Physicians: Other Alternatives to Hospital Employment

There has been significant attention lately to the increasing trend in hospital employment, however selling your practice to a hospital or becoming a hospital employee isn't the only option for successful hospital/ physician relationship.

There are several different options physicians have to integrate with hospitals while still maintaining their autonomy and more control over how they run their practice, while still allowing a successful relationship with the hospital.

Because of the physician shortage and demand for services, hospitals are often are willing to work out alternative arrangements to hospital employment.

There are many different options physicians have to integrate their practices with a hospital, however according to practice consultants there are 3 main categories- limited, moderate and full.

Limited: physicians provide specific clinical oversight duties 

Moderate: hospitals and physician groups work toward shared goals

Full: not full hospital employment, however the hospital maintains more control over the physician group

To determine the appropriate alignment for your specific group it is important to establish you or your group's core values.  Meet with the hospital to determine how the physician(s) and hospital hope to achieve from the alignment.  There will be many meetings involved, both with the hospital and the physicians as well as third parties, such as consultants and lawyers.

Both parties should determine the physician's group practice issues and common goals.

Read the full article in American Medical News, or click here:

http://amednews.com/article/20130422/business/130429981/4/?utm_source=nwltr&utm_medium=heds-htm&utm_campaign=20130422