Doctors in one practice may soon trade in the occasional weekend caring for patients at the hospital for providing weekend office hours.
That’s the proposal at Weill Cornell Internal Medicine Associates, a patient-centered medical home, Fred N. Pelzman, M.D., writes on MedPage Today.
In fact, with the growing popularity of urgent care centers that offer convenience and time savings, more physician practices are staying open longer hours and on weekends to compete with that model. One study last year found that only a third of patients have access to 24/7 care such as weekend or evening hours, which can help diminish overuse of the emergency department.
The problem is that outpatient doctors who rarely see patients in the hospital—where care is provided by hospitalists—have become uncomfortable treating very ill patients on the two weekends a year they are asked to provide coverage, Pelzman says. Their skills are focused on managing outpatients.
So, the practice has developed a business plan where the doctors would work weekends to provide services to patients in the clinic, which currently closes at 5 p.m. on Fridays.
“I'm not suggesting that we all begin to work six- and seven-day work weeks, but we are certainly happy to exchange the inpatient weekend service coverage that we do now (and mostly dislike), with something that we are good at, with something that our patients really need,” he says.