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highest amounts are urban hospitals.
“This is big news because many people think all hospital costs are the same, and they aren't,” said Gravely, who is also chairman of the Virginia Hospital Association's Task Force on Rural Hospitals and Health Care.
“Primary care is the specialty of rural hospitals, and rural hospitals deliver primary care at considerably lowercosts than in the urban setting.”
With business and government searching far and wide for ways to reduce health care costs, rural hospitals jump off the page as the best choice for primary care.
“As healthcare reform proceeds, those in charge must steer patients to the appropriate facilities if economic reality is to be a part of how the reformed system purchases health care. We can no longer pay for primary and secondary care in extremely expensive tertiary care facilities,” explained Gravely.
The other half of the story is that Culpeper physicians' charges are also low compared with their peers. This fact was documented by data from Medirisk, an independent organization consulted by the Culpeper Physician Hospital Organization (PHO). The review shows that 92% of Culpeper physicians' undiscounted fees are equal to or below the discounted fee of Northern Virginia physicians and that 80% are equal to or below the discounted fees of Richmond physicians. Even compared to managed indemnity plans, Culpeper physicians' regular fee schedules look very look.
“With physicians’ charges comparing well along with hospital charges, health care in our community is a very good deal,” said Jim Rutkowski, vice president of finance and chairman of the. newly-formed Culpeper PHO. *
88.9%