Physicians Guild | Chester County Med

⚕️United Physicians Guild

2025-2026 Goals of the United Physicians Guild

To establish organization and cohesiveness among Chester County physicians through a united and unified physician led organization.
To increase the presence and strength of physician led advocacy efforts through a coalition of medical societies and specialty associations with membership in The United Physicians Guild and with the ongoing support of the OPEIU/AFL-CIO.
To offer United Physician Guild members benefits that are unavailable to individual physicians, including group purchasing opportunities and the extensive array of benefits available through the OPEIU/AFL-CIO.
To provide resources and education through the OPEIU to those members requiring assistance with job related concerns.

INTERESTED TO LEARN MORE? Reach out to any Guild Officer or contact Lynne Stilley, CCMS Executive Director at Lastilley@gmail.com

FAQ

Why did you do this?
Relevancy
As a medical society, we must respond to our membership and their concerns. Over the past century, our membership traditionally served their patients in private practice care models. Three decades ago, that began to rapidly change. Now, due to laws, rules and regulations and consolidations, private practice is largely no longer sustainable. To remain available to their patients, physicians allowed large systems to acquire their practices. Most physicians, country-wide are employed as “at will employees” of large health entities in some manner. For a variety of reasons, costs of care have risen far faster than inflation, and physician career satisfaction, and often patient satisfaction has declined precipitously. We need to develop tools with which we can respond to our employed members as well as our remaining independent practice members.

A three-decade shift in MD/DO practice patterns evidencing a steady increase in employed physicians and a corresponding decrease in physicians initiating or continuing in private/independent practice
The Association’s need to recognize this shift and develop programs which would allow the Association’s work to remain relevant to both the independent member and the employed member
The AMA’s 2024 Resolution: “RESOLVED, that our American Medical Association convenes an updated study of opportunities for the AMA or physician associations to support physicians initiating a collective bargaining process, including but not limited to unionization. (Directive to Take Action)

If we do not change the ways in which we represent our members, we become irrelevant.

There are other unions which have organized individual hospital staff physicians. Why did you choose the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU)? There are other unions.

We looked at a number of hospitals that have been organized and their chosen unions. Once a hospital, or a large group practice is organized, then the Society largely loses relevancy as an agent for patient and physician advocacy. This newly formed bargaining unit focuses on the terms and conditions of the current, or upcoming physician employee contracts.

Threats on sustainability of physician practice go far beyond individual employment contracts. Federal and State regulations, federal payment policies, and frequent area insurance rule changes can affect all physicians’ scope of practice as well as the physicians’ current or future practice structures, and existentially, their ability to continue care for their community, whether the physician is employed or in private practice.

Our Society has historically been the voice of ALL our member physicians and the patients they serve in all venues.

The OPEIU has a three-decade proven track record of maintaining a successful joint venture with independent and employed practicing podiatrists as members of their medical society.
The OPEIU does not become our voice. We retain our identity and our platform as a professional guild.
The OPEIU allows physicians to join a large coalition of independent and employed professionals and workers, negotiating and providing access that physicians alone cannot create.

This is a “game of numbers.” We are affiliating with Labor on a local, state and national level. That affiliation gives us new access to group benefits. It also enhances our professions’ clout, through the larger coalition, to confront multiple legacy stakeholders that progressively threaten the sustainability of the practice of medicine and the patients we serve. It dramatically enhances our ability to speak out for our member physicians and their patients. Communication, Collaboration, and Coalition are the mechanisms that physicians, and the patient communities they serve, are now forming.

Are you going to collectively bargain for your members.
No. Neither CCMS nor The United Physicians Guild (UPG, the Guild) can or will collectively bargain directly for physician members with their respective employers. What we can do is become a platform through which our employed members can gain education on collective bargaining and contract negotiation. If one or more of our employed physician members determines that the terms and conditions of their employment present impediments to their ability to practice sustainably and safely, and maintain high patient care standards, they can go to the OPEIU and form their own effort to organize their workplace. That effort would require a separate Local of the OPEIU and would comply with all the election and organizing requirements of the National Labor Relations Act.

Is this just in Chester County?
Currently, The United Physicians Guild (UPG, the Guild) is just in Chester County. However, our Constitution is drafted in a manner that invites and allows other organized physician groups to join. Other medical societies, should they elect to join, would each have an opportunity to have a seat on “The United Physicians Guild (UPG, the Guild)” Board. As previously stated, this is a “numbers game.” The more physicians that we can involve, the stronger our voice. There are 40,500 physicians in Pennsylvania. Progressively fewer are current members of their County and State Medical Societies. Far fewer still are members of the AMA. If we can reengage a substantial number of our fellow physicians locally, then regionally, then statewide, then our affiliation with the 700,000 affiliated union labor members in Pennsylvania will increase our ability to influence the way medicine is practiced in the future (Coalition).

You mentioned benefits; what benefits attracted you?
A written compendium can be provided. The OPEIU has a specific list of benefits including discounted large group healthcare coverage plans for Guild members and their dependents, which until now, independent practice physicians were not allowed to participate. Additionally, members will be able to access Union Plus benefits which, as you can see, cover a broad range of benefits, including numerous discounted services with national corporations. (hand outs)

Will all CCMS members be members of the Guild?
All Guild members must be members of their local medical society, initially the CCMS. The society, in our case, Chester County Medical Society (CCMS), has a contract affiliation with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU). In that affiliation, we enroll all our members in the Guild and The United Physician Guild becomes a Local of the OPEIU. The Guild members become members of the OPEIU, and they have immediate access to their benefits. The affiliation gives CCMS and the Guild the collective ability to identify and suggest solutions to solve specific high impact problems. Collectively, through our affiliation with organized labor, we can collaborate on instituting larger solutions.

Why now?
“If not now, then when?” The change in practice patterns, with most physicians being “at will employees” of corporate medical industry players, dictates that we change our advocacy, for our patients and our community of dedicated physicians. You have likely heard the term “medical industry” used for over the last two decades. We must realize that medicine is now a true industry. Thus, we must approach medicine as an industry. We are using this affiliation to access OPEIU’s eighty-year history of working within professional industries for our patients’ and our professional colleagues’ benefit.