Boston docs challenge Partners HealthCare

About 300 Boston-area doctors, once part of market-dominating Partners Health System (PHS), began blazing their own trail this week as competitors to their former colleagues. Partners is a giant force in the region, affiliated with 1,000 primary care doctors and 3,500 specialists, and can negotiate some of the best deals with insurance. Now, the doctors have become part of a smaller system including Beverly Hospital, Addison Gilbert Hospital, mental health/substance abuse facilities and senior care services.

Late last year, PHS announced that it would be ousting the physicians. Observers suggest that Partners kicked the doctors out, in part, because the physicians had been sending some patients outside of the PHS network. Fortunately for the physicians, the effort is starting out auspiciously, with new three-year insurance contracts with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan. Despite competing with PHS's vastly greater resources, the new insurance contracts will keep their pay at the same level they enjoyed as part of Partners.

For more about the new alliance:
- read this Boston Globe piece