Company includes hospital, surgery centers and more
Founded in 2009 by Dr. Robert Wills and Jared Leger, Arise Healthcare offers its Austin area physicians the ability to own a percentage of the facility at which they have an office, said Leger, who is also the company's CEO and managing partner.
During the 1990's and early 2000's, physician-owned hospitals increased throughout the country before 2003 federal regulations prohibited physicians from being able to self-refer to new hospitals, according to the American Hospital Association. In 2006, the constraints were lifted.
Governing agencies, including the AHA, feared self-referrals doctors would result in more services and higher health care costs, Leger said. However, he said a Kaiser Health News report showed physician-owned medical facilities did not have an increase in owner referrals and performed better regarding patient satisfaction.
"We want to provide health care the way it was intended," Leger said. "When doctors get involved in management, [patients] get better treatment. There is a sense of ownership when the doctor hand-picks his staff. With the bigger facilities, doctors don't feel engaged."
Leger said his centers provide medical services including urgent care, physical therapy, urology, orthopedics, imaging and others, but services vary by location.
The Stonegate Surgery Center became Arise's first ambulatory surgery center—healthcare facilities that provide same day surgical care—in 2009, Leger said.
On June 30, 2013, the company purchased Rollingwood-based Austin Surgical Hospital from Symbion Inc. and renamed it Arise Austin Medical Center.
Following the acquisition, Arise Healthcare established three other off-campus medical centers—Riverplace Imaging and Women's Center, 6611 River Place Blvd., Austin; Hays Imaging Center, 135 Bunton Creek Road, Ste. 101, Kyle; and the Wound Care and Hyperbaric Center, 6633 E. Hwy. 290, Ste. 101, Austin—under the hospital's umbrella, Leger said. A health care system is permitted to expand to other off-campus health care services if its main hospital is located within a 35-mile radius, he said.
"We call that our 'hub-and-spoke model' with [Arise Austin Medical Center] being our main campus," he said. "Our growth strategy is to continue with the hub-and-spoke model."
Leger said Arise will open Medical Towers at Shadowglen, a wound care and imaging center in Manor, in September. The company announced April 25 that it will construct Medical Towers at Sawyer Ranch in Dripping Springs. The group is also researching adding Bastrop, Georgetown and Marble Falls facilities, he said.
"People don't want to go to [downtown] main campuses anymore," Leger said. "They want [health care] that's more convenient, where they can park easily and stop by on their way to or from work. If you put ancillary services in neighborhoods, it's good for the patient."
Women's center uses advanced imaging tech
Opened in January, Riverplace Imaging & Women's Center, 6611 River Place Blvd., Austin, features a Computed Tomography, or CT, scanner that emits about half of the radiation of a typical scanner, said Dr. Joshua Lucas, Arise Austin Medical Center's lead radiologist.
A CT scanner uses a small amount of X-rays to produce internal images and is effective as a diagnostic tool when a patient has chest pain, bowel pain or other symptoms, he said.
"There's nothing dangerous about medical imaging radiation if it helps us take care of you," Lucas said. "It's a balance—risk versus benefit. If you lighten the risk size, the benefit is bigger, like a scale."
ACA limits Arise model
The Affordable Care Act prohibits physician-owned facilities from accepting Medicaid- or Medicare-insured patients but grandfathers in facilities that admitted these patients before the passage of ACA, Arise Healthcare founder Jared Leger said.
"The American Hospital Association supports ACA [provisions] limiting the future growth of physician self-referral to hospitals they own," AHA Director of Policy Ellen Pryga said. "Most physician-owned hospitals provide a limited range of services to a limited range of patients, focusing on those most profitable.
"When such hospitals proliferate, it [is]more difficult for community hospitals to provide needed, but less lucrative, services to the [whole] community."
