title: Physician-sponsored networks. Will physicians take back medicine?
abstract: Until about the late 1980s, American physicians and their allies, hospitals and the health care manufacturing industries, dominated all facets of the health system--the clinical, the economic, and the political. The bulk of these providers' revenue flowed to them from a highly fragmented insurance system whose governing principle was to provide each insured patient free choice of doctor and hospital. Two distinct, concurrent shifts threaten to erode the medical profession's traditional dominance. The first is a rapid, general shift of control from the supply side of the health sector to its demand side. The second is a shift away from government control, over which organized medicine held much sway in the past, toward private regulators--the executives of the managed care industry. Is the trend towards greater dependence of practicing physicians on non-physician executives inevitable, or can physicians retain--and, in part, regain--their hitherto autonomous position in the health system?
authors.affiliation: Princeton University, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: U E
authors.initials: UE
authors.lastname: Reinhardt
mesh_terms: D019058:Community Networks / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000458:organization & administration; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D008329:Managed Care Programs / Q000458:organization & administration; D008486:Physician Executives; D010819:Physician's Role; D010820:Physicians / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D014481:United States