Roughly 400 yard signs have cropped up in front of residences and businesses in Naples, Fla., opposing a new hospital admission policy at NCH Healthcare System, according to the Naples Daily News.
The signs read, "NCH Denying Patient/Physician Choice." The signs are attacking a policy change at the hospital that will limit independent primary care physicians' ability to admit and care for their patients at NCH hospitals. The new policy is based on a pilot that embedded hospitalists in inpatient units and reduced 30-day readmission rates from 11.4 percent to 3.7 percent in just 10 weeks. NCH physicians, however, voted unanimously against the policy because it limits their admitting status, and NCH's president of medical staff, Paul Jones, MD, resigned over the issue, according to the report.
Now physicians are taking matters into their own hands. While the person responsible for the yard signs has chosen to remain anonymous, Naples Daily News noted that the Collier County Medical Society had collected $75,000 in donations to create a video on the issue to show patients during appointments and to pay for newspaper and TV ads. The medical society has already collected 2,000 signatures on a petition to resist the change.
Millennium Physician Group, which has several locations in Naples, has started distributing cards to patients who ask for care from a Millennium physician should the patient be hospitalized.
Read the full story here.
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