Corporatization of medicine

Interesting article on the dilemma of corporate medicine from  35 years ago. Many of the concerns have come to fruition and escalated

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2291221

The futures of physicians: agency and autonomy reconsidered

J W Salmon 1, W White, J Feinglass

Affiliations expand

PMID: 2291221 DOI: 10.1007/BF00489817

Abstract

The corporatization of U.S. health care has directed cost containment efforts toward scrutinizing the clinical decisions of physicians. This stimulated a variety of new utilization management interventions, particularly in hospital and managed care settings. Recent changes in fee-for-service medicine and physicians’ traditional agency relationships with patients, purchasers, and insurers are examined here. New information systems monitoring of physician ordering behavior has already begun to impact on physician autonomy and the relationship of physicians to provider organizations in both for-profit and ‘not-for-profit’ sectors. As managed care practice settings proliferate, serious ethical questions will be raised about agency relationships with patients. This article examines health system dynamics altering the historical agency relationship between the physician and patient and eroding the tradiational autonomy of the medical profession in the United States. The corporatization of medicine and the accompanying information systems monitoring of physician productivity is seen to account of such change, now posing serious ethical dilemmas.