How Does the Next Generation of Physicians View the ACA?

(Click the play button on the audio player above to listen to this segment of the ACA panel discussion)

This HCPLive audio panel discussion features:

• Joel Zinberg, MD, JD, Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City
• David Sandman, PhD, Senior Vice President of the New York State Health Foundation
• Patrick Cronin, New Jersey organizing director for “Get Covered America” a nonprofit with a federal contract to help people sign up for coverage
• Tom Wilson (moderator), a partner at Kaufman Zita Group and former chairman of the NJ Republican State Committee

The panelists look at how well the ACA is working and discuss whether it is politically vulnerable.

The practice of medicine is changing, with more physicians choosing to become employees. The ACA is playing a role in that change, Zinberg said, though he doesn’t fully blame the act for the trend, it is one he sees as a setback for quality of care.

Young doctors used to aspire to having a solo practice, or at least a small one.

“The days of solo practice are disappearing,” according to Sandman. Many factors are converging to make such small enterprises a rarity—including the advent of the ACA.

“No one thinks about being on call for long stretches of time and really keeping tabs on the patient… that sense of professional responsibility is lost,” Zinberg says.