Monday, July 28, 2014

Can Physician Loyalty to Their Profession Be Superseded by Loyalty to their Employer?

Whenever the Population Health Blog heard the "value-not-volume" health policy operatives drone on about "provider alignment of incentives," it wondered.... really wondered.... if this Kool-Aid had completely convinced the ACO Adminosphere's inhabitants that their physicians' loyalty to their profession could be superseded by loyalty to their employer.

Sure, running a private-practice sucks and Obamacare's economics favor consolidation, but that's not necessarily enough to capture hearts and minds.  The PHB recently heard a local ACO executive explain that her long-employed physicians were still (yes, still) challenged with EHR implementation, teaming, shared savings, quality metrics, practice management, joint ventures and the role of patient educators. 

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the ACO play?

And then there's a tweet from @VinceKuraitis on how a group of St. Louis cardiologists are "leaving" hospital employment and striking out on their own. Vince asks if this is a random blip or start of a trend.

Good question.

If this does turn out to be the start of a trend, don't be surprised. As someone very wise pointed out millennia ago, people do not live by bread alone.

Image from Wikipedia

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