It’s back in style, writes Richard Reece:
Today, it is specialists and sub-specialists and hospitalists, who are hot when it comes to physician employment. For hospitals, salaried specialists fill a void ““ in-house patient coverage, ER coverage, and prestige in the community.For the physician, other factors are at work ““ a predictable 40 hour week, which fits the life styles of young or burnt-out physicians, a refuge from the unceasing bureaucratic demands of running a practice and pressures to buy EMRs. Many doctors are saying, “To hell with it, I am going to work for the hospital,” and escape from soaring malpractice costs. For others, there is a genuine desire to collaborate rather then compete with the hospital.
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- Is the economy giving physicians the upper hand in hospital negotiations?
- Physicians and the hospital building boom
- The consequences of making medicine a business
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{ 6 comments }
If these doctors think they are escaping “bureaucratic pressures” by joining a hospital, they are delusional. I work for a hosptial and every week I have to attend a meeting about QI, length of stay, diachrage planning, ER wait times, etc. And I’m not even on ANY OF THE COMMITEES!! Then there are the oidous multidisciplinary rounds with the “team”. Constant calls to “dishcrage so and so, theyve been here too long”, an inability to figure out how much you’re billing because of a billing system so multilayered and bloated, THEY dont even know.
Its a whole new set of nightmares.
Sounds like you should have asked for a few more things in your employment contract. I get paid on an hourly basis to attend all meetings like those. Everyone has a number in their head that will make them happy no matter what calls come along. I love being employed and wouldn’t have it any other way. I make much more than I did and work less.
I didnt have a contract, so I didn’t have any problems when I left, which is the way I prefer it. But since everyone in the department was required to go by the dept head, I doubt I was in a position to negotiate there.
“Back in style?”. God help us.
Excuse me, those of us who got royally screwed by “joining up” with a hospital (especially a rural, “community” one) can shoot many holes through that argument. Contracts didn’t mean a %$#^& thing when push came to shove. In my case the hospital just breached them, and kept right on moving. And little things like the law didn’t stop them.
Questions? Visit my blog and read “the long version” in the side links.
I think it all depends on the the contract when it comes to a rural “community” facility. If you are willing to move you hold all of the cards.. Don’t have strong ties, don’t buy anything you can’t get rid of like a 800,000 dollar house in a town of 6,000 and have a contract that allows you to leave easily. Only those things will ensure that situations are to your satisfaction.
A contract is only as good as the man who signs it . . but he’ll be gone in 6 months so forget that too.
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