Over the past 12 years this podcast has discussed increasing corporate dominance of healthcare delivery, made evident in part by the fact the healthcare market is highly concentrated and highly leveraged, e.g., over the past decade private equity has spent roughly $1 trillion to acquire physician practices. The corporate practice of medicine (CPOM) is problematic because allowing for corporate medicine can compromise a physicians’ independence and/or creates a conflict between physicians’ ethical duty to their patients and corporate interests in maximizing profits. While states have historically prohibited corporate medicine, enforcement has both been limited and every state has created CPOM exceptions. In part because the Biden administration has given priority implementing regulatory policies to promote market competition, there is renewed interest in revising corporate medicine statutes. This past fall the AMA considered a resolution seeking a federal ban on CPOM informed in part by a 70-page report published last October by Take Medicine Back. AMA delegates voted to refer the resolution to the AMA Bd of Trustees for further study.
Dr. Mitchell Louis Judge Li is a practicing board certified emergency physician in North Carolina and founder of Take Medicine Back. Dr. Li has been an invited speaker to represent physicians to the FTC on the effects of mergers and acquisitions on healthcare, has spoken as a panelist at the Capitol Forum’s Conference on Healthcare Competition, and currently serves as the only physician-advisor to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s committee on healthcare financialization. Dr. Li earned his MD at the University of Massachusetts and completed his emergency medicine residency at St. John Hospital in Detroit.
Information on Take Medicine Back is at: https://takemedicineback.net/. Their 70-page working paper discussed during this interview is at: https://qrco.de/beUEJm.
Sen. Warren’s Take Medicine Back video noted during the discussion is here.
Dr. Mitchell Li Discusses Reforming Corporate Practice of Medicine Legislation