Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Jamie [Stockman] with Morgan Keegan.
Jamie Stockman - Morgan Keegan
Off the top of your head, do you know how many physicians you are currently targeting with some sort of a stark exclusion type deal?
Glen E. Tullman
We don’t break it out that way. You know, that said, I think what we are seeing -- and I mentioned three of the larger systems, but in many hospitals you are seeing these physicians being aggregated by large networks in many of our markets. The hospitals have become the aggregators, so we are seeing that trend. At the low end, we are also seeing pressure by some of the pharmacy chains and the like to push the primary care diagnoses, so there is an emphasis to use Stark if you are a hospital; if you are not a hospital, there’s a lot of targeting going on with special offers to bridge the gap until the stimulus dollars arrive. So we feel like we are touching at all levels of the market, the smallest physician groups, mid-sized multi-specialty and the largest networks, that we are touching all of those.
Jamie Stockman - Morgan Keegan
And just a follow-up question on that -- when you do a stark deal like the couple that you have announced today, is there any sort of geographic exclusivity related to those deals where you are involved with that hospital system and you would get involved with another in the same area?
Glen E. Tullman
Well, I think there’s a practical impact. You know, we don’t have geographic exclusivity. That said, when you look at some of the players we are working with, by definition we are going to focus our energy and attention working directly with them to roll out these programs as quickly as possible. Again, to the extent that there’s -- you know, there are multiple providers who are clients of ours, we are happy to work with all of those providers in order to automate all the physicians and I think you will see that in certain areas but our view is we are happy to offer as many choices to physicians as possible and each of these large integrated delivery networks, academic medical centers and the like, are in a rush to build their relationships with physicians, so I think Northshore, some of the other deals we mentioned, are going to have every board of an integrated delivery network and an academic medical center talking about how they create that direct link with their physicians because that’s where the referrals come from -- that’s what we are really seeing happen.
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