Triangle hospitals are racing to take over local physicians’ practices. In one of the largest examples, the UNC Health Care System finalized a deal late Friday to affiliate with Wake Heart & Vascular Associates, a huge cardiology practice in Wake County long associated with WakeMed. It’s part of UNC’s bigger push to expand its heart business.
UNC, WakeMed and the Duke University Health System have formed similar partnerships with dozens of local physicians this year.
The deals are being driven by recession, looming health reform, cuts in Medicare and in other reimbursements, and increasing competition.
The trend will reshape this region’s medical landscape. It will give hospitals more control over the health market, a key foundation of the local economy. And it will affect physicians’ livelihoods and change how patients receive care for years to come.
Doctors are seeking the safety of hospital systems, which can help manage practices, pay to upgrade technology and negotiate with insurers. Hospital officials want to lock in physicians who can refer patients and increase the use of such important moneymaking services as anesthesiology and heart surgeries.
“This consolidation of practices is a large-scale, national phenomenon that is now coming to the Triangle in earnest,” said Bill Roper, CEO of the UNC Health Care System. “The health-care sector has been so fragmented. Bringing all of this together in a constructive and thoughtful way will be good for patients.”
For now, patients won’t see much change except for new signs at their doctors’ offices. “There are a lot of people in North Carolina who have an affection for things in light-colored blue,” Roper said.
But as more physicians affiliate with specific hospitals, consumers could face restrictions on where they get procedures done. The larger coalitions of hospitals and physicians will hold more clout with insurers, and could drop health plans that won’t cooperate.
“More organization improves the ability to look at the whole picture of care,” said Adam Searing, project director of the N.C. Health Access Coalition, a consumer advocacy group in Raleigh.
“The downside is you could end up where you have just a few choices for patients,” he added. “The one thing that’s clear is that it’s preparing for a new health care market. It’s really about who’s going to get the money from insurers and dole it out to everyone else.”
News Observer