So, I've been at my practice a good 18 months and seem to be doing fine -- no comments or complaints from my boss or from patients out of the ordinary. A new doctor straight out of medical school started about six months later. She's good, but also very domineering and a few of the patients found her to be very condescending and from what nurses say, a few have said they'd rather not come back because of her. I feel she's ok and a decent provider myself.
I had built up a decent panel of patient myself, and for a while, it seemed I would see at least a third more to double the amount of patients that she would see on many days.
All of a sudden now, I found out that the front desk has been told to route patients to her schedule first, then fill mine. I'm not sure if this applies to the other mid level providers or not.
So now I sit, and when I'm with her, I see half the patients I normally do. On other days, I'm full, and when I'm working our call weekend shifts I'm full as always.
A couple patients have commented that they have been trying to see me for weeks, but they are being sent to her. One was upset to the point she wanted to leave the practice as it felt to her like they were shuffling her around.
When I approached our practice manager, she says that Dr. A needs to see patients "because she has bills from medical school and needs to pay them, " . I'm assuming that she wasn't happy or perhaps making her productivity bonuses or something.
Is this a thing? Or does it sound like they're trying to reduce my schedule for some reason? I feel paranoid they might be trying to get rid of me, although they keep scheduling me on and on for my regular days and asking me to take call, etc. I personally would often enjoy bonuses of my own due to high productivity, but with this happening, I guess I won't be seeing that extra bonus. As she gets more of the patients on her panel, mine just seems to be dwindling.
Don't even know what to think!! I have been thinking about leaving this practice for a while to be closer to home, but now I feel like leaving just to try to get to a place where I have potential to earn bonuses and will get to keep my patients!
