Competitive pressure to lower prices threatens the ability of academic health centers to provide highly technical specialized services, the Commonwealth Fund Task Force on
Academic Health Centers reports. Because of their social and academic missions, teaching hospitals offer a wide range of services, profitable or not, according to the report
"Health Care at the Cutting Edge: The Role of Academic Health Centers in Specialty Care." They are finding this increasingly difficult to do in a competitive market where their
costs for a given procedure may run twice as high as a community hospital's costs, the task force reports.
"Traditionally, AHC hospitals have cross-subsidized specialty care costs with earnings from routine patient care," says project director Joel Weissman. "But competition in
healthcare markets has become so fierce that everyone has had to reduce prices, leaving fewer dollars for specialty care."
The Washington-based task force recommends policy makers strive to assure AHCs are adequately compensated while providing services as efficiently and effectively as possible,
and consider regulatory interventions and financial incentives to assure high-tech and specialty services are provided in the amounts and sites appropriate. The report is
available at http://www.cmwf.org/publist/whatsnew.asp.