ABSTRACT
In a recent New York Times article, it was noted that more and more physicians are moving to some kind of employment model.* A variety of reasons are offered, but they are pretty much summarized by the fact that employment looks much less risky than being in private practice these days. Yet, some physician practices are very well managed, and some financial indicators in private practice exceed those that could be achieved by a health care system. The time of transition is when these metrics can be muddled and lost. The battle cry in health care (one of them, anyway) is benchmarking. Best to get the benchmarks agreed upon up front and linked to policy statements that are clear and straightforward.
