Hospitalist leader Adam Singer, MD, is to be formally named physician executive of the year on Oct. 26 by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), a national association of 21,500 administrators and leaders of physician group practices. Dr. Singer, who learned of the award last month, is the first hospitalist honoree.
The award recognizes physician executives who have exhibited outstanding leadership and achieved exceptional performance in healthcare delivery.
Dr. Singer, 50, who is founder, CEO, and chief medical officer of IPC: The Hospitalist Company, took the North Hollywood, Calif.-based company public in 2008. A founding member of SHM, Dr. Singer’s award represents a milestone in the growing acceptance of HM as a medical business and of its business model, says Dan Fuller, president of IN Compass Health of Alpharetta, Ga.
“We’re seeing more attention to hospitalist compensation models, payment incentives, and recognition of the need to align these with both productivity and quality,” says Dr. Fuller, a member of SHM’s Practice Management Committee. The award “is great for Adam, but really exciting for our movement.”
Steven Deitelzweig, MD, chair of hospital medicine for Ochsner Health System in New Orleans and chair of SHM’s Practice Management Committee, says the MGMA honor reflects growing recognition of the role hospitalists will play in the changing business of hospital care under Affordable Care Act reforms. “Hospitalists will be the ones senior hospital leaders come to for help in figuring out healthcare reform,” he says.
Dr. Singer says the award recognizes his success, as a physician, and as an entrepreneur, and is a “signpost for hospital medicine as a whole. They’re recognizing HM not just as a medical specialty that has emerged in recent years, but our success as a business,” he says. “HM is a business, at least as we practice it at IPC. We’ve shown that it can be profitable as a standalone medical service, without requiring subsidization.”