Health Law and PolicyOrder Description
A cardiologist with a large group of physicians comes to your hospital office, closes the door behind him and tells you he is thinking of taking his group and patients to another competing hospital. He might be persuaded to stay, he says, if you let him in on the outside heart scanning center you are jointly establishing with the hospital’s radiologists. He assures you that he has plenty of capital, has the business to keep the place going and the set-up he is proposing will be legally proper (he says) because it is almost exactly as described in an advisory opinion he read about in Cardiology Investor Weekly. Further, his attorney says the structure sounds ok if he wants to start such a facility. All he wants to add to the fact scenario outlined in the article is a medical director fee to perform the services for which he now gets nothing at the hospital and will also want to be paid to perform at the center (which services at the facility the radiologists have agreed to provide for free). The radiologists are incensed that he has come to you in this way and have indicated that they will have to consider their options if you give in to “such blackmail.” Describe to the cardiologist why the “legal assurances” he offers are not sufficient, what laws are implicated and why it is in neither party’s best interest to use this as the way to “make it worth the cardiologists’ while” to stay at your hospital. The essay should be no more than three pages.