American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Hospital Care: Relationship between hospital-based and private practice physicians.

For a number of reasons, hospitals appoint fulltime and part-time physicians to practice medicine within the hospital or its outlying divisions. Such physicians provide a wide variety of primary, specialty, and subspecialty services. Among other advantages for hospitals are a potentially tighter rein on quality control and an increased bed occupancy and revenue at a time when financial issues have become increasingly important. Physicians engaged solely in administration or research rarely pose a problem in the relationship between the hospital and private practice physicians. However, it is more likely that friction (which might adversely affect patient care) may occur when there is overlapping of services provided by the private practice physicians and the hospitalbased physicians, whether they are salaried by the 0 hospital or on a fee-for-service basis. Therefore, the Committee on Hospital Care ofthe American Acaderny of Pediatrics offers the following guidelines concerning this interface.