Physicians and surgeons: direct employment.

Existing law, the Medical Practice Act, restricts the employment of licensed physicians and surgeons and podiatrists by a corporation or other artificial legal entity, subject to specified exemptions. Existing law established, until January 1, 2011, a pilot project to allow qualified district hospitals that, among other things, provided more than 50% of patient days to the care of Medicare, Medi-Cal, and uninsured patients, to employ a physician and surgeon, if the hospital did not interfere with, control, or otherwise direct the professional judgment of the physician and surgeon. The pilot project authorized the direct employment of not more than 20 physicians and surgeons by all of those hospitals to provide medically necessary services in rural and medically underserved communities. Existing law imposed specified duties on the Medical Board of California with regard to the pilot project. This bill would, until January 1, 2022, reenact the pilot project to allow all qualified district hospitals to employ not more than 50 physicians and surgeons, under circumstances described above. The bill would require the Medical Board of California to report to the Legislature by October 1, 2020, on the effectiveness of the pilot project. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.