Why specialty hospitals? “Profit, profit, profit”

“The debate in Rapid City, a city of 60,000 people near Mount Rushmore, mirrors national concerns about specialty hospitals, which are typically doctor-owned for-profit facilities that focus on a narrow range of services such as heart or orthopedic surgery. Critics say specialty hospitals harm hospitals that serve poorer and sicker patients, and lead to waste of health-care dollars by driving people to get unneeded surgery. Since Dr. Teuber’s center opened in 1997, the rate of outpatient surgery in Rapid City has doubled. It now has one of the highest rates of back surgery in the country, according to data compiled by Dartmouth Medical School researchers.”