Physicians who specialize in inpatient medicine are referred to as "Hospitalist".  They may also be referred to as "intensivists".  Although relatively new to the United States, hospitalist have a well established role in the Canadain ,British and the European health systems.

In the United States, the role of a hospitalist has taken on many forms.  The three most common models are the following.  First and the most common type is a group of internist or primary care physicians that alternate their outpatient responsibilities with a week/month rotation as the "Primary Admitting Physician".  The second type is the model is where several hospitalist care for a multispecialty group's admissions .  These hospitalist share their load with rotating physicians from the multispecialty group who still wish to have admitting privileges.  The last model  consist of a group of hospitalist which are either employeyed by a hospital or they contract out to multiple PPO's/HMO's.