Over the last decade, as physicians have increasingly turned to employed practice to cope with declining reimbursement and increased administrative requirements, our role in advocacy has diminished. Doctors are afraid to speak out because we fear being fired and losing our livelihoods. But without physician advocacy, corporate interests, academic centers, and government agencies are increasingly making decisions contrary to the best interests of patients, including replacing physicians with nonphysician practitioners. It is time for physicians to step up and take back control of healthcare decisions, and one of the best ways to do this is through self-ownership.

PhysiciansForPatientProtection.org

Arthur Smolensky, MD describes his experience creating a Small Democratic Group (SDG) to take over emergency department staffing from corporate contract management groups.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-smolensky-719806/

PhysiciansForPatientProtection.org

In today's episode, Teresa Camp-Rogers, MD, MS analyzes a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the journal of the American College of Physicians, entitled

The article, which seems to call for an expansion of unsupervised practice for NPs, contends that NPs and physicians showed no differences in inappropriate prescribing to seniors based on Beers criteria, however, notes that NPs were overrepresented among clinicians with the highest and lowest rates of inappropriate prescribing.

Dr. Camp-Rogers points out that since most NPs are practicing under physician supervision, with an estimated 2-6% of NPs practicing without physician supervision, this study may simply prove what other studies have established: the physician-led care model works - NOT that unsupervised practice is safe. Further, she argues that this study begs a follow-up question: with such variation in potentially inappropriate prescribing by NPs, what do we know about which NPs were in the top and which were in the bottom?

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m23-0827

Get the books! https://www.amazon.com/Imposter-Doctors-Patients-at-Risk/dp/1627344438/

PhysiciansForPatientProtection.org