Opinion: No one in health care should be called a ‘provider’

STAT News · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from RSS

Full Article

By Lois Snyder SulmasyFeb. 23, 2026 Snyder Sulmasy is the director of the American College of Physicians Center for Ethics and Professionalism. It’s not about turf. It’s not about hierarchy. It’s not about pet peeves or ego. It’s about taking care of patients. On Feb. 10, the Annals of Internal Medicine published an ethics policy paper of the American College of Physicians (ACP) titled “Physicians Are Not Providers: The Ethical Significance of Names in Health Care.” The paper, which I co-authored with Jan Carney, president-elect of the organization, recommends that physicians should be referred to as physicians, not providers. In fact, we recommend the term “provider” not be used for anyone on a health care team. How did we get here? Recent history is instructive. In a seminal JAMA article in 1999, Ed Pellegrino and Arnold Relman drew attention to the commercialization of the learned professions, foretelling what many physicians experience today: barriers to the ability to practice in keeping with standards of medical ethics and professionalism. Not being able to do right by the patient contributes to what Pellegrino and Relman — and those of us at ACP — have identified as “deprofessionalization.” This includes increasing use of the term “provider” to describe physicians and other health professionals. The term “provider” has been criticized over the years, and valuable points have been made, but the issue had not previously been fully framed as what it fundamentally is: a matter of ethics and professionalism. “Provider” is a symptom of an unhealthy health care “industry” increasingly focused on the business of medicine rather than how to best take care of patients. Thinkers as varied as Galen, a physician and philosopher who died in 216; Paracelsus, a 16th-century philosopher, alchemist and physician; and Canadian physician William Osler reminded society and the profession that the relationship between a patient and a physician is not a commercial transaction. Health has special value. Patients are not mere consumers, they have dignity and individual needs and each is unique. Practicing medicine is not a job merely distributing treatments and procedures — it is dedicated to the service of others whose trust must be earned. “Providers,” on the other hand, provide. The term is fine when describing retail or other transactions, which are agnostic with regard to the appropriateness about what is being provided (or how). Regarding medicine, however, it does not convey or acknowledge the ethical responsibilities of the physician or the judgment, fiduciary relationship, and clinical expertise necessary for physicians to promote the welfare and rights of patients. “Provider” is one among many terms that the business of health care has introduced, turning patients into economic abstractions. Terms like “covered lives,” “heads in beds,” patient “leakage,” and others that focus on the “health care industry” diminish the role of clinicians. ACP’s ethics policy paper argues that “health care” should be two words: health (including the opportunity for its fulfillment for all) and care (attending to patients). The ethical and professional duties of the physician arise from the experience of illness of patients, from the nature of medical decisions that must be made in the context of the patient-physician relationship, and from the collaboration of patient and physician in pursuit of better health for the patient. This is not an arm’s length transaction. In fact, it is not transactional. Instead, it is relational: a person, often in need, seeks the help and counsel of a physician, a member of a profession of service, who is trained to help and bound by ethical duties in doing so. A 2019 article in NEJM maintained that, “The physician-patient encounter is health care’s choke point.” It compared medicine (unfavorably) to McDonald’s and TurboTax. But is efficiency the primary goal of health care? My colleagues and I support transformative change in the quality of and access to health care. However, the quest for efficiency, in algorithms or otherwise, should not displace the fundamental nature of the human interaction that is the practice of medicine. And note the first words of that quote from NEJM. Not recognizing it’s the patient-physician encounter is part of why the sentence so misses the point. Put the patient first. All is not lost … yet. As medical ethicist Joe Fins has observed, “where commercialism in medicine was once tempered ably by the social mission of voluntary hospitals and the professionalism of dedicated practitioners, these countervailing forces are now fast eroding. …” The erosion is real and accelerating. The ethics and professionalism of medicine must be reasserted by physicians on behalf of, and in joining forces with, patients. Partner with other members of the health care team; reinvigorate the organized medical staff; remind institutions of their missions and require accountability. Language affects how patients view their care and how physicians view their responsibilities. The words that are used and the institutions that speak them — health systems, hospitals, payers, and others — should recognize and support the physician’s duty to act in the best interests of the patient, and the individual and collective ethical duties of physicians. Many patients still talk about “my” doctor. They still want care based on trust from physicians who “profess to heal when possible and to comfort always.” Don’t call your provider. Call your doctor. Lois Snyder Sulmasy, J.D., is the director of the American College of Physicians Center for Ethics and Professionalism. She is a medical ethicist and attorney who has worked with physicians for decades.