Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center chief urges more cost oversight

Boston Globe, March 22, 2010

Massachusetts regulators should more closely oversee hospital costs, including setting prices, limiting new programs that make money for hospitals but drive up overall costs, and even sitting in on contract negotiations with insurers, Paul Levy, chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said on the final day of hearings into the state’s escalating healthcare costs. Hospital executives who testified agreed that, long-term, the state should scrap the current fee-for-service system and pay groups of providers a per-patient annual fee to cover all a patient's medical care. They say such a plan would save money and lead to more coordinated care, the Boston Globe reports.