Physician/Hospital Alignment: A Strategic Approach to Healthcare Reform

Introduction

The Physician/Hospital alignment model is the teamwork between physicians and hospitals to achieve the common goal of providing quality care to patients (med synergies). Physician/hospital alignment opportunities have come into play more predominantly in recent years due to quality, financial, and regulatory aspects of healthcare reform. Physicians and hospitals are more motivated to align now because the new healthcare reform requires an improvement on key aspects such as quality, cost, and efficiency. Moreover, an increase in patient numbers, a decrease in reimbursements, and a shift among new physician goals and values have contributed to the drive for this alignment. Physician/hospital alignment can be characterized in the range of tactical to transformational. Tactical alignments can include joint ventures, co-management agreements, volunteer medical staff, etc.

They must have mutual understanding and accountability as well as resolve any trust issues that may be present. Moreover, running the clinical service line and establishing operational improvement strategies is a responsibility of both parties. Usually, physicians will form a limited liability company (LLC) in order to more efficiently run this clinical service line in coordination with the hospital (Sowers). Physicians in this co-management arrangement are paid by the hospital based on fixed duties developed beforehand. This payment method is important for the enactment of co-management. The fixed-fee structure works in coordination with a clear set of administrative tasks that physicians must complete for the purpose of refining quality, patient safety, and operations of the service line. When these tasks and performance metrics are developed in the contract, leadership must describe the effort or hours that were required to completed these fixed duties