By SKO Healthcare Litigation and Healthcare Transactional Practice Attorneys
We asked some of our healthcare attorneys to discuss the changing healthcare industry and how it may impact local businesses. Here are a few of their responses:
David Lester – Physician practices are being acquired by hospitals at a higher rate. Physician practices, particularly smaller group practices, are motivated by the ability to focus more of their time on providing care and allowing the hospital’s administrative personnel to handle management, billing and regulatory matters. As a result, mergers and acquisitions will continue to be on the rise.
Harry Dadds – New electronic record keeping requirements are having at least two significant impacts in the health care industry. First, smaller group practices are attracted to join hospitals who have the resources to implement new electronic record keeping policies. This is leading to more mergers and acquisitions. Second, government regulators are capable of conducting more audits per year due to the efficiencies created by electronic versus paper records. This means health care providers need to be as vigilant as ever to insure compliance with applicable regulations.
Greg King – Some states are implementing tort reform to help reduce costs associated with the treatment and care for our ageing population. As Kentucky continues to attract more long-term care companies, it will feel more pressure to address tort reform.
David Fleenor – Certificate of Need applications, approvals and appeals will continue to play an important role for health care providers as our ageing population increases and the demand for long-term care facilities increases. In addition, the ageing population is placing even more focus on Medicaid and its myriad of regulations.
While many communities may see an ageing population and growing demand for healthcare as a negative, Louisville is turning it into a positive. Louisville is already home to significant healthcare companies such as Kindred, Humana and ResCare, among others, and it is taking an aggressive approach to attract more healthcare companies. Those efforts are not only resulting in more health care companies, but they are also having a broader impact on the region in the form of an increased demand for specialized architecture, construction, accounting, shipping, software and legal work.
