Presbyterian Santa Fe Medical Center shifts to for-profit staffing firm
Presbyterian Santa Fe Medical Center is making a shift in how it bills patients and employs doctors. The hospital is partnering up with a private staffing company which it says will not change the patient experience.
A hospital employee currently working as an ER doctor wanted to stay anonymous and said he won’t have this job for long. In September, doctors learned that come January 31 their contracts with Presbyterian Santa Fe Medical Center will be terminated. “This was a big surprise. And there had been some problems. In the previous six months, the hospital leadership had started cutting our staffing levels, so cutting doctor staffing, cutting nursing staffing in the ER.”
Staff will have the option to sign on with the private company the hospital is now partnering with, a staffing firm called Sound Physicians. They say this shift will allow the medical center to focus recruitment efforts on adding more specialists to the team.
But some doctors have concerns about the move. One doctor said, “They are for-profit incorporated organizations. They’ve been very popular with private equity investors. We have more ethical qualms with working for such a company.”
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Washington-based provider paid $14.5 million to settle allegations that it over-billed Medicare and other federal healthcare programs in 2013. “We know how they tend to increase their revenue with exploitative billing practices, aggressive billing practices, in some cases may be illegal billing practices,” the doctor continued.
Hospital leaders didn’t directly answer questions regarding the fraud allegations against Sound Physicians but Presbyterian Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Tim Johnsen say he doesn’t anticipate this partnership will increase costs for patients.