Nine cardiologists who left CHI Health's Nebraska Heart Institute in June 2018 to form their own practice can no longer perform procedures at CHI Health Nebraska Heart, the Lincoln Journal Star reports.
After the split, members of the newly formed practice, Pioneer Heart Institute, continued to perform procedures at CHI Health Nebraska Heart and CHI Health St. Elizabeth, both in Lincoln.
However, beginning Jan. 1, CHI Health Nebraska Heart entered an exclusive agreement with its own cardiac services physicians, according to Steve Tyndall, MD, Nebraska Heart medical director and vascular surgeon.
"Since the hospital's inception in 2003, Nebraska Heart has operated under an exclusivity arrangement such as this, with the exception of the last 18 months," Dr. Tyndall said in a statement cited by the Lincoln Journal Star. "NHH has made the decision to return to its prior model."
Pioneer Heart physicians will still be able to admit patients to the hospital, Dr. Tyndall added.
The decision was disappointing to Thomas Burnell, Pioneer Heart CEO.
"Many of the physicians of Pioneer Heart were founders of Nebraska Heart, so a decision like this that affects continuity of patient care is especially difficult to understand," he said in an email to the Lincoln Journal Star.
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