I know its confusing…my title looks like a screw up…its not.
Hospitalists are doctors whose primary professional focus is hospital medicine, in other words a hospitalist is a physician whose practice emphasizes providing care for hospitalized patients. Sounds good but there is another side to the story.
Lets say you want your long-time doctor to take care of you when you are hospitalized for pneumonia at your local hospital. The hospital may not allow your doctor to care for you as they may assign a staff hospitalist to provide your care…someone you don’t know and didn’t select. Why are hospitals hiring hospitalists? Money, what else. By hiring hospitalists the hospital can make a profit off the labor of the hospitalist doctor. How? By paying the doctor $150,000 per year but billing $300,000 per year for the doctor’s services.
I just read a report that Danvillle Regional Hospital has added four hospitalists to its staff, bringing the total number of hospitalist at that facility to seven. The report, in the Danville Register & Bee, indicated that the seven hospitalist provide about 60% of the patient care at the hospital.