This exposes the turf wars that are present in every hospital:

According to the suit filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Feldman’s e-mail stated:

“I have been informed now on multiple occasions by our house staff at Methodist, as well as by one of our cardiology fellows who moonlights there, that the ED attendings (at the instigation of the ED director) are urging and pushing unassigned patients being admitted with chest pain syndrome to make a verbal declaration that their physician is one of the members of the Victor Group.

“When that patient arrives in the CCU and the fellow takes the history, they find that the patients had no recent interaction whatsoever with the Victor Group and would have been quite happy to have been assigned to Dr. Garden or his staff.”

Unassigned patients (i.e. those without a primary care physician) frequently do not have insurance, or have a low-reimbursement insurance like Medicaid. I am not surprised that there was some funneling going on – since taking these patients on is a significant financial liability. (via The Health Care Blog)