The Senate, in a bipartisan vote, has sent legislation to the House that sponsors say would remove barriers to healthcare industry competition, create more opportunities for physicians, protect the physician-patient relationship and modernize state healthcare policy.
Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven) and Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano (R-North Haven) issued a joint statement praising the passage of Senate Bill 351, An Act Concerning Matters Affecting Physicians and Hospitals.
Looney said it is unfair that doctors leaving hospital employment are barred from practicing medicine or establishing independent practices because of employment contracts with hospitals. He said the bill, which passed 35 to 1, would provide patients with increased continuity of care. Fasano said the bill increases competition among healthcare providers.
Key elements of the bill include:
- Fair non-compete clauses – Bill would prohibit most non-compete clauses between physicians and hospitals or physicians unless the provision restricts activities for not more than one year and 20 miles from the physician’s primary service area.
- Allows physicians to return to independent practice – Allows hospital, health system and medical foundation non-competes to restrict only the physician’s right to leave to practice at another hospital, health system or medical foundation. This would not prohibit physicians from returning to independent community practice if they chose to.
- Allows physicians to establish medical foundations – Allows physicians associated with Independent Practice Associations and other independent groups to establish a for-profit or nonprofit medical foundation. Hospitals have been allowed to form these foundations since 2009. This bill would give physicians the ability to form these business entities with equity partners so long as they maintain at least 60 percent of the ownership and control, and then allow that entity to employ physicians through a medical foundation just as hospitals can do today. This will open up financing and investment opportunities for physicians.
- Further research – Requires the state Department of Public Health to study the licensure of urgent care and limited service health clinics.
- Transparency – Requires hospitals to include in their bills the cost-to-charge ratio for each item billed so that patients can easily see this information.
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