You need to decide what you want from your practice. Do you want to see clinic and have continuity in that sense or are you OK with "in hospital" continuity of caring for a patient only while they're ill? I would agree that the hospitalist phenomenon is located primarily in metro areas now, however things are changing rapidly, and smaller community hospitals are beginning to move to hospitalist systems. This is likely due to a number of reasons: takes the burdon off the clinician to do inpatient work when running busy clinics, and hospitals are pressing the issue to some degree -- improves pt turnover, etc. Not to mention that there have been several studies demonstrating that hospitalists improve pt care and outcome. The "fixed salary" ain't all that bad, either. Look, to make money, especially in primary care, you need to see A LOT of patients (who has time for inpatient work?). In many hospitalist models, you have a set number of hours you work, ie shifts, and your compensation is good. Again, unless you're doing a solo deal, your hospitalist agreement should cover malpractice, or if you're in a large enough group, the group will often pay for or supplement malpractice.
