Who's the boss? White House recommends physicians join hospitals, large groups
AUGUST 27, 2010 || Adapted from Medscape Medical News—a professional news service of WebMD |
Washington, DC - The White House is advising physicians to accept a life in Big Medicine—as a hospital employee or member of a large group practice—in the wake of healthcare reform [1].
Some leaders of organized medicine, however, are objecting to the government message.
"We're not ready to write off the small practices," Dr J Fred Ralston, president of the American College of Physicians (ACP), said in an interview. "We think there needs to be more than one delivery model."
"America is not a one-size-fits-all country," added Dr M Todd Williamson (North Georgia Neurological Clinic, Lawrenceville), a spokesperson for the Coalition of State Medical and National Specialty Societies, which campaigned against the new healthcare-reform law, now called the Affordable Care Act.
America is not a one-size-fits-all country.Ralston and Williamson were responding to an article by two White House officials and one ex-official about the implications of healthcare reform for medicine that was published August 23, 2010 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The authors are Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the Office of Health Reform; Dr Ezekiel Emanuel, special advisor for health policy with the Office of Management and Budget; and Dr Robert Kocher, who stepped down in July from the National Economic Council.
The economic forces put in motion by the [Affordable Care Act] are likely to lead to vertical organization of providers and accelerate physician employment by hospitals and aggregation into larger physician groups," they write. Physicians who embrace the changes and opportunities created by the law "are likely to deliver the greatest benefits to their patients, the health system, and themselves" and "will be rewarded in the future payment system."
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