PENNSAUKEN, N.J.-Some New Jersey doctors say that if they’re going to be treated like wage slaves they should act like them.
Next month the National Labor Relations Board will hear arguments from more than 400 independent physicians who’ve petitioned to be considered “de facto” employees, claiming that health plans supervise them and set working conditions through treatment protocols and preauthorization systems.
The physicians argue that managed care’s supervision is so tight that the NLRB should overturn its traditional view of them as self-employed independent contractors.
The doctors have asked the NLRB to appoint United Food and Commercial Workers Local 56 here-which represents 14,000 supermarket, nursing home, and government workers-to represent them in their bargaining with AmeriHealth HMO, an affiliate of Philadelphia-based Independence Blue Cross. If they succeed, they’ll expand their bargaining efforts to other plans. They’ve made a no-strike pledge.
The plans “dictate virtually every aspect of what we do as physicians,” says Dr. Arthur Nahas, a Northfield FP who helped spearhead the movement. He’d welcome representation in negotiating fees, but he says the doctors are most upset about interference in patient care.
The doctors face significant opposition from the insurance industry, and they won’t get much help from the Medical Society of New Jersey, which says it wins protections no union could.
Indeed, the society’s analysis of 186 provider contracts concluded that physicians remain independent contractors, not employees. “Unionization for private practitioners is not a feasible response to the increasing impact of managed care,” it said. AmeriHealth found that reasonable.
PENNSAUKEN, N.J.-Some New Jersey doctors say that if they’re going to be treated like wage slaves they should act like them.
