GAO report on specialty hospitals.

The article in this morning's NY Times on the rise of specialty hospitals (see below) mentions a report from the Government Accounting Office on the phenomenon. As today's "Health Law Highlights" from American Health Lawyers Association points out, the report "notes that specialty hospitals are largely for-profit and, in many cases, are owned in part by physicians. Specialty hospitals as a group tended to be less likely to have emergency departments, with 72% of cardiac hospitals, 50% of women's hospitals, 39% of surgical hospitals, and 33% of orthopedic hospitals having emergency departments. In contrast, 92% of general hospitals have emergency departments."