Posted on 10/13/2010 8:45:37 AM PDT by Qbert
There is a new disease spreading like a cancer in doctors' offices and hospitals throughout the U.S. I have named it Doctor Unavailability Syndrome (DUS). It is characterized by a rising shortage of doctors, both specialists and primary care, as well as the growing inability of the doctors we do have to take care of patient needs.
What good is a shiny new insurance card if there is not a physician available to see you?
This disease can be traced back to 1997, when Congress, anticipating a doctor surplus, included a section in its budget-balancing law that froze the number of Medicare-sponsored residency positions.
But instead of a surplus, a shortage soon developed, and has worsened over the years, now reaching epidemic proportions. The Association of American Medical Colleges Center for Workforce Studies just reported an anticipated shortage of 90,000 doctors of all kinds over the next decade, with half of them being primary care physicians and the other half surgeons and specialists.
The report suggests that Medicare should support at least a "15% increase in GME (Graduate Medical Education) positions, allowing teaching hospitals to prepare another 4,000 physicians a year to meet the needs of 2020 and beyond."
Don't count on this proposed subsidy happening any time soon. Instead, the new health care law, known ironically as the Affordable Care Act, is promoting and extending the kind of low co-pay and low deductible insurance that is easy to overuse, overwhelming doctors further and leading to an upward spiral of health care costs.
The doctors we do have are beleaguered and many are dropping out, increasing overall unavailability. As Obamacare adds 32 million uninsured - including 16 million on Medicaid - to the rolls over the next decade...
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
"I can give you better quality
I can give you lower costs
I can give you greater output
Pick any Two."
Obama promised to give us all three.
In reality, Obama has taken healthcare and increased the cost, lowered the quality, and reduced the carrying capacity.
And it only cost us a $1T or so.
Expect to see more Physicians Assistants as well as Physiciains Assistant Assistants and maybe even their assistants too. All for more money, of course.
My cardiologist said we need to expect a lot of Cuban doctors. We’ve already got too man Pah-Kee-Stahn doctors.
Maybe we’ll just see people in white coats... like Obama’s physician photo op. Who knows where they will be from?
There's a database to track how many lawsuits your doc has faced.
Why can't we give doctors a database of tort lawyers, and they can find ways to deny them care? Wouldn't you like to see a pregnant Gloria Alred-type of shyster have to go squat in a field somewhere because no obstetrician would touch her?
All predicted in this Surgeon made video about Obamacare...
Going Galt: When Will Surgeons Say Enough is Enough
Once again my daughter is dealing with a real gem at the Navy Hospital here in Portsmouth. New doctor that has absolutely no clue. It is very frustrating when you know more about things than your specialist does.
Also to top that, she went to a primary care physician there last year and this lady didn't even know where the thyroid was located. Makes you feel just wonderful about government run medical care.
But on the other hand, I have a wonderful doctor there. you just never know what you are going to get. At least on the outside you can leave and go to another doctor.
A couple months ago I had a procedure done that was billed at $2,300 (doctor and surgical facility). Medicare paid $150 and Blue Cross kicked in $50! Now you explain to me how the doctor and the people at the surgical center are going to stay in business with that kind of reimbursement.
It was embarrassing to me to show up for a follow-up appointment knowing this.
This damn mess must be reversed away from socilized medicine. Until we prove to doctors that we do not want this crap they will be headed for the door!
That’s what we’ve noticed. My wife had a baby last week and we saw the actual MD for about 30 minutes total in 48 hrs; most of that was during the delivery. Everyone else—including the guy who gave the epidural—was a nurse.
When you go to the Dr., you see an assistant and a nurse. Yet, for some reason, the cost of seeing the “Dr.” keeps going up when the qualifications keep going down.
It just proves that medical school is designed as a barrier to entry and is not a necessarily an indication of the amount of education actually required to perform their jobs.
I have a “primary care physician”. I’ve been to his office four or five times now and have never met nor ever even seen the guy.
I have a “primary care physician”. I’ve been to his office four or five times now and have never met nor ever even seen the guy.
There are also "consumer reports" blogs on individual doctors, with about as much accountability as a junior high slam book.
Someday there'll be a "litigious smart-mouthed patient" list for doctors to enjoy, like recording online forever the idiot who threatens to sue, in an attempt to intimidate drugs out of a doc. "Patients who assault." etc.
Our primary care doc sees Medicare patients only on Tuesday now....come January he’ll see NONE. Come 2014 he retires...refuses to practice under CommieCare.
With the GUT of Medicare under CommieCare there won’t be a hospital, nursing home or a doctor that will be willing to loose another 30% of their income, and have to practice under CommieCare rules so old geezers like me can FORGET any health care.
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