Is calling physicians ‘providers’ an ethics issue?

If you hate when physicians are called providers, you now have a new reason to be annoyed: It may be an ethics issue.

That’s the stance of a new position paper issued by the American College of Physicians, which looks at the ethical implications of lumping physicians in with other clinicians and calling them all providers. The paper, which was published in Annals of Internal Medicine,  is urging clinicians, health systems, and policymakers to stop using the term “provider” to describe physicians.

The paper argues that the term “provider” diminishes physicians’ professional identity by reframing the patient–physician relationship as a commercial transaction. The relationship should be an ethical partnership, the thinking goes, so calling physicians providers undermines physicians’ clinical integrity and professionalism.

“The term provider is derogatory because it diminishes the physician-patient relationship,” ACP President Jason M. Goldman, MD, said in a press release. The organization argues that the term blurs important distinctions between the ethical practice of medicine and commercial service delivery, referring to the effect as “deprofessionalization.”

The paper also urges physicians to avoid using terms like “covered lives” and patient “leakage,” which focus on health care as an “industry.”

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