About The American Association
of Eye & Ear Hospitals

The American Association of Eye And Ear Hospitals is comprised of the premier centers for specialized eye and ear procedures in the world. Association members are major referral centers, offer some of the most innovative teaching programs in the country, and routinely treat the most severely ill eye and ear patients. The mission of these specialty institutions requires them to maintain leading edge technologies, enabling them to provide highly specialized services not available in general acute care hospitals.

The Association was organized in 1983 in response to the transition in site of care from the inpatient to the outpatient setting for a number of ophthalmic procedures. The nine founding institutions had three major objectives. First, they wanted to organize themselves for future government relations efforts if such initiatives were needed. Second, they wanted to develop group purchasing practices for more cost effective acquisition of pharmaceuticals and medical surgical products. And third, since the institutions were not in competition with one another, they wanted to share information and data in order to improve their facilities.

Since its founding, the Association has evolved into an influential force in the U.S. federal legislative and regulatory decision-making processes affecting hospital-related issues. As a result of the Association's successful advocacy efforts at the federal level, the U.S. Congress enacted a special Medicare payment adjustment for outpatient surgery performed in qualified eye and ear specialty hospitals. Under this provision, qualified eye and ear hospitals are paid the lesser of their costs or charges or a blended rate of 75 percent hospital-specific costs and 25 percent of the ambulatory surgical center rate.

And, in the Balanced Budget Act signed by President Bill Clinton on August 5, 1997, our successful advocacy efforts resulted in the inclusion of language directing the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to consider appropriate payment adjustments for eye and ear specialty hospitals when she develops a prospective payment system (PPS) for hospital outpatient services.

One of our most important initiatives is an effort to expand our membership to include surgical specialty facilities of all specialty types as a way to more accurately match our members' evolving interests and pursuits and to include more stakeholders in the Association's programming and advocacy efforts. The alliance, the Council of Surgical Specialty Facilities and Institutes, is designed to be an international association of world renowned providers which believe that a unified approach is necessary to preserve the special missions of surgical specialty facilities, to ensure patients' access to these specialized services, and to pursue public policies which support these institutions.

Aside from becoming a U.S. federal health policy player, AAEEH has expanded its group purchasing practice. By utilizing cooperative purchasing agreements, the Association has achieved significant savings for its members, patients, and for the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The AAEEH purchasing program is currently available to hospital members and a new purchasing program will soon be available to affiliated institutions and international members.

The Association has also developed an informational network through which issues like strategic planning, health care financing, best practices, and reimbursement are discussed. As part of this informational network, the Association has undertaken routine information and data collection efforts.

As evidence of the level of excellent care provided by AAEEH members in the U.S., since 1990, U.S. News and World Report has selected many of the Association's member facilities as being among the nation's finest hospitals. Most recently, in 2002, AAEEH members comprised six of the top twenty ophthalmology facilities in the nation. And in the specialty of otolaryngology, AAEEH members were ranked first and third in the nation. To make the lists, hospitals had to be recommended by at least 3 percent of the 150 board-certified specialists in each of 17 specialties (2,550 physicians in all) in the given field. A total of 1,800 hospitals were evaluated.

During the U.S. health care reform debate in 1994, the AAEEH, in collaboration with other specialty hospital organizations, sought to ensure that all Americans would have health care coverage that gives them access to specialized health care services provided by "centers of excellence." Centers of excellence in the field of institutional care are defined as tertiary care referral centers devoted to specialized health care services which are regionally or nationally recognized for their specialized experience in the treatment of specific, complex conditions and specific populations with challenging care requirements. Every major health care reform plan considered by the U.S. Congress during the second session of the 103rd Congress contained reference to the "centers of excellence" provision sought by the AAEEH and its specialty provider counterparts.

The Association has launched the development of a service and quality differentiation project. This initiative is designed to differentiate AAEEH member hospital's services based upon key clinical outcome measures which can be tracked, analyzed and used to market the individual hospital(s) and facilities

In an effort to facilitate dialogue with other surgical specialty facilities here in the United States and around the world, the AAEEH sponsored the International Forum of Surgical Specialty Centers and Facilities. The first Forum, held in 1998, brought together leaders in specialty health care to talk about the many challenges facing them. Officials from foreign and domestic academic medical centers, hospitals, clinics and facilities attended the program. Program faculty discussed the kinds of health care delivery vehicles taking shape, shared ideas on how integrated delivery systems are evolving, and gave their opinions on the future of specialty care and how specialty care providers fit into the evolving marketplace. It is the Association's aim to use the Forum as the platform among surgical specialty facilities around the world to discuss issues of mutual interest. Future programming is being developed.

During the next several years, health care delivery will be undergoing a series of essential changes which will result in a blurring of the differentiation between specialty hospitals and general acute and ambulatory care providers. During this time, there will be a continued decline in inpatient services resulting in a loss of financial cross subsidization. Specialty hospitals will find it increasingly difficult to maintain their image and positions in the community which they serve.

The future holds many challenges for AAEEH members. While assuring that high quality of service is a hallmark of AAEEH members, the Association will standardize and refine its data collection efforts, pursue extended and strengthened group purchasing practices, and actively participate in legislative and regulatory efforts to reform payment policies, especially in the ambulatory care arena.

Throughout this period of development and change, AAEEH will maintain a consistent level of services focused on the specific concerns of the membership. Specifically, the Association will offer: joint purchasing capabilities; a structured international forum for discussion of issues, concerns, viewpoints and approaches to business; as well as an informal network which facilitates collegial interaction among the executives at the member facilities.