Becker's ASC Review

90 HEALTHCARE NEWS 70% of physicians are now employed by hospitals or corporations By Laura Dyrda B y the end of 2020, almost 70 percent of physi- cians reported being employed, and there was a steep acceleration of physicians joining hospitals or corporate entities in the last six months of the year. Avalere released a report June 29 outlining trends in physician employment from January 2019 to January 2021. e big findings: 1. e rate of employed physicians climbed steadily from January 2019 to January 2020, from 62.2 percent to 64.5 percent. By July 2020, 65.8 percent were employed, and in the last six months of the year employment jumped nearly 4 percentage points to 69.3 percent. 2. In 2020, 48,400 physicians le independent practice for employment by hospitals, health systems or corpo- rate entities. Hospitals and corporate entities acquired 20,900 physician practices from 2019 to the end of 2020. 3. Physician employment by hospitals and health sys- tems has been relatively flat from January 2019, when 46.9 percent of physicians were employed, to July 2020, when 47.6 percent of physicians were employed. From July 2020 to January 2021, 11,400 physicians le private practice for hospital employment, which reached 49.3 percent. 4. Corporate entities, including insurers and private equity firms, increased employment by 3 percentage points last year. In January 2020, corporate entities employed 16.9 percent of physicians. A year later, 20 percent of physicians were employed by corporate entities, with 11,300 physicians making the change in the last six months of the year. Independent physicians and ASCs see the trend toward consolidation as a threat to their business model. When referring physicians join larger net- works, they oen are unable to refer outside of those networks. Likewise, specialists employed by hospitals are oen unable to take cases to independent ASCs. "e most significant external threat is marketplace competition and/or domination by the hospital sys- tems or its affiliates, mainly by physician employment and through hospital-owned ASCs or joint ventures," Raghu Reddy, executive administrator of SurgCenter of Western Maryland in Cumberland, told Becker's. "e hospital JVs are on the rise in many states, es- pecially when physicians are selling their practices to the hospitals or joining supergroups that may affiliate with a hospital to minimize the politics." n 14 healthcare CEOs with best employee reviews on Glassdoor By Hannah Mitchell J ob and recruiting site Glassdoor released the winners of its an- nual Employees' Choice Award, honoring the top-rated CEOs in 2021. The ratings are based on anonymous employee feedback on their CEO. Here's how healthcare CEOs ranked among 100 CEOs in the U.S.: No. 3: Peter Pisters, MD (MD Anderson Cancer Center) No. 22: Michael Dowling (Northwell Health) No. 25: Michael Mahoney (Boston Scientific) No. 29: Alex Gorsky (Johnson & Johnson) No. 35: Christophe Weber (Takeda Pharmaceuticals) No. 42: Kenneth Frazier (Merck) No. 49: Paul Markovich (Blue Shield of California) No. 54: Kevin Lobo (Stryker) No. 56: Tim Pierce (Morrison Healthcare) No. 59: Steven Corwin, MD (NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City) No. 60: Marc Boom, MD (Houston Methodist) No. 64: Gary Guthart, PhD (Intuitive Surgical) No. 77: Pascal Soriot (AstraZeneca) No. 79: Dan Burton (Catalyst) n Physician lives at Tennessee hospital to be available around the clock By Ayla Ellison B ig South Fork Medical Center in Oneida, Tenn., is one of dozens of rural hospitals across the country struggling to keep its doors open. The hospital's owner, Rennova Health, said in April that its Tennes- see hospitals were operating at a cash deficiency. The West Palm Beach, Fla.-based company said payroll had been late, making it difficult to retain employees. The challenges have left Big South Fork Medical Center with only one physician, Deepak Reddy, DO. He lives at the facility to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to National Geographic. Six rural hospitals in Tennessee have closed since 2019, includ- ing two owned by Rennova. The company shut down Jamestown (Tenn.) Regional Medical Center in June 2019 and closed Jellico (Tenn.) Community Hospital in March. n

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