Posted: November 9th, 2016

has received a demand for a stipend from the ophthalmologists who take ED calls at his hospital, and they want a sizeable raise.

You are a hospital administrator, and you receive a call from a colleague at another hospital. Your colleague, who is a friend, informs you that he has received a demand for a stipend from the ophthalmologists who take ED calls at his hospital, and they want a sizeable raise. He asks you what you pay for that type of call, and suggests that you could both benefit by coming up with a standard rate of pay over which neither of you will go in response to physician demands. It could save your hospitals $300,000 to do this. What is your response, and what is the rationale for it?