Major health systems are rethinking how they approach primary care, devoting more resources to keeping patients healthy, as they prepare for a future in which they won’t make as much money on individual visits.
Hospitals have been hiring up doctors in recent years and acquiring whole physician groups. They now employ almost half of all physicians, including a large number of primary care doctors.
In some cases, hospitals are seeking to control more healthcare services so that they can refer patients into their health systems. That’s been linked with higher healthcare costs, though in this case, the health systems are looking for new ways to use their doctors to make them more responsible for keeping patients healthy.
