Study: Health centers short on on-call doctors

A survey by Sullivan, Cotter and Associates, Inc. of physician on-call pay rates and practices at 160 participating health centers found 72% percent of respondents — nearly half being trauma centers — have experienced difficulty finding physicians to provide on-call coverage.

“Last year, nearly a quarter of trauma centers and 13% of non-trauma centers had to shut down a service due to a lack of physicians available on-call,” said Kim Mobley, the survey director and principal with SullivanCotter, “but this year those shut down numbers are lower.”

Mobley attributes this reduction to the fact that hospitals are using strategies for addressing call coverage such as hiring physicians specifically to provide call coverage. This has resulted in the emergence of some new physician specialists called Laborists, Sugicalists, and Traumatologists.

Physician On-Call Pay Expenditures on the Rise [Via PR Newswire]

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