Mastering the physician integration challenge

Healthcare delivery systems must plan their physician integration strategies carefully to align the interests of their diverse physician constituents. Primary care physicians and specialists often have conflicting agendas, and physician integration attempts by healthcare systems frequently create networks of competing organizations with conflicting goals. Systems have a variety of options to choose from in implementing physician integration, including PHO- and MSO-related strategies. In every instance, however, the main goals should be to build a tightly structured primary care physician network that has an appropriate level of specialist participation and to avoid alienating physician specialists, who still generate significant fee-for-service volume.