More than 48% of all U.S. physician practices and nearly 70% of physicians are now owned or employed by either hospitals or corporate entities, according to the latest research. Add to this shift the recent news of Amazon’s new One Medical benefit, billed as delivering access to high-quality primary care and 24/7 on-demand virtual care to the company’s more than 160 million Prime subscribers, and it’s clear that the corporatization of primary care is showing no signs of slowing.
As two primary care physicians committed to providing the best possible care for our patients, we have a front-row seat to the threat that corporatization poses to the very essence of independent primary care. We also have hope. One emerging model is successfully embracing the tenets of independent primary care, shining a light on the path to better patient health in a rapidly transforming healthcare landscape.
Defining high-value primary care
High-value primary care relies on maintaining its independence. Independent primary care physicians (PCPs) excel at providing personalized care by fostering meaningful relationships with patients, ensuring that medical decisions are tailored to individual needs, and focusing on prevention to avoid health catastrophes and improve overall health. They often integrate with community leaders, influence local health policy, and mobilize community resources to help patients facing socioeconomic challenges. In the independent setting, patients of these PCPs benefit from a continuous relationship with the same PCP over time, leading to better health outcomes born of a deeper understanding of their unique healthcare needs.
Notably, these PCPs (and their patients) are less likely to be influenced by the economic incentives that perversely drive patients back to hospitals and health systems in search of expensive but preventable or unnecessary care. In fact, primary care owned or employed by a hospital is often seen as a loss leader for downstream revenue generators. Hospital-based PCPs are also more likely than their independent peers to experience a loss of autonomy over patient care decisions. A recent survey from the Physicians Advocacy Institute found that 60% of physicians believe that the trend away from private practice ownership has reduced care quality, largely due to a lack of clinical autonomy and an increased focus on cost savings by facility leadership. These collective factors are obstacles to the sacred physician-patient relationship in service of a hospital-driven agenda and slow-moving bureaucracy.
Collaboration over corporatization
Maintaining independence in primary care has become increasingly difficult due to powerful industry headwinds that often lead previously independent practice owners to sell their businesses in defeat. Fortunately, PCPs have more options beyond joining hospitals, health systems, or emerging corporatized healthcare, where financial and operational pressures can form barriers to better care. Collaborative primary care networks, also known as “enablers,” are entities that combine the strengths of independent primary care with the bargaining power and economies of scale associated with larger corporations. These network groups offer a viable way for practices to maintain independence by working together under a federated body to pool resources and improve infrastructure, thereby reducing administrative burden on the practice and bringing in new technologies and care coordination capabilities. These enablers also help independent practices negotiate collectively to secure better payer contracts, which ensure sustainable revenue streams without sacrificing their patient-centered approach.
Collaborative primary care networks are effective because they embrace the power of consolidation crucial to the success of corporatized care models while preserving practice autonomy, divorced from upstream economic incentives, which place patient care at risk. Such groups are financially rewarded for keeping patients healthy and out of the hospital, which is ultimately what independent primary care does best.
Incentivizing value alignment
Only time will reveal Amazon’s impact on care, but the rise of corporate primary care doesn’t have to spell the death of patient-centered care. What we do know is that primary care innovations deliver true value only when the right incentives are in place, as demonstrated by independent primary care.
When corporatized primary care organizations function independent of misaligned financial incentives, success can instead be defined through health and well-being. When aligned with the values of independent primary care, corporatized primary care can invest in robust multidisciplinary teams, focus on preventive care, and use technology to improve efficiency in a new model of care delivery that combines the best of what corporate and independent primary care each have to offer.
When independence is maintained, high-quality, personalized primary care will retain a meaningful place within the U.S. healthcare system and continue to help patients live healthier, longer lives. And that gives these two veteran physicians more hope for a brighter future.
Photo credit: Flickr user Eva Blue
As a leader in primary care advocacy and an experienced physician executive with 21 years in leadership, Dr. Sara Pastoor, Elation Head of Primary Care Advancement & Co-Director of Presence Wellness, is a role model and champion for physician leadership, and is a board certified, clinically active family medicine physician. Her experience as a primary care innovator and entrepreneur spans a career in military medicine, academic medicine, private practice, and employer-sponsored delivery models. She received her MD from Rosalind Franklin University of Health Sciences and MHA from Trinity University.
With a wealth of expertise in the medical field and in executive leadership roles, Dr. Andrew Carroll, Senior Medical Director, IntraCare oversees all operations of a busy medical practice, provides medical care to patients of all ages, and leads the business arm for his private practice in Arizona. Dr. Carroll’s work developing innovative population health management tools and employing a team that delivers cost-conscious, comprehensive, and compassionate healthcare demonstrates his ability to drive organizational success.
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