Hospital network participation not linked with improved outcomes, lower costs

Editor's Note

Hospital network participation was not associated with improvements in surgical outcomes or Medicare expenditures, compared with hospitals not in a network, this study finds.

In this analysis of nearly 2 million Medicare beneficiaries having general, vascular, cardiac, or orthopedic surgery between 2007 and 2014 at network (1,868) or non-network (2734) hospitals, there was no association between network participation and surgical outcomes.

The rates of serious complications were similar between network (11.4%) and non-network (11.1%) hospitals.

There was no association between time-in-network and improvement rates of serious complications. After 7 years of network participation, the rate of serious complications in 2014 was 9.6% in network hospitals vs 9.2% in non-network hospitals.