SCRIPPS AND MERCY: Negotiations Continue

      Hospital system Scripps Health and Mercy Physicians Medical Group have extended contract negotiations "indefinitely," after a 90- day stay expired April 1. Scripps has already conceded on two "major bargaining points": Mercy doctors are not required to join the hospital's doctors group, Scripps Physicians, and will retain control over their contracts with health plans. But the two parties are still butting heads over the rates Mercy physicians will have to pay to admit patients to the hospital. The rates Scripps has proposed "are so high that they eat into the pool of money given to the medical group by the health plan if it meets certain admission criteria." Scripps action so far "does not indicate they're looking for a partnership with the physicians," Dr. Stuart Frank, president of the physicians organization, said (Fong, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4/18).