WASHINGTON POST: …The push is forcing doctors to make decisions about how to deliver care to patients, many of whom have relied on long-standing relationships with trusted independent neighborhood physicians and wonder what lies ahead.
It also spotlights benefits and drawbacks for patients and doctors alike in one of the health-care overhaul’s much-touted initiatives, set to begin next year. The law will reward teams of doctors, nurses and others if they coordinate to provide better care at lower costs. As front-line doctors, primary-care physicians are key to this effort…
For many doctors, the salaried jobs may come with greater security, but the trade-off is less individual freedom over how many patients they see and how they care for them, they said. …(more)
EDITOR: If we believe in altruism, control of medical practices by hospitals will benefit patients and reduce health care costs. If we believe in capitalism, the interest of hospitals will be to maximize “fee for services” at the cost of public health and the tax payers.
Hospitals, when not owned by insurance companies, are in the business of selling services to the adequately insured sick. Insurance companies are in the business of eleviating the need for seeing doctors and going to hospitals.
Better still, “Medicare for everyone.”
