The Real Enemy

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The exodus is almost complete.  More and more doctors are jumping on the bandwagon of hospital employment.  Here is some info from a recent New York Times article:

Last year, 64 percent of job offers filled through Merritt Hawkins, one of the nation’s leading physician placement firms, involved hospital employment, compared with only 11 percent in 2004. The firm anticipates a rise to 75 percent in the next two years.

There is an old saying that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  The consequences of the unhealthy physician-hospital marriage can be very bad for patients.  As the article states, the increase in prices and “facility fees” are just two that quickly come to mind.

But I know the deal.  I was there.  I worked between two hospitals for over fifteen years.   The administrators who that ran them had a warped view of everything, including the Golden Rule.  You know, those that have the gold make the rules.  Administrators treat doctors as a commodity when doctors are salaried.  That is just business.  So if you join you immediately become their bitch.  There, I said it.

After all my battles on this site with the NP/PA militant LELTs, I still know who the real enemy is.  One of my friends (family doc) recently went on an interview for a hospital sponsored job.  During the visit she was asked in front of few members of the hospital’s brass what and how she was getting paid.  She explained that she is on what is called a work RVU system (a system, by the way, completely bastardized by administrators as a way to pay doctors).  When she gave them the dollar per RVU she was getting, one female administrator responded:

“And how long have you been overpaid?”

Overpaid? That dollar per RVU amount my friend was getting paid had NOT changed in 15 years?  And what does an administrator generate for the hospital?  Nada.

Remember, if a doctor went missing for a DAY, there would be chaos in the office.  If this administrator was missing for a month, no one would hardly notice.