PHCD eyes pact for doc recruiting

The Petaluma Health Care District has been holding conversations with a local medical group that could lead to the formation of a partnership that would utilize a new model to recruit doctors to southern Sonoma County, although the situation will need to be viewed anew because three new PHCD board members were elected on Nov. 4.

“I believe that a partnership with Northern California Medical Associates would be very positive,” said Daymon Doss, executive director of the PHCD. “No final arrangement has been made, but I think that the new board will be very interested in what’s been discussed.”

Board members Robert Hill and David Anderson from the PHCD’s Provider Relations Committee have joined Doss in the conversations with NCMA personnel. But Hill was unsuccessful in his bid to retain his board seat in the Nov. 4 election and Anderson resigned from the board the following day. The new board will consist of incumbent Josephine Thornton, new members Fran Adams, Robert Ostroff and Stephen Steady and a fifth member, to be appointed next month.

All of the new board members have emphasized that physician recruitment should be the board’s top priority, and Doss expects the board as a whole to seriously consider utilizing the NCMA model.

NCMA has offices throughout Sonoma County, including Petaluma Cardiology, at 719 Southpoint Blvd., Suite B, and some NCMA doctors also are members of the South Sonoma County Medical Group. NCMA has aimed to create a comprehensive, cost-effective group that consists of a broad range of health-care providers who address patients’ needs.

In the NCMA model, doctors no longer need to set up their own free-standing practice, which has been the norm for most physicians during the past 50 years. As the medicine business has become more complicated, with increasingly more time needed for dealing with administrative functions such as insurance company matters, many doctors are deciding to join group practices in which they share costs and administrative expertise.

This arrangement allows doctors to spend more time caring for patients.

NCMA’s model unites doctors and provides an office manager and other staff members needed to run a practice, as well as a central office for administering group matters, such as insurance contracts. In some ways, this is similar to Kaiser’s arrangement, which for some doctors is an attractive alternative for doctors not wanting the burden of running their own office.

“After meeting with several different organizations offering group-practice environments, we just felt NCMA best addressed concerns we have heard from our local doctors and those thinking about coming to Petaluma to practice in the future,” Doss said. “Our Provider Relations Committee got unanimous support from the other board members to continue talks with NCMA on how we may partner in our recruitment efforts here.”

“We would be happy to work with the Petaluma Health Care District,” said Ruth Skidmore, CEO of NCMA. “We have a proven model for running offices that provides physicians with an opportunity to still have their own practice, but also be able to share overhead expenses and get better reimbursement rates.

“We are a professional medical corporation that is owned by physicians. They are the only shareholders, and they determine their goals.”

(Contact Dan Johnson at dan.johnson@arguscourier.com)