"It's the death knoll of the private practice..." said Kurt Mosley, vice president of strategic lliances for Merritt Hawkins and Staff Care, a nationwide healthcare staffing organization.
"...I think... nobody wants Marcus Welby any more."
"That concept doesn’t play anymore and it’s not effective."Recruitment of physicians into private practice is now only 1% of all physician recruitment activities.
"It’s not necessarily that surprising, but it dropped so dramatically (this year)."This article from Healthcare Finance News sources Mosley's statement and provides additional links to explore these changes in physician recruitment.
Marcus Welby, MD delt with sensitive medical issues, such as depression, brain damage, breast cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, epilepsy, leukemia and Alzheimer's Disease.
How Do Physician Employment Trends Impact Outpatient Physical Therapists?
Fundamentally, physical therapists' practice and physicians' practice are different.
Physicians require access to sophisticated testing, technology and the resources of the acute care hospital to practice effectively in these medern times.
Physical therapists may also need access to hospitals, but to a lesser extent than physicians (which helps explain why physical therapists are not included in Meaningful Use incentive payments for providers who purchase Electronic Medical Records and achieve interoperability with hospitals).
This American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) letter to the American Medical Association (AMA) nails the point, exactly:
"Doctors of physical therapy are not medical doctors, and medical doctors are not doctors of physical therapy.
Physical therapy is not a subspecialty of the medical profession.
Physical therapists provide a unique but complimentary service that physicians are untrained to provide."Trends affecting medical doctors could buffet private practice physical therapists but seem unlikely to put the nail in the coffin of private practice physical therapists the way some are predicting for medical doctors.
I think the future is bright for private practice physical therapists. Its not a future like those who went before us, like Marcus Welby.
It could be better.
