A $35 million specialty hospital under construction in Lancaster, Pa., has promised patients up to a 50 percent cost savings on select surgical procedures compared to acute care facilities in the area, reports Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The affiliate of venture capital firm Aspire Ventures of Lancaster is building a for-profit, four-room microhospital, Clio Health, to compete against nearby community hospitals for surgical cases. Specifically, the microhospital will target the most lucrative surgical specialties: general, orthopedic, vascular, urological and cosmetic, according to the report.
Clio Health officials said it will discount surgical services by between 33 percent and 50 percent of rates offered by local health systems, depending on the procedure. Microhospitals have lower construction costs and generally higher reimbursement for services than urgent care or ambulatory surgical centers. This enables microhospitals to lower patient costs and remain profitable.
Clio Health's low-cost strategy includes offering direct contracting to self-insured companies for surgical care, a strategy deployed by corporations like Wal-Mart and Boeing.
The microhospital is projected to perform approximately 2,000 operations in its first year, according to the article.