The October issue of SJ Magazine features an article explaining how South Jersey’s healthcare systems are continuing to partner to better serve the public and contain costs for patients.
George J. Weinroth, Chief Operating Officer of Cooper University Physicians, believes making relationships between larger healthcare systems and individual specialists is extremely important. Physicians from private practices benefit when joining a larger system, he believes, because they are able to concentrate on patient care and let the hospital deal with the paperwork.
In the 1980s, hospitals sought out physician practices, looking to purchase the groups and grow their healthcare system. “Hospitals were seeking doctors,” says George J. Weinroth, chief operating officer of Cooper University Physicians. “Today, it’s almost gone in the opposite direction – physician groups are seeking direct relationships with health systems.”
This shift primarily came from government changes in reimbursement of healthcare costs in Medicare, which trickled down to Medicaid and private insurance. In the case of cardiologists, for example, reimbursements for consultations, nuclear studies and echocardiograms were reduced. Those reductions in revenues seriously affected the bottom line of many cardiology groups.
At the same time, reimbursements for primary care physicians increased. By providing a broad spectrum of services, healthcare systems are able to offset decreases in cardiology payments with the increases in primary care payments.
“Now, the cardiologists are saying, ‘We don’t know what the next step is going to be and if our reimbursement is going to hold through or not,’” says Weinroth. “So they’re knocking on the doors of health systems as contracted physicians.”
Weinroth believes other specialties will be similarly affected, making relationships between larger healthcare systems and individual specialists even more important. Physicians from private practices benefit when joining a larger system, he believes, because they are able to concentrate on patient care and let the hospital deal with the paperwork.
In addition, hospitals benefit by having contracted doctors connect them to patients, in hopes those patients will choose the health system for other care. “Health systems and physicians must be tied together in the future in order to operate a true accountable care organization,” says Weinroth.