ACEP Now: Boarding has persisted as an issue for the past couple of years. In my career, it’s gotten worse and worse over time, especially after COVID. What obstacles do you find in Congress that exist right now when it comes to addressing hospital boarding, and what would be your recommendations on how we could address them from a society organizational perspective?

ACEP MEMBER AND U.S. REP.

RICH MCCORMICK, MD, is a veteran and emergency physician who serves Georgia’s 6th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.

Between deployments, Dr.

McCormick earned his Master

of Business Administration from National University and medical degree from Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. He completed residency in emergency medicine through Emory while training at Grady Hospital in Atlanta. Most recently, Dr. McCormick served as an emergency physician at

Northside Hospital. Incumbent Rich McCormick, Bob Christian, and Charles King are running in the general election for newly drawn U.S. House Georgia District 7.

Rep. McCormick: First of all,  government is very bad at solving problems. Medicine is unique and very complex. We’ve seen it in the way we pay for medicine, it’s a $5 trillion industry in America. That’s the same as the third-largest GDP in the world. Between the PBMs, the pharmaceuticals, the hospital systems, the doctors, the mid-levels, the nurses, the techs… it is a complex system of payments. The boarding issue is not just one thing. Why would it be worse after COVID? Are there more people sick? You could say that the population is growing at a set rate, but more so in some areas than others. We have underserved communities in the rural areas, we have, let’s say, for example, in the Atlanta region, we had AMC, one of the largest hospitals in the region closed. What does that do? Overburden the other hospital systems.

Each hospital system has its own unique challenges. One thing I will say though is the free market is really good at sorting these out, but if you have a certificate of need (CON) for example, you have no way to compete, you have no way to expand, you have no way to reinvest in serving the public.

ACEP Now: The Federal Trade Commission has been looking into the consolidation aspect as it persists among insurers, as well as providers of health care, that means hospital systems as well as physician groups. The Senate started to look into that and investigate as well. And I was just curious what your thoughts are as it pertains to consolidation, but also the private equity side, in terms of how physician practices have been getting funding more and more recently.