leonard Morse hospitals. Metrowest fears the new facility will skim off profitable procedures, leaving its own hospitals with less profitable but important services like emergency rooms.
State Representative David Linsky of Natick, a critic of Newton-Wellesley's plan, said the bigger issue at play is the expansion of Partners into several Boston suburbs. He said the Partners affiliates get higher reimbursement rates for procedures than community hospitals, and that this and other Partners proposals in the suburbs "lead me to believe we need more state oversight."
In an interview, Dr. Michael Jellinek, president of Newton-Wellesley, said that taking patients away from Metrowest is not his intention. He said the hospital looked at 14 different sites in the area before settling on the Framingham location. One alternative was the former Grossman's home repair center in Wellesley, but Jellinek said it is not as readily available as the Framingham site. He denied that his staff has lowballed the cost estimates for the facility to keep it under the $25 million threshold. "I believe these numbers are accurate and have been well scrutinized," he said.
Still, no one can claim that the Metrowest area needs more health facilities. In fact, a study by the Urban Institute for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts and two other foundations found Metrowest residents have the best access to care of any part of the state.
For the patients and employers who will ultimately foot the bill for any new facility, the best solution would be for Newton-Wellesley to see if existing hospitals or outpatient facilities in the area can help it handle the overflow of surgeries. It is time to put an end to "if you build it, they will pay."
