(Snippets from the frontline)
The corporate practice of medicine
California law explicitly does not allow hospitals to employ doctors. Understandably, if hospital administrators control physician salaries, then medical decision-making could be exploited for profit instead of assuring worthy patient care.
Legally, these laws have been circumvented to the detriment of the public. Instead, hospitals have signed contracts indirectly with physicians through doctor groups, HMOs, and teaching institutes.
In the past, physicians were in private practice and independent, and not controlled by hospitals. Now, most doctors have been forced to join medical groups, which are controlled through a contract. Sly.
If a medical group does not comply with criteria set by a hospital, then the contract may not be renewed, or the group might fire your doctor. These contracts are therefore dangled by hospital administrators forcing physicians to violate their Hippocratic Oath while financially benefitting profiteers.
Hospital administrators struck gold augmenting outrageous salaries and bonuses while controlling doctor groups. Unfortunately, it also meant patients now receive cut-rate marginal care when they are hospitalized.
Despite California law, the corporate practice of medicine exists and has taken over medical decision-making and patient care.
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
Thank you for writing so clearly about medical ethics. Senator Charles Grassley cited a “not-for-profit hospital ” in Missouri caught suing indigent patients and enjoying the tax-status of a non-profit. There is now a doctor on his staff in Washington, D.C.
Michael Mather alleged similar conduct by Sentara Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, in that city’s newspaper, The Tide, in ~2010: “Charity Profiting Millions.” Google “Charity Profiting Millions.” David Berndt was the hospital administrator at the time, allegedly paid millions while his hospital sued minority patients earning as little as $7/hour. One has to ask, is this what we in the military are defending? Applicants to medical school will read about this ethical issue through columns such as yours. Everyone carries a smart phone.
Your column can report those “teaching hospitals” which claim to be nonprofit while suing indigent patients. Applicants to medical school will have to judge for themselves,
as will we all, because at the end of the day, we are all patients. H