A New Direction for Physician Interests

Given the migration of our physician members from private practice to healthcare employment, it is incumbent upon our Society to ensure our relevancy to both independent and employed members. 

When a member transitions to healthcare employment, their interests often differ from those of their employer. Frequently, the political and practice interests of employed physicians don’t align with their employers. Additionally, employers often have differing views from practitioners on how healthcare resources are utilized. More and more, healthcare employers’ interests can be adversarial to the physicians they employ. 

Our historic role must be enhanced to effectively protect our members’ interests in scope maintenance, scope protection, and reimbursement. Each of these issues arises in medical society advocacy on the Hill, in Department regulations, and in industry standards. While we have always argued for patient interests, we must recognize that our own physician interests are aligned with those of our patients. If we cannot practice to medical and community standards, then our patients suffer as a result of legal or industry efforts that affect the cost of medical care. 

In recognition of this necessary shift in our goals, we have affiliated with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (AFL-CIO). This partnership grants each of our members membership in the OPEIU, as well as the Pennsylvania and national AFL-CIO. While this membership provides a full spectrum of benefits, it offers something even more valuable. The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO boasts 700,000 members, and the AFL-CIO has 15,000,000 members. Each of these individuals is an insured employee. 

So when we seek state or national assistance on an issue, we are now advocating on behalf of 700,000 or 15,000,000 patients.

Instead of coming to the table with just the voices of Chester County or Pennsylvania physicians, we are now bringing 700,000 patient consumers of our services. 

As an added benefit, each of these union members has a vote.