Pros
1. Individual physicians and support staff who work well together, until it's broken up by upper management. 2. Initial offerings are great, but the boon lowers after the end of the initial contract. 3. An organization coming from modest beginnings, with an initial mission that really was focused on patient-centered care.
Cons
1. Most of C-suite has been in the organization for 10-15 yrs...demonstrates tunnel vision and is almost entirely dyssynchronous with how its physicians feel in the frontline of patient care. 2. Hypocritical actions, stating priority is to quality of care, while bonuses continue to be based on patient volume. 3. Quality of life is virtually non-existent, though upper management seems to enjoy it. 4. Expansion doesn't make fiscal sense at all. How can this ACO make such claims of billions in revenue and exceeds in revenue by millions despite a majority of ACO's exiting the market, while at the same time buying up a bankrupt healthcare system in Casa Grande? 5. Within weeks of buying off Casa Grande, Banner's siren call lures the Board of Regents to allow to take over the University of Arizona Health network, promising over $500 million in capital improvements, $20 million per annum in research, and other treats, while dumping its failed NextGen EHR - how is this fiscally possible when it concurrently is building scores of new community health clinics? 6. The sincerity to be interested in academic medicine is questionable- While its doctors lament the paucity of time and state of academic teaching of future doctors in its flagship hospital in Phoenix, it is some how "ready"to take over an academic health network , citing synergies that will benefit the merger? This is merely a calculated act to "enhance its branding" while forcing its doctors to forgo its mission to teach and focus on income generation by overworking its hospitalists and over-consulting its specialists, to generate more revenue. 7. It must be said, Bannerhealth must undergo much closer scrutiny by both federal and state regulators, patient advocacy organizations, academic accreditation organizations and professional physician groups. Why? Behind its veneer of accolades and dashboards (that are reaching its goals), it merely takes interviewing its frontline current and past workers, physicians and ancillary staff, to reveal patterns of a dysfunctional system- a behemoth organization that barely keeps alive, and is "too big to fail" since it will become Arizona's largest employer and lifeline for training medical students and doctors from its only allopathic medical school.
