The healthcare environment has undergone rapid change in a short period of time for an industry notoriously slow to adapt. Some of those changes include a shift to pay-for-value, increased focus on outcomes, and most recently a complete overhaul of the physician payment model for Medicare beneficiaries. Those of us steeped in care delivery have seen increased physician employment by health systems with simultaneous consolidation in other parts of the healthcare ecosystem, both horizontally and vertically. In this piece, I discuss some of the implications of that consolidation for patients, clinicians and the healthcare system as a whole.
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