The recent acquisition of Athena Women’s Health in Kirkland by EvergreenHealth Medical Center highlights the growing trend of hospitals to acquire private practices. Athena provides urology and urogynecology services. Evergreen also recently acquired Lakeshore Clinics, a multi-practice clinic providing Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and Podiatry services in Bothell and Kirkland. The trend is defended as a means of providing better care at lower costs.

Some critics have said that this consolidation of health care services, and elimination of private practices, tends to focus more on the hospitals themselves, rather than on patients. One advantage for an acquiring hospital is that they ensure that patients from the clinics who need hospitalization will likely be sent to that hospital rather than to other, competing hospitals. A major advantage for the acquired clinics is that they can participate in the cost savings in obtaining everything from equipment and supplies to malpractice liability coverage. It may also mean that there will be more physicians in their medical specialties who can provide “cover” when a physician is not available to his/her patients. “Cover” means that if a physician is out of town, or simply has the weekend off, a call to the doctor’s office in an emergency will be referred to the covering physician to answer.

The days of the individual doctor or clinic practice is rapidly coming to an end. Whether that trend is good or bad for the patient, or reduces the cost of providing medical care, is yet to be determined. But one thing seems clear: within a short amount of time, there will only be a handful of hospitals or medical entities providing almost all of the medical services in the Puget Sound area, e.g., Multicare, Franciscan Health Services, Providence/Swedish, PeaceHealth, and the University of Washington.