'80S Medical Industry Expanded with Heavy Capital Investments

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assured a 10-year expansion binge for Oklahoma City's medical establishment during the 1980s. But there were signs that the cost of steady growth was showing up in renewed strains against a smaller manpower pool and, quite possibly, a more vigorous pursuit of fewer dollars in the years ahead.

The most obvious change, in the view of Baptist Medical Center's chief operating officer, Stan Tatum, was a revised hospital and medical care reimbursement system decreeing flat rate payments. Gone is the ability of hospitals to bill for all the services demanded by their patients.

Putting it bluntly, it means stricter limits on the amounts hospitals can actually …