Sunday, November 18, 2012
Doctors as Salaried Hospital Employees
Our romantic selves continue to cling to the medical ideal
of the friendly GP in solo private practice in an office above the drug
store. The strength of that myth is what
is keeping us from openly recognizing that the prototype health care provider
of the future will be the local hospital that employs its medical staff.
But occasionally, reality creeps through. Page 4A of the November 9 issue of the Omaha
World Herald included a locally written article on changes in medical care as
discussed in a recent forum at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The following paragraph appeared in the
middle of the article:
“Reimbursement by the government and insurers slowly is
moving away from paying doctors for doing procedures and toward a system in
which doctors are salaried hospital employees and are rewarded for keeping
groups of patients healthy.”
Referring to doctors as salaried hospital employees in a
newspaper article is something few would have dared to do not so long ago. Maybe, at long last, that is changing.
