Employed Medical Groups

Re-Engineering for the Post-Reform World

At first glance, physician employment seems like the perfect solution to the challenge of healthcare reform. Yet true hospital/physician integration remains an elusive goal, and making employment work financially is as difficult as ever. Hospitals that hope to leverage employed physicians to achieve the goals of reform need to promote a culture of collaboration and sustainability.

Physician employment has taken offfaster than almost anyone predicted.Merritt Hawkins recently reportedthat hospital-employed positions as apercentage of all physician recruitingsearches increased from 11 percent in2004 to 45 percent in 2008. Accordingto Towers Watson, three-quarters of allphysicians changing their work sites arenow moving into hospital organizations.

With thousands of physicians nowunder the same roof with hospitals,integrated systems should be able to hitthe ground running on bold, collaborativegoals. Yet strong clinical integration issomething only a handful of advancedorganizations are just now beginningto achieve. At the same time, hospitalsstill face the perennial challenges ofphysician employment—maximizingphysician productivity and satisfactionwhile controlling financial losses. What’smore, clinical integration itself bringsnew challenges, including overcomingcultural paradigms, designing physicianincentives, incorporating new technology,and measuring clinical outcomes...