Tracking a tangled PATH. Physicians At Teaching Hospitals.

Abstract

Probably no move by the federal government in recent years has generated more alarm than the so-called PATH audits in teaching hospitals. Late last year, more than 40 named teaching hospitals, institutions, and organizations filed suit to halt the audits, calling them retroactive enforcement and a threat to the future of medical education. On April 27, 1998, a federal judge in California dismissed the case, saying it was not “ripe” for litigation. Now the parties have to decide whether they will appeal that decision. “It is simply one of the greatest threats to the medical education system that we have,” said Ted Lewers, MD, secretary-treasurer of the American Medical Association, one of the organizations that has filed the suit. “It is a direct attack on the medical schools of this country.” PATH stands for Physicians At Teaching Hospitals and represents an attempt by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to determine if teaching hospitals and other institutions comply with federal rules about how teaching physicians should bill for care when a resident is involved. In a June 21, 1996, letter announcing the plan to begin the nationwide series of audits, the OIG wrote, “This initiative grows out of …