Are Primary Care Doctors Becoming More Like Financial Advisors?

Posted on May 6, 2010 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA

Hospitals [BDs] “versus” Family Practitioners [FAs]

By Dr. David Edward Marcinko; MBA, CMP™

[Editor-in-Chief]

The Big Mistake

Those who believe that hospitals need medical specialists like radiologists, pathologists and oncologists, more than primary care doctors, are mistaken. And, those doctors who believe that the majority of “financial advisors” work for their clients are also mistaken. Here’s why in analogy format.

Why Hospitals Need PCPs

Hospitals generally need primary care physicians, more than specialists, because insurance contracts can be negotiated from a position of strength. A solid [large] primary care panel is a must-have for most insurance contracts. Just recall more than a decade ago – when PCPs were told of an emerging new renaissance where they would reign in place of the medical specialists? It never happened then, but it may happen now following healthcare reform.

Also, recall that the growth of fiduciary Registered Investment Advisors [RIAs] was slow until the stock market collapse of 2008. The pace is accelerating today with the political dawn of financial reform.

Patient’s Love their PCPs – Not their Hospitals

Moreover, please realize that few patients shop around for specialists, or hospitals, as they do for PCPs. OK, the OB-GYNs are unique in that they can play a dual role – as specialist and primary care doctor – just ask my wife who would rather eat nails than change her [female] female doctor.

Hospitals also need PCPs as referring physicians to generate business through their ERs, admissions department, outpatient centers, and/or by ordering invasive and non-invasive radiology tests, images, scans or laboratory tests, and/or sending patients to specialists who will do expensive procedures or surgery in their ORs, hospital and/or related facilities.

Doesn’t this sound like a stock broker working for his wire-house or broker-dealer?  

www.HealthcareFinancials.com

The PCP Loss Leader

Primary care is a loss-leader to hospitals as they make little money directly off medical practices, but can generate a great deal from the referrals and procedures the grass-roots docs generate; especially if they “play the game” like commissioned stockbrokers. And, consider brilliant medical diagnosticians, like TV’s Gregory House MD, and all those tests and procedures they can do – just to be sure!

No wonder that physician-executives and hospital administrators like Dr. Lisa Cuddy of the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, in New Jersey, love them.

Ditto for wire-house office managers and stock-brokerage OSJs [Office of Supervisory Jurisdiction] who love their “top producers”, brokers and FAs.

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Conflicted Missions

Unfortunately, this shifts the mission of PCPs from keeping patients out of the hospital – as physical and fiscal advocate – to sending them to the hospital as a “heavy admitter-referrer” with resulting perks and swagger.

Thus, “success” of the PCP from a hospital perspective is not to avoid referrals or costly procedures, but to gather them.  However, success is a matter of perspective that may be very unfortunate for the patient, state or federal payer, private employer and/or insurance company.

Financial Advisor Analog

Does this PCP conundrum sound like the conflicted situation found with many “independent” financial advisors today? Are PCPs becoming mere patient gatherers, or profit generating shills, for their hospitals, employers or healthcare systems? Where does one’s duty rest? Are we doctor’s or medical product/procedure merchants?

www.CertifiedMedicalPlanner.com

Conclusion

And so, your thoughts and comments on this ME-P are appreciated. Is this analogy correct, or not. Is it too harsh or too gentle – and for whom?

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