Integration & Physician Issues

While hospital acquisition of medical groups continues to grow, the rate at which hospitals and independent delivery systems are acquiring medical groups has slowed over the past few years, according to reports from Deloitte and Jackson Healthcare.

There are reasons to be skeptical of the widespread predictions of a physician shortage, according to a New York Times op-ed authored by Scott Gottlieb, MD, and Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD.

Last year, the United States had 260,221 total actively practicing female physicians — representing 31.9 percent of all active physicians in the nation, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges' 2013 State Physician Workforce Data Book.

Physician executives and integration experts share three aspects of physician integration that hospital CEOs and other executives tend not to understand.

The Greendale (Wis.) Medical Clinic, a physician practice with two internal medicine physicians, joined Milwaukee, Wis.-based Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin's clinical practice group Dec. 1.

Smaller areas of the U.S. — cities with less than 50,000 people — are experiencing a shortage of rheumatologists, according to a study published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, the journal of the American College of Rheumatology.

Columbia-based University of Missouri School of Medicine, in partnership with University of Missouri Health Care, will open an emergency medicine residency program in July 2014.

Southeastern Health in Lumberton, N.C., in collaboration with Campbell University's Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine, has received accreditation from the American Osteopathic Association for two residency programs.

Forty-four percent of physicians said they do not plan to participate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges, according to new survey results from Jackson & Coker.

Omaha, Neb.-based Alegent Creighton Health plans to develop a new academic medical center on its Bergan Mercy Medical Center campus in Omaha.