Is transferring patients masking larger problems at hospitals who cannot obtain specialty coverage? I see this as one way hospitals can avoid paying doctors for call:
Transfers have allowed a lot of very dysfunctional hospitals to stay open. A hospital cannot get Ortho coverage . . . for the myriad reasons specific to that specialty? Well, just transfer them to a hospital that does. In this way, bad hospitals (administrators and medical staffs alike) aren’t confronted with their failures, their failures are transferred.
Punting at its finest.
