When I have a question about my health, about the last thing I think of is calling the hospital; I call my doctor.
But in the world of the future being designed in hospital board rooms and faculty lounges, healthcare relationships are seen as hospital-centric. On the payment side, this agenda manifests as bundled payments and the ACO initiative. On the delivery side the agenda includes employment of physicians by hospitals and their related foundations. Of course, a key precursor to this situation was the targeted breakdown of the physician-patient relationship by managed care.
People are pushing back hard against Obamacare. Physicians can tie into this anger by making their patients aware of the same loss of choice inherent in a system in which the hospital is the hub for their care.
