it's not either or, there's option 3 "I can't form an opinion over the phone, if your medic thinks this can't wait for standard admittance channels I kindly defer you to the emergency services." and likely others.
This opinion is a major loss for patients. And I also used to "decline" direct admissions based on phone consults, telling outpatient AP/NPs what I thought would be a reasonable course of action and follow-up. Will simply say "sorry" on the phone now and tell them to send the patient to the ED, where the costs are very high. This will simply jack up the cost for everyone else.
Not saying the MD in the news article had a reasonable opinion. But spend a single day with me in our busy hospital, see just how tricky this profession is, and you might be convinced that I need more legal protection, not less.