In new health care shakeup, dozens of Charlotte doctors to break away from Novant Health
More than 40 doctors plan to break away from Novant Health, Charlotte’s second-largest hospital system confirmed Tuesday, the latest shakeup in the metro area’s health care scene.
It was not immediately clear whether the doctors plan to form an independent practice.
“The physicians are leaving our medical group,” Novant spokeswoman Caryn Klebba said in a statement. “That said, Novant Health continues to focus on our goal of delivering a remarkable experience to our patients.”
Klebba said no further details were available about the doctors leaving.
One of the doctors believed to be leaving Novant did not return a call from the Observer on Tuesday.
Winston-Salem-based Novant has about 900 doctors in the Charlotte market, according to the system.
The move comes less than a year after about 92 doctors with Mecklenburg Medical Group sued to get out of non-compete contracts with Atrium Health and form an independent practice. That same month, Atrium, Charlotte’s largest health care system, announced it would grant the doctors’ request by ending their employment agreements.
The doctors who split from Atrium formed Tryon Medical Partners, which opened its first office in September and now has offices across Charlotte. Atrium said it has hired 45 doctors and retained 26,000 patients affected by the physicians who left.
Consolidation trends
The latest doctors’ split in Charlotte bucks the national trend of large health care systems and insurers acquiring physician practices or other hospital systems.
Barak Richman, a Duke Law School professor specializing in health care policy, said he could not think of another big group of physicians besides Mecklenburg Medical that separated from a U.S. hospital system over the past year. Consolidation in the industry remains the trend, he said.
“We have not had a lot of experiences seeing breakaways,” he said.
For instance, Atrium and Georgia-based Navicent Health in December approved a “strategic combination,” which took effect at the beginning of this year. Atrium, which was formerly Carolinas HealthCare System, had tried to form a similar partnership with UNC Health in 2017. But that deal ultimately fell through.
Hospital systems have been consolidating nationwide since the 1990s, said health economist Christina Dalton of Wake Forest University.
As insurers have become more powerful, hospitals have merged to counter the industry’s bargaining power, she said.
Doctors who have gone to work for hospital systems have found pros and cons, she said. Benefits include working for a large player and being able to hand off administrative responsibilities, Dalton said.
But doctors working for hospital systems have had less control over their own pay and how they practice medicine, she said.
“If you’re not the one deciding the changes, you might get annoyed.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2019 at 1:17 PM.
