Thomas Zenty

I think when we begin to think about high deductible health plans.

I think we're going to see a continued proliferation.

We're seeing patients right now with $50,000 deductible.

That's a big problem because it's catastrophic insurance.

So I think the problem is more than likely going to be growing, especially as we move into things like bundles.

There's no way an academic medical center could provide a bundle at a competitive rate to what you'd find in a community hospital or a non-teaching hospital.

Every hospital has a patient bill of rights.

About a year ago, we began to create a patient financial bill of rights.

There are, in our case, 10.

Six of the 10 don't relate to us.

But we have to make sure that we're going to be protecting the patients who come to us for care.

One of them is a patient's right to know who's in network and who's out of network.

Well, we won't know that because that's going to change on a pretty consistent basis.

But we don't make that determination.

A second is no surprise billing.

Well, if someone gets brought to us, to our level one trauma center by air ambulance, we didn't call the air ambulance.

But we're the ones who bear the brunt of a $60,000 transportation bill that we had nothing to do with.

So the point is,

If we could get aligned as an industry on a patient's financial bill of rights, that to me will set the tone and create the culture upon which we can work effectively with our payer colleagues and others to make sure that we're going to be keeping the patients in the front of everything that we do.