Why have hospitals increasingly been buying physician practices?  Are these marriages based on true love or convenience? Will these marriages survive?

To address these questions, let’s take the long view (50–100 years) and revisit 7 assumptions that have driven us to today’s healthcare non-system:

1. Healthcare payment systems have rewarded piecemeal work.
2. Despite uneasiness, hospital-physician relationships have been cooperative.
3. Physicians can function effectively in small/medium size practices.
4. The healthcare mindset: built on control, not collaboration.
5. Barriers to sharing patient info and coordinating care are high.
6. The hospital has been the economic bedrock of the community.
7. Health plans are the bad guys.

For more details and discussion, tune in to tomorrow to BlogTalk Radio. Host and ACO guru Gregg Masters will be interviewing me and we’ll discuss the topic of “Is Hospital-Physician Integration Sustainable?”

The details:

Wednesday May 11th 2011 broadcast, at 11AM Pacific/2PM Eastern

Click here to add a reminder to your calendar or to read more information about our session.

The session will also be available as a podcast — We’ll post the URL here when it’s up.