Report Says Harvard-Affiliated Hospitals Get Higher Insurance Payments, With Similar Patient Outcomes

Harvard-affiliated Mass. General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital receive above average insurance payments in comparison to other area hospitals—without showing better outcomes for patients, according to a Boston Globe report earlier this week.

For example, while Brigham receives $24,500 for a standard angioplasty, the lesser-known Metro-West Medical Center in Framingham receives $17,000 for the same procedure, according to analyses performed by the Globe’s Spotlight Team.

The president of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Charles Baker, voiced concerns about such disparities in insurance compensation.

“The same service delivered the same way with the same outcome can vary in cost from one provider to the next by as much as 300 percent,” Baker said in a statement to the Globe. “There is no other sector of the economy anywhere in this country in which that kind of price variability with no appreciable difference in service or product quality can sustain itself.”

Since 1994, Mass. General and Brigham—which both rank in the top 10 on US News and World Report’s honor roll of hospitals—have been under the management of Partners HealthCare. After bringing together two such prestigious hospitals, Partners became tremendously powerful in swaying insurers, according to the Globe.

With favorable insurance contracts, Partners has earned more than $1.7 billion in profits since 2004. However, 24 smaller hospitals in Massachusetts continue to lose money annually. According to the Globe, these hospitals could reverse such deficits if compensated at the same rates as Partners.

Paul Levy, the chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, brought the situation before the Massachusetts Medical Society last month.

“Shouldn’t there be some correlation between what you get paid for doing something and the quality of what you do?” he said, according to the Globe.