Posted on 04/15/2014 5:13:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Nine of 10 doctors discourage others from joining the profession, and 300 physicians commit suicide every year. When did it get this bad?
By the end of this year, it’s estimated that 300 physicians will commit suicide. While depression amongst physicians is not new—a few years back, it was named the second-most suicidal occupation—the level of sheer unhappiness amongst physicians is on the rise.
Simply put, being a doctor has become a miserable and humiliating undertaking. Indeed, many doctors feel that America has declared war on physicians—and both physicians and patients are the losers.
Not surprisingly, many doctors want out. Medical students opt for high-paying specialties so they can retire as quickly as possible. Physician MBA programs—that promise doctors a way into management—are flourishing. The website known as the Drop-Out-Club—which hooks doctors up with jobs at hedge funds and venture capital firms—has a solid following. In fact, physicians are so bummed out that 9 out of 10 doctors would discourage anyone from entering the profession.
It’s hard for anyone outside the profession to understand just how rotten the job has become—and what bad news that is for America’s health care system. Perhaps that’s why author Malcolm Gladwell recently implied that to fix the healthcare crisis, the public needs to understand what it’s like to be a physician. Imagine, for things to get better for patients, they need to empathize with physicians—that’s a tall order in our noxious and decidedly un-empathetic times.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Just off-hand I would say one of the main reasons is doctors are being further and further separated from the actual practice of medicine since they have to deal with mountains of new regulations and paperwork and record-keeping and reporting obligations.
In my region, the rise of “concierge medicine” reduces costs dramatically, often 50% or more. We're starting to investigate it. My son's regular, routine MRIs generally run about $2500 through the insurance company. With a $5K+ deductible, and a 20% co-pay then until we have over $10K out of pocket each year, using the insurance company is no bargain. Add that to the five-figure health insurance premium costs each year, and in a bad year of usage, I'm already spending $25K+ on my family's health.
I've seen published rates for MRIs in the region, on a cash basis, of $500. My wife had surgery early in 2013. Our insurance didn't cover the outpatient clinic where it was performed. The price to the insurance company would have been $15K (and we'd have been expected to pay roughly $3K of that). The cash-basis price (we showed up with a credit card) was $2,900.
For those of us affording our own health insurance, we're already spending tens of thousands of dollars per year. If we purchase a catastrophic, indemnity-type policy, and just divert the money otherwise spent on insurance, deductibles, and co-pays to direct payments of the practitioners, a form of self-insuring becomes very viable for many people, and I know that many doctors and providers are happy to move to this model.
I once read that in order to deal with insurance companies and other third-party payers, a single, actual health care provider requires 2.5 support personnel. There's a lot of bureaucracy in the system that goes away once you move back to a system of direct payment by the patient.
sitetest
Some doctors make it difficult to sympathize with them. Met a couple on FR with an arrogant streak a mile wide,
When I was an orderly, before Primary Care Nursing they had a guard at the door who would call the Head Nurse (the only RN on the floor) and let her know Dr. So and So was coming and she would go to the chart rack and get his charts. She would round with him taking notes and orders and when he was done she would bid him adieu at the elevator. The doctor never touched the charts, they weren’t his, they were the hospitals. I was encouraged by these docs even though I was a B+ to A- student. I enjoyed doing my part to help folks who needed it. I was told, it matters less how smart you are than how hard you are willing to work.
Years later I decided to “go for it”. I have never regretted having done so but the changes along the way have been heart breaking. Here and there I have tried to have conversations with folks but all have either been too busy to really see it or “on the side of the enemy”. In the 80s as a resident in Surgery because of the economics of Primary Care Nursing nurses were paid so much more than we were a couple of us took to crossing out “Doctors Orders” in the chart and writing in “Doctors Suggestions”. I was supporting a wife who was at home raising our two children on $25,000 a year while single nurses 5 years younger than I was were making over twice what we were. As you know, surgical training isn’t just for a couple years.
During Hillary care I actually called G Gordon Liddy and was on the air and tried to tell him some of this but radio is good for “bumper stickers”, not so much for things that require a little deeper thought. While the Progressive Libturds who pulled all this off have been able to plan and maneuver effectively it seems that it has been a one sided war all along as no one on our side seemed to realize what had been happening or even cared. Alan Keyes said, “You can’t win an argument you fail to make” and it would seem that you can’t win a fight with an enemy you fail to engage. Looking back even I have a hard time imagining what we could have done differently but it seems a shame never the less. “Who is responsible” for the mess? Reluctantly I have to admit, the guy in the mirror. Whatever I and the rest of us should have or even could have done was, we clearly didn’t do enough. Now as Churchill said we find ourselves in the position of having to fight when victory is probably beyond our grasp and we have no resources with which to wage a contest.
Obviously, my children have wanted nothing to do with healthcare. I can’t blame them.
The provider is not saving money cutting out the middle man, most of their costs are mandated, even if you pay cash, they still are hiring the same people and complying with the same regulations.
You aren’t even getting a special deal. The prices listed don’t reflect the fact that with fee reductions and discounts, they will only be getting a fraction of the billed amount. If you seem to be getting a deal paying cash it is probably about what the provider would receive from the insurance company.
Same for pharmacists. Healthcare has become a demeaning torture chamber on every level.
Good job, AMA! It’s so great that you went out of your way to help destroy your noble profession by prostituting yourself out to Obama by supporting Obamacare.
I am a glorified data entry clerk. For every minute I spend with the patient, I spend two or three minutes at a computer terminal entering data.
I am currently a Board Cert. in Family Practice and do steroid injections and superficial skin biopsies as my only procedures.
When the upcoming doctor shortage happens Obama and Democrats will lower the standards for becoming a doctor.
In communist countries in the past a 'doctor' could have as little as 2 years of college. That's going to happen here.
With 'medicine the liberal way' there will be set-asides for people unable or unwilling to compete - - we'll have medical schools with no tests (discrimination) and 'doctors' with two year degrees.
Democrat's desire to shield criminals will add a new dimension. A 'doctor' could have a two year degree, not be able to read past a 5th grade level, AND have a criminal record. Think: 'medicine as social experiment/...
Welcome to tomorrow - America as envisioned by Democrats.
All of us who are over 40-45 remember when you filled out one piece of paper in the doctor’s office and then paid a relatively small fee. The only problem - which still exists - is that you had to wait. Waiting times were the only problem. I still blame the malpractice industry for all of this.
You are correct. In addition they will bring their ebony masks garlanded with feathers.
Medicine is an interesting field, I think a huge issue for many is graduating from school with a mountain of debt, and then trying to practice in the current environment.
There are alternatives to satisfying work in the current practice environment -- cosmetic plastic surgery and corrective eye surgery aren't covered by many insurance plans, and there is concierge medicine/direct primary care.
I wouldn't advise anyone with the desire and talent to not go into medicine, I'd just advise doing so with caution and doing so debt-free. I am skeptical of that 9 out of 10 number.
Soon all the “concierge” doctors will be required by their licensing boards to participate in nobamacare...or their licenses to practice will be yanked. Just watch. The government has the docs by the ba**s.
Looking back I would say there was no question I suffered what folks would call PTSD. Like the Korean or WWII Vet we were expected to “suck it up” and never whine, fer damn sure. I honestly don’t recall how many Death Certificates I signed as a Neurosurgery Resident for 6 years. I remember a few details here and there. A 5 year old beaten to death by his father, a 16 year old cheerleader shot in the head, a 65 year old man with a Basilar Aneurysm whom I told the night before that I thought my boss was an exceptional surgeon and he could trust us to do our best to take care of him (we did but...). I also remember watching a junior attending practically murder a nice lady trying to clip a Middle Cerebral Aneurysm. I don’t regret a minute of it and I wouldn’t change a thing, it made me what I am today but it was one hell of a tough row to hoe. I remember thinking “I live in the Valley of the Shadow of Death”. 100 + hour weeks year after year, no time to worry about how your wife and kids were making out at home on what was poverty level pay. Constantly exhausted, malnourished, and abused by the major fraction of faculty that thought abusing us was their job. I know how prisoners of war and victims of concentration camps do it. Like alcoholics, one day at a time.
Yep, we did have the waits, but the doctor and the price was worth it.
Now, what the family doctor used to do is farmed out to specialists. I am not sure if waiting at the family doctor wasn’t better than riding around to different specialists.
The good thing about back then is that doctors were very in tune with their patients and aware of family history.
What fantasy world do you live in?
How many people in America today are going to pay out of pocket to see a doctor?
Almost all of the people in those pictures are wearing white lab coats.
I wonder what it feels like to be a prop?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.