What qualifies physicians for antitrust exemption under federal labor laws?
RA: To negotiate fees with a managed care company they would literally need to be employees of that company, as opposed to merely independent professionals doing arms-length business transactions. There are many physicians employed by HMOs who do jointly negotiate their salaries and benefits. Other candidates for collective bargaining under federal labor law include employees of hospitals. To be eligible, physicians must not have supervisory functions. That is a gray area because it is sometimes difficult to define whether a particular position is supervisory in nature. A presumption that underlies this is that one can t be both rank and file and management, and it s the rank and file bona fide employees that would have the ability to do collective bargaining. The medical director who is employed by the hospital and also a part owner is probably not a collective bargaining candidate. PND: Recently in New Jersey, some physicians have unsuccessfully argued to the NLRB that, given the con
